Puppets

Ninjas, dinosaurs and dragons will invade Disney Hall this weekend. But not to worry --they're only a few inches high. The venue is hosting its first-ever Toy Theatre Festival, celebrating a form of puppetry that involves two-dimensional puppets attached to rods (as opposed to, say, marionettes, which are three-dimensional and controlled by strings). Toy theater was popular in Victorian England, where drama fans could buy kits with paper puppets that had faces sketched to look like the performers in a popular new play.

Christmas present? Re "GOP rejects payroll tax break bills," Dec. 2 Just in time for Christmas, hardworking taxpayers Bob Cratchit and his family (the downtrodden American public) will be wondering what decisions Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner) will be making about their economic futures. It will be interesting to watch how this modern-day "Christmas Carol" plays out. Will lawmakers side with the Cratchit family and Tiny Tim and raise taxes on themselves and banker Henry Potter (Wall Street CEOs)

Peter Baird, the son of legendary puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird and himself a master puppeteer trained from the age of 5, has died. He was 52. Baird died of esophageal cancer Friday at Calvary Hospital in New York City, his wife, Mavis Humes Baird, said Monday. The couple maintained homes in Manhattan and Los Angeles. The younger Baird worked on the children's television show "Shining Time Station" for all 65 episodes from 1990 to 1993, voicing and manipulating Grace the Bass in the show's Juke Box Puppet Band.

Earlier this month, the left-wing magazine the Nation highlighted Joe Therrien as a symbol of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A New York City public school drama teacher, Therrien was frustrated with the shortcomings of the school system. So he quit his job and "set off to the University of Connecticut to get an MFA in his passion — puppetry. " Three years and $35,000 in student loan debt later, Therrien returned home, only to find he couldn't land a full-time job. Apparently, a master's in puppetry doesn't provide the competitive edge in the marketplace he'd hoped for. Therrien joined Occupy Wall Street, constructing giant puppets and "figuring out how to make theater that's going to help open people up to this new cultural consciousness.

Charlyne Yi, who co-wrote, executive produced and starred in the low-budget indie comedy "Paper Heart" (which screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival earlier this summer and will see limited release Aug. 7), came up with an inexpensive way to illustrate the true-life love stories of the interview subjects in her film: She used puppets, which she made herself. "I always enjoyed making puppets as a kid," Yi said. "I put on shows for my family.

The beloved puppet show "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," the creation of puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, had millions of ardent fans, among them Orson Welles, John Steinbeck and James Thurber. The show was also a major influence on future generations of puppeteers, such as Jim Henson. In fact, the Muppets' creator publicly said, "We owe everything to Burr Tillstrom and 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie.' " The classic series is celebrating its 60th anniversary with the release today on DVD of 39 episodes of the show that aired on PBS and in syndication from 1969-71 and the unveiling of a new stamp commemorating the series, which was among the first to appeal to both children and adults.

Warning to all nostalgic "Sesame Street" fans: The puppets in "Stuffed and Unstrung" are not the Muppets. They do hail from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and they do exude childlike charm. An orange-haired girl with spongy purple skin accessorizes her tweed suit with pearls. Another, whose bright yellow nose sticks out 5 inches, wears blue hair tied in pigtails. And a rock-star gorilla sports sunglasses, studded bracelets and hoop earrings. But this cast of 80 puppets doesn't work from a script.

"ONCE there was a set of triplets, identical triplets to be exact. Of course, anyone with a basic understanding of human reproduction will say that is impossible, but these sisters knew otherwise ..." So begins Susan Simpson's short story "The Ditto Sisters," the tale of three siblings who live with the reality that only one sister is an original and the other two are copies.

Los Angeles County's "National Day of Puppetry" celebration will be presented by the Hermosa Arts Foundation and the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Hermosa Beach Community Center, 710 Pier Ave., in Hermosa Beach. The event, hosted by the Last Saturday Puppet Theatre, will include puppet shows, puppet historian Allan Cook's exhibition and a variety of workshops for children and adult puppeteers.

Fifty years ago, the so-called Hiroshima Maidens, a group of young Japanese women gravely disfigured by the atomic bomb, arrived in New York City for reconstructive surgery. Their sociopolitical saga, rending in its historical context and application to current events, contributes mutely but vividly to the psychic and kinetic fallout from "Hiroshima Maiden" at REDCAT.

Kevin Clash wasn't the first puppeteer behind "Sesame Street" character Elmo, but he's the one who gave the shaggy red Muppet a falsetto voice and the personality of a sweet toddler — and thus created a superstar for the preschool set. "Being Elmo" is a documentary as gentle as its subject: the story of a boy who realized his dream and, on the film's evidence, received a lot of encouragement and support along the way. That's not to diminish his...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says Republicans are being “led like puppets by Grover Norquist,” the anti-tax activist and keeper of a pledge that binds nearly all Republican lawmakers to a promise not to raise taxes. Reid made the remark to reporters Tuesday as he complained about Republicans' refusal to raise taxes to pay for the president's jobs bill or to lower the deficit. As the fight over the deficit intensifies, and a deadline for a super committee deal nears, Norquist has increasingly become a punching bag on Capitol Hill.

A curious thing happens when a child meets Kevin Clash. Although he's 6 feet tall and speaks in a gravelly baritone, he all but disappears. "I'm just somebody carrying around their friend," said Clash, 51, who for the last 26 years has been an anonymous superstar as the voice and soul of "Sesame Street's" Elmo. "If the child loves the character, they keep their imagination. " Clash is the subject of "Being Elmo," a documentary opening in Los Angeles on Friday that charts his journey from a bashful Baltimore adolescent sewing puppets out of slippers and coat linings to protégé of Muppets creator Jim Henson, and eventually "Sesame Street's" premier puppeteer.

One of Russia's wealthiest men on Thursday abruptly quit as leader of a party casting itself as a challenger to the Kremlin's stranglehold on politics, suggesting to supporters that a feared power broker had orchestrated a takeover because the party was becoming too independent. The decision several months ago by Mikhail Prokhorov, a businessman who owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team, to try to revive the moribund Right Cause party had been controversial from the start. Prokhorov has decried the lack of alternatives to the governing party.

MUSIC Meat Puppets The proto-grunge trio may be long in the tooth (they formed in Phoenix more than 30 years ago) but they've lost none of their raw, musically diverse power over the years. Their 13th studio album, "Lollipop," was released in April and leaves behind the band's woozy blare for a newfound mellow and catchy tunefulness that steers toward folk and country rock. Detroit Bar, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa. 9 p.m. $15. (949) 642-0600. detroitbar.com. Design for Humanity Surfwear company Billabong hosts the appropriately beachy, hippie ensemble Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros on their last show of the year, to benefit VH1's Save the Music campaign for music education.

The new film "The Beaver" stars Mel Gibson as a mentally ill man who begins to speak through a battered hand puppet that he retrieves from a dumpster in a moment of despair. Although the controversial star made a point to puppeteer the beaver himself, on the set, puppet wrangler Anney McKilligan Ozar was tasked with grooming the creature's fur and even brushing its prominent teeth. "I had to keep his teeth nice and shiny because things wear down," she said. On an average day on the job, McKilligan Ozar said she needs "everything from 18 different sizes of needles to 18 different sizes of drill bits.

Humorist, kitsch collector and "histo-tainer" Charles Phoenix has earned a national following for his sly theatrical tours through other people's slides and home movies from the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Although Natalie Roach manipulates puppets to entertain children, she thinks American adults should see puppet shows and not miss out on "a good entertainment and educational outlet." "In Europe, puppets are mainly used to entertain adults," said Roach, 38, a professional puppeteer and supervisor of children's services at the Yorba Linda Library, "but not in America. When adults go to puppet shows here, they say they are there because they brought the kids."

At a recent preview, the star trotting the stage of Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater had a command that was palpable. The audience seemed to watch his every victory with cries of delight, and shouts of dismay at his peril. Not a bad bit of scene-stealing, especially since the performer in question has no lines and is, in fact, made of leather, wire and cane. Even so, Joey, the life-size horse puppet at the center of the play "War Horse," has the power to eclipse anything — and anybody — on the stage.

MOVIES Attend a screening of "Killer Klowns From Outer Space," a camp classic featuring creepy clown puppets by the Chiodo Brothers, who are masters of special effects puppetry. Their handiwork has spanned decades, from the toothy fur balls in the Critters franchise to the gun-toting, epically vomiting marionettes in "Team America: World Police. " The Chiodo Brothers will host a Q&A after the film. Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A.. 11:50 p.m. Fri., $10. (323)