- December 30, 2024
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Sitting around in a semicircle, children watch as the show unfolds.
There, performing in front of them, is Leslie Carrara-Rudolph and her little friend Lolly — a sock puppet who wears a sparkling blue dress and sports flaming orange hair atop her head.
They are a humorous duo who sing and dance, and make jokes that cause the children in the audience to bust out laughing.
But between the jokes, Carrara-Rudolph and Lolly hit on topics that dive a little deeper than your everyday song and dance routine.
“I found that through puppetry I can deal with issues,” Carrara-Rudolph said. “In a way I can talk to Lolly if Lolly was feeling emotionally scared, and kids relate through puppetry — especially kids at risk … they open up to puppetry and art.”
Carrara-Rudolph and Lolly performed two separate shows on Sunday, March 25, as a part of the World Puppetry Celebration put on by local Maitland nonprofit MicheLee Puppetry.
Held at the Venue on the Lake, kids and parents enjoyed shows put on by Carrara-Rudolph, as well as showcases from other puppeteers from around Central Florida.
While kids and their parents got to enjoy the shows, children in attendance also got to participate in a sock puppet making mini-marathon as they tried to break the record for most sock puppets put together in an hour.
Kids took ordinary socks and transformed them into vibrant and colorful characters using a variety of crafting tools, before turning them in for both a treat and a sense of helping others.
“We have a program called Sock Puppets with a Heart, and we donate the sock puppets to children’s charities,” said Tracey Conner, founder and executive director of MicheLee Puppetry. “So kids that are in foster care, or the hospital, or kids that have been abused — we donate the puppets to those charities.”
The organization, which has been around for more than 30-years, has been active in its charity work, as well as the educational programs that it utilizes at schools and other institutions to teach valuable life lessons. They also touch on topics such as bully-prevention, domestic violence prevention, healthy eating and the promotion of literacy.
Discussing such difficult issues such as sexual assault with older kids can be complex, but Conner and those at MicheLee use a tactic similar to Carrara-Rudolph.
“I think what makes it so powerful… is they’re just so engaging and people connect with them (the puppets),” Conner said. “You can use puppets and masks as metaphor or as comic relief to talk about some of the most critical issues that kids are facing … the most powerful part of it is that they take what they learn and take action.”
The work that MicheLee Puppetry does with children and teens echoes the goals of Carrara-Rudolph, who first started doing puppetry at age 16.
Since those early days of teaching and active participation in theater, Carrara-Rudolph made a career out of using puppetry as a means to help children wherever she was.
“My yellow-brick road journey has always been about following my heart and finding ways to reach kids,” Carrara-Rudolph said. “The worlds came together, and I became a professional puppeteer — my very first job was on Muppets Tonight and that was 22-years ago.”
That job would prove to be the career-changer and led to her current role performing as Abby Cadabby on Sesame Street. The role, which she picked up 11 years ago, has seen Carrara-Rudolph pick up five Emmy nominations.
The successful career that Carrara-Rudolph has had makes sense when you watch her perform her shows — children cackle and get deeply involved, and so do the parents.
And it’s not all seriousness when it comes to the show’s message, because although Carrara-Rudolph wants those children who come and see her to take away messages of love and positivity, there is also the hope that they walk away knowing that they have the power to write their own story.
“They’re their own resource for creativity,” Carrara-Rudolph said. “They don’t need an iPod; they don’t need a source. It doesn’t occur to kids that when I say I’m going to download a bunch of apps — surprise, you already have these — they’re you.
“Every body has a different story,” she said. “Every idea that you come up with, if it comes from your heart, it comes from a place of love, and it’s authentic.”
