Pulling strings with Cashore Marionettes on an Ogden stage
The Cashore Marionettes perform March 22 at Ogden High School.
The Cashore Marionettes perform March 22 at Ogden High School.
The Cashore Marionettes perform March 22 at Ogden High School.
OGDEN — Joseph Cashore didn’t realize performing with marionettes would end up as his career in life. But more and more phone calls kept coming, and before he knew it, the marionettes had taken over his life.
“I’ve been interested in marionettes most of my life. I made my first marionette as a child. I think I was 10 or 11. I didn’t get seriously into it until I was 20 or 21,” Cashore said in an email interview. “I remembered the marionette I had made as a child and thought I would try to make a more realistic marionette. So I did.”
As he was playing with the marionette, he said he saw ways of improving it, so he made another one.
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“And the same thing happened. The more I made the marionettes the more involved I got in solving the problems of control,” the Pennsylvania puppeteer said.
On Tuesday, March 22, the Cashore Marionettes will be performing at Ogden High School’s newly restored auditorium. The performance is a free gift to the community from the Ogden School Foundation and is also sponsored by Weber County Recreation, Arts, Museums and Parks (RAMP), Suzanne Lindquist, Weber State University Stewart Library and Ogden High School.
PREVIEW
• WHAT: Cashore Marionettes
• WHEN: 7 p.m. March 22; doors open at 6:30 p.m.
• WHERE: Ogden High School, 2828 Harrison Blvd., Ogden
• ADMISSION: Free
“We have been hosting the Cashore Marionettes for the past six years on a rotating basis to all our elementary schools,” said Janis Vause, Ogden School Foundation spokesperson. “The last two years, we have opened up a performance to the entire community in the beautifully restored Ogden High School auditorium and it has been met with keen interest and delight.”
Vause said the foundation continues to bring the Cashores back because of the high quality performance for students and community that incorporates excellence in the arts and the sciences. She said these marionettes are engineering marvels and will stun the audience with their extraordinary stories and life-like movement.
“The creating of the marionettes is an ambitious feat in and of itself, and during the question and answer time, Mr. Cashore brings one his marionettes out on stage and actually demonstrates how they mechanically work,” Vause said. “He also explains how they are made, including the carving, clothing, painting, and number and purpose of each individual string. It is truly an artistic, scientific and engineering education. He is an artist in the truest sense of the word.”
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The Cashores include timely topics in their short vignette presentations that deal with issues ranging from homelessness, to the carefree feeling of a horse running free after he has escaped from his corral, to the humorous distractions that keep a young school girl from doing her homework.
“These topics create a ‘jumping off place’ for our teachers to then continue the discussion with their students on some of these important current issues,” Vause said. “The presentations also include beautiful classical music which provides a very enriching experience to many of our inner-city students who are not generally exposed to this type of music.”
The marionette show will also be performed to students in several elementary schools in the Ogden School District.
Cashore said he will present a series of short marionette pieces averaging about five to six minutes long. Each piece expresses a different theme, some serious, some humorous.
“I arrange the evening so that it’s like a roller-coaster ride,” he said. “You’re up, you’re down, and there’s always a surprise, something the audience is not expecting. There is a very powerful illusion that the marionettes are alive. People seem to be able to feel the emotions that the characters are going through.”
Cashore said he doesn’t have a favorite marionette. Each of them has its own place in the show and something worthwhile to communicate. In all, Cashore has made more than 150 marionettes.
“We receive excellent feedback. People really like the show. They don’t know what to expect going in, but they end up enjoying it very much,” Cashore said. “We feel very fortunate for this. Our public performance, ’Life in Motion,' is not intended for children per se. It is recommended for adults and young adults. We are also doing in-school shows that are geared more for the children and they like it too.”
People can see some video footage of the show and find out more information on the Cashore Marionettes website.