By Meranda Stuart, Matrix Theatre

For the third year in a row, Matrix Theatre set up their tent at the Riverdays June 24-26, 2011. Riverdays is a four-day festival that celebrates the environment of Detroit, and most importantly the Detroit River. It is a festival of performances, rides, and games for the whole family. It’s a great way to kick of the summer and start thinking about the water of our city!

Matrix set up our child-sized popup tent in the drizzly early hours of the first day of the Riverdays. Splaying scraps of foam, clear CD cases, nylon fabric, and markers out next to the tent, we explained children that this tent would be a giant bull frog puppet by the end of the day!

Guiding scissors with enduring resolve, children of all ages cut out warts, drew flies, and stuffed the legs of the frog. As the hours passed, CD eyes were designed by the children and added to the frog. The tongue, adorned with hand drawn flies was stitched to the tent. Small fingers tied blue streamers to a giant hula hoop. We showed children how we would later add the hula hoop to the bottom of the tent puppet in order to cover the legs of the person wearing it.

At the end our first day, children who attended the Matrix Puppetry Department’s booth had transformed a popup tent into a giant bullfrog puppet!

For the second and third day of our time at Riverdays, the Puppetry Department at Matrix Theatre had a different project at our booth. With scraps of fabric, mod podge and sponge brushes kids would design a marshland backdrop. Children streamed into our booth, intrigued by the large blank canvas of white fabric spread out across two tables. Dipping sponge brushes into the mod podge, children deliberately placed their chosen fabric scraps against the white fabric. Securing the different colored fabric scraps with Mod Podge, slowly a marshland scene emerged. Jagged brown pieces became trunks of trees, blue scraps served as the sky and water. Cat tails poked from green grass.

At the end of the weekend our bullfrog and marshland back drop were complete. Although both completed projects were impressive, what was most impressive was the teamwork displayed by all the children who frequented our booth. While completing the tent puppet and backdrop, children of varying ages and cultural backgrounds laughed together and engaged in short dialogue. Every piece of our marshland backdrop, every part of our bullfrog represents children coming together to create.

Our bullfrog puppet and marshland backdrop will be seen in upcoming festivals as well as at our festival on August 20th from 11:00am to 3:00pm at Matrix Theatre. The child creators of the puppet and backdrop will be empowered with a sense of ownership when they see their art out in the community. Hopefully, the resounding thought of all who contributed won’t be limited to “I made that.” Hopefully the children who participated will marvel at, “Wow, we made that.”