Episode: Mary Robinette Kowal

This interview was recorded in November 2025. I didn’t include every instance of laughter, so please feel free to imagine us laughing whenever you find yourself chuckling, too. Also, whenever you read longer chunks of speech from Mary Robinette, please imagine me listening raptly and nodding earnestly.

Show notes are included after this transcript. (If you somehow stumbled across this post without knowing about the podcast episode, hi! Here’s a handy link to find the interview on the web.) 

TRANSCRIPT:

[jazzy jumpin’ music]

Sandra Wong: Hello and welcome to We Contain Multitudes, the casual interview show with famous and accomplished guests who share the geek-outs, hobbies, and interests which they might not necessarily be famous for. I am your host, Sandra Wong, and today I have the thrill of being joined by Mary Robinette Kowal. Hi, Mary Robinette.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Hello, Sandra. It’s good to see you again.

SW: It is. It’s so lovely to see you. Thank you again so, so much for agreeing to this, I don’t know, strange little scheme of mine to bring joy to the world.

MRK: I think this is a scheme we need more of right now honestly.

SW: Yes! Hooray. So, friends of the podcast, I write up little bios for my guests, and they do not know that I do this because I haven’t told them I’m doing it. 

MRK: Oh boy. [laughing]

SW: I do not ask them for any material. I just write something up. So this may be new to my guest too. So here we go. Mary Robinette Kowal can do it all. I was tempted to leave it at that because, my gosh, it’s true. But, I am a writer and I like words, so we are going to continue. Okay. Think of a lit award for science fiction or fantasy written in English, and Mary Robinette has won it. Think of a popular genre of writing, and she’s written it. Think of a question about the craft of writing, and you can bet she’s already addressed it as a mentor or instructor. In addition to being a creative force of nature in writing, Mary Robinette is also a professional voice actor, which is why you can hear the beautiful, smooth, mellow, dulcet tones—[MRK laughs] There she goes—and she’s also a puppeteer. Okay, and when I invited Mary Robinette to the show, she replied with six options for fun hobbies to talk about. So when I say she could do it all, I really, honestly mean it. And I’m so, so honored and thrilled that you agreed to, to let me chat you up.

MRK: I’m… Like, the thing is that, the nice thing about this format is that you have offered me an opportunity to talk about something that I deeply love

SW: Yay!

MRK: and that I don’t get to talk about often enough.

SW: I love it. Well, I have to admit I am cheating a little bit because, of the six, I immediately knew exactly which one I wanted to talk about. And it’s not really like a hobby in that you are a professional. So why don’t you tell everybody what it is you’re going to geek out with us about today?

MRK: Okay. So I put down puppetry and the reason that I said puppetry as a hobby—because you’re correct, I am a professional—is that I have not performed for money since before the pandemic. 

SW: Okay.

MRK: So, so at this point, I’m like… Like, if someone offered me money, I would do it in a heartbeat

SW: Yes

MRK: to be very clear.

SW: Who’s, who’s out there, who needs a professional puppeteer? Hello?

MRK: I know, here I am. But, to continue your theme, apparently, of, I do it all, there’s a bunch of different styles of puppetry, and I’m trained in, in a bunch of them. 

SW: Okay.

MRK: So I began doing puppetry…last century, when [Sandra laughs]—Painful to say, but true. And that was, that was the day job for about 20 years.

SW: Oh, wow. 20 years. Wow.

MRK: Yeah. Yeah, there’s… Five of those, I was going over into writing. So, somewhere in that range.

SW: You mean like, like writing for puppetry? Writing for puppet shows.

MRK: No, no. Like writing, starting to write fiction. 

SW: Okay.

MRK: So, I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything. And apparently never grew out of it. So I had done puppetry in high school, and then when I was in college, we were doing Little Shop of Horrors, and I was the giant man-eating plant.

SW: Yes.

MRK: And my plan had been that I was an art major with a minor in theater and speech, and I thought that I was going to be an art teacher in some small town and also run the theater department. But a professional puppeteer came to see the show, and I was like, Wait, this, this is a job?! People give you money to do this??and basically changed career choices on the spot.

SW: Wow. Yeah. Well, okay

MRK: That was… That was, that was that.

SW: Yeah. Like, I mean, life changing. Life changing. 

MRK: Yeah.

SW: So I just want to back up a little bit. What is it about puppetry that, like, calls to you?

MRK: It’s I think, honestly, the same thing that pulls me to writing science fiction and fantasy, which is that it’s, it’s the theater of the possible. And what’s interesting about this is that the things that we do in puppetry, the things we do in science fiction and fantasy, are things that are not possible in the real world, but in these forms they are possible. And so you get to live in this other place and experience these other things. Like as an actor, I’m limited to a 5’7” white female of a certain age.

SW: Okay.

MRK: And as a puppeteer, I can be a man-eating plant. I can be a badger in a teakettle. I can be a goblin. I can be anything. And that’s very appealing.

SW: I love that. So for anyone out there, you get bonus points if you remember the giant man-eating plant’s name, which I believe is Audrey..?

MRK: Two. Audrey II.

SW: Yes. Oh, I got it half right. Half right. Okay. So that is, I have no idea what the terms are, but that’s clearly like, you’re embodied within a costume.

MRK: That’s, that’s pretty close, actually, to the right term. It’s called a body puppet.

SW: Okay.

MRK: And so interestingly, the difference between a body puppet and a costume is, is a question of displacement. 

SW: Okay

MRK: So a costume, your head, your arms, your legs, all of it lines up perfectly with the characters. 

SW: Right.

MRK: But in a puppet, they don’t line up. If you think about Big Bird

SW: Yeah

MRK: the puppeteer’s right arm is raised and in Big Bird’s head. So there’s a displacement there. In Audrey II, there’s no commonality in the way our body parts line up

SW: [laughing] Uh, yeah

MRK: at all.

SW: Okay. Well, tell us. I mean, tell us what…where…what goes where inside Audrey II.

MRK: So Audrey II is actually four different puppets… 

SW: Mmm

MRK: Well, I’ll get into. So the first one is a hand puppet. Just like if you picture a Muppet, it’s a, if you just stick your hand in it, you move it like that. And for that, the puppeteer is concealed, in a table or a cabinet or something like that. Then, the second of the Audrey II puppets, Seymour carries, for a song. And, and he, it’s also a hand puppet. It’s just a little bit bigger. But Seymour has a fake arm that is attached to the, to the, the pot that he’s carrying

SW: Okay

MRK: so it looks like the puppet is moving by itself, and it’s actually really challenging because the puppet, the puppeteer, the actor Seymour has to perform two characters simultaneously.

SW: Right. Wow.

MRK: Yeah. So that’s

SW: I hadn’t known that.

MRK: Yeah, so that’s, it’s really challenging. The third one is the first of the body puppets, and this is the puppet that sings “Feed Me.” It’s the puppet that… So up to that carries you through the end of Act One. For that one, the puppeteer is seated in a bucket seat in a flower pot, and you’re actually seat-belted into it, because you can, you can fling yourself out of it by accident. And it’s got roots that come out that are actually your legs. And then your legs have extensions on them, off the feet, to make them even even longer. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And then, your upper body…is kind of, part of it is in the trunk, but most of your upper body is actually in the upper half of the jaw, with your left arm—well, when I perform it.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And then your lower jaw is where the right arm is. So if you think about

SW: Yeah

MRK: think about forming a fist. 

SW: Yep

MRK: And then bringing your fists apart to to represent the mouth opening and closing. That’s what I’m doing. And then there’s a point where the puppet licks its lips. So you release the lower jaw with your right hand, and then you’ve got your right arm in a long, furry tongue…glove.

SW: Yep.

MRK: And so you’re kind of working the lower jaw a little bit with your knee, a little bit with the movement of your, your right arm, but you reach out and you lick your lips. So that, that’s one. One of the challenges with that one—with all of the, the Audrey II puppets, actually—is that you are on stage from the moments the light, the lights come up on that scene and you cannot move.

SW: Yeah. Oh, when you’re not moving, you cannot move. Right.

MRK: So when you start performing, you have sometimes been sitting there for 20 minutes and your body is cold and stiff.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: So then we get to the fourth of the Audrey II puppets, which is on stage for the entirety of the second act. And that puppet weighs between 80 to 125 pounds. 

SW: Uh—

MRK: Yeah. No, that’s right. Those, those…those numbers are correct.

SW: 80 to125. Eighty to a hundred and twenty-five pounds.

MRK: Pounds. Yeah. 

SW: Oh, wow. 

MRK: So the first song you sing with it, it will sit by itself in an upright position. So you’re just inside it. It’s, it’s made of…the, the 80 pound version is made of foam. The 125 is…fiberglass.

SW: Huh. Fibreglass.

MRK: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the one that they have on Broadway now, which has hydraulics. I think that one, that one is pushing a ton. But you aren’t, you aren’t supporting that weight. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: You have hydraulics and other things. 

SW: Right.

MRK: You still have to deal with the mass of it, though. Anyway, so

SW: Wow.

MRK: You, you sit there, the whole scenes happen. “Suddenly, Seymour,” all of that stuff. And then. And then you rock the puppet down. And you stand in this hole that is a little, I don’t know, two or three…3ft. The puppet itself is about 7 to 8ft. long, four feet tall. When it’s, when it’s rocked down, like, snout to, snout to base is about eight feet. And so you rock it down and you have a strap on the lower jaw. So you’re holding that. And that controls, kind of your, your pitch. So how far up and down you’re going. And it takes most of the weight. And then there’s a crossbar in the upper jaw. So you’re again mostly in the upper jaw. And there’s a crossbar in the upper jaw that opens and closes the upper jaw. And so you, you’re using the two of those. And one of the challenging things is because there is so much mass, you have to anticipate the voice. And the voice is live. It’s a, it’s a live performer. You’re not working to a pre-recording. So the two of you have to be like really in sync and, and in the music, it’s okay because it’s, you’ve got, you’ve got a rhythm to, to drive you. But in the spoken stuff, it’s, it’s really, you have to learn how to cue, take cues. So you also learn to do this thing. It’s a rebound where you close the upper jaw very hard so that it will bounce off the lower jaw in order to get the rapidity of…that you need for, for speaking. In the movie, they’re using a different style. It’s a cable controlled thing. So it’s all mechanically operated with, like, these giant levers and cables and multiple puppeteers below the set floor.

SW: Right.

MRK: But it was so complicated that when they filmed it, they had to film it at half speed. So Rick Moranis

SW: Yes

MRK: is acting at half speed any time he is…when he’s singing any of the songs. 

SW: Ohhhhh. Wow.

MRK: Yeah. And actually, I think, even when he’s speaking with the plant, I think the whole thing, he’s acting at half speed. It’s a really, really impressive performance.

SW: That is! I have seen that movie.

MRK: Like, he’s already good.

SW: Yeah

MRK: Yeah. Watch it again and 

SW: Wow.

MRK: you’ll spot a couple of times when hair or, a piece of fabric moves too fast.

SW: [laughing with delight] Okay. I… Okay. Yes. I am so fascinated. So, one thing that you said—there’s so many things. My mind, my my synapses are, like, lit up trying to imagine. So one of the things you said was you have to be so in tune with the…the performers and who’s singing and doing the lines for you. But that’s all just, aural, right?

MRK: Correct.

SW: Audio cues. Because you’re inside, you cannot see. Or, what do you see? Maybe I should ask that.

MRK: You, you really cannot see. You get glimpses out the mouth when you open and close. You have a sense of…you can usually get a little bit of a sense of where the stage lights are, but Seymour really has to be on his blocking. 

SW: Right.

MRK: We have had some mishaps where Seymour was not on his blocking. And I’m just like [pregnant pause] So, you know, you again, you work with the Seymours, you know? You ask them to to walk a little bit more heavily than they probably would

SW: Right.

MRK: normally so that you can track them. And then with the voice, one of the things…There are several principles of puppetry that, that make a puppet look alive, and one of them is something called breath. Breath or rhythm, they’re very closely related. And breath conveys emotion. So we typically don’t notice something, someone breathing unless it means something. Like if someone walks into a room and they’re breathing very rapidly, the speed of their breath, the rhythm of it tells you that they’ve probably been running. 

SW: Right.

MRK: The…the gasp of of shock, that inhalation of breath that your mom does right before she yells at you.

SW: [chuckling] I don’t know that one.

MRK: No, no, none of us do. One of the things that’s so hard about Zoom communication is that you often cannot see the person’s torso, plus the lag. So you are not getting the cues of, I’m about to speak.

SW: Right.

MRK: So because of that, that’s one of the reasons that there’s the awkward cutting-off happens. But all of those things can also be used for cueing. So one of the things that I ask my voices to do when they are about to speak into silence…is to do an audible inhalation. 

SW: Huh.

MRK: And so I will then move the puppet in time with that inhalation, which then also makes the puppet look more alive

SW: Right.

MRK: because it looks like it has just inhaled to speak. And then we’re able to, to go from there. Usually, when someone’s speaking, there’s a, there’s a fairly predictable rhythm to the way they’re speaking. There’s an exercise that, that you’ll do if you’re, if you’re doing any sort of moving mouth puppet. Or that you can do, I guess. Not everyone does it. But it’s to listen to a station, a radio station, talk, and lip sync along with it. And one of the skills that you learn is, is to predict that, that…pace. I was talking with, at one point, with Jane Henson, who was Jim Henson’s widow and also a really brilliant puppeteer in her own right. And she said that one of… If you really want to hone that, is to do that to a foreign language station, so that you’re only getting cues from the rhythm and not from the words themselves.

SW: Wow. That’s

MRK: It’s really, it’s

SW: That sounds, like, beyond advanced.

MRK: Yeah. It’s not, it’s not a beginner thing, but it’s also, I mean, it’s a, it’s a thing that a beginner can do as a, as a way to learn it.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: Like the first thing to do is just start with songs, just lip sync along with songs. And here I will just say, since no one can see any of the things that I’m doing with my hand, that if you are doing Muppet-style lip sync, that you should try to move only your thumb. Because when you move your fingers up and down, it’s called head flipping. You are literally flipping the top of the head back, and it’s like, someone looking at the ceiling with every syllable that they say. It’s ridiculous, no one does it.

SW: I do that to make fun. So when I’m pretending to be a Muppet, I will do that.

MRK: Yeah. Yeah, Guy Smiley does it.

SW: Yeah, it looks ridiculous. 

MRK: It does.

SW: So. Okay. So. Oh my gosh, I, I am fascinated. So you had mentioned that you are trained in different styles of puppetry. So we’ve just talked about one. Or, have we talked about more than one?

MRK: Really just one, just body puppets.

SW: Okay.

MRK: We, we’ve mentioned mouth puppets. 

SW: Okay.

MRK: So if you think about the types of puppets like genres of fiction.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And so actually, if you think about theater as…as fiction, puppetry is the genre of fiction—we’re the redheaded stepchild, we’re the science fiction and the fantasy.

SW: [laughing]

MRK: Like. So then, within that you have five basic types that then get combined. You have body, hand—and these are all described by the method by which they are controlled, for the most part

SW: Right.

MRK: So body, hand, string—so like, marionettes—rod—these are puppets, they’re controlled by sticks—and then, shadow or screen.

SW: Okay.

MRK: So then, you also have things that where you combine two of these styles, like a genre mashup. Kermit the Frog is a good example of this. He’s a moving mouth—his mouth moves—hand—because the puppeteer’s hand is in his head—and rod puppet—he’s got rods coming off of his arms.

SW: Right.

MRK: So you get a lot of mashups like that. Big Bird, technically—like, no one gets this technical—but technically, Big Bird is a body puppet. A body string puppet.

SW: Uh-huh.

MRK: Because his right hand, there is an invisible string that goes from there up to Big Bird’s, right below his chin, and then back down to the left hand. So you can get some movement from that. It’s called sympathetic stringing. 

SW: Yep, yep.

MRK: And so, so you get, you get hybrids like this. 

SW: Oh!

MRK: So I’m, I’m trained in all, all of those styles.

SW: Wow. So then what does training entail? How many years is training?

MRK: Yeah. So, it’s… Puppetry is definitely one of those things that you can go to college for. University of Connecticut, has, I think you can get a Masters and even a PhD there

SW: Oh, wow. 

MRK: in addition to your undergraduate work. But most—the vast majority of people learn by doing. By interning, apprenticing. You can learn the basics, actually pretty fast. But this is like saying…I can teach you to play the recorder in an afternoon.

SW: Right. [chuckling]

MRK: You know?. Like, there’s… Getting to nuance takes a lot of practice. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And the different styles of puppetry, some of them are easier than others. Like, a glove puppet like you see on Mister Rogers. Glove puppets, those are like the recorder. That’s, that’s a good thing that someone can pick up that has no musical experience. You can, you can immediately…be accessible with it, but doing like really top-tier stuff with it? There’s a performer, you can, I think you can see his stuff online. “Yung Fang”? or any of the Taiwanese hand puppeteers. These are people that are doing things with glove puppets that are… Like, I don’t understand how they’re doing it, but they’ve started training when they were, like, five years old. Imagine, imagine watching a puppet and you’ve seen, like, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with those, those great fights? So imagine that fight

SW: Yeah.

MRK: with puppets. But the puppets are actually hitting all of those moves. And then the puppeteer flips the puppet into the air so it does a somersault and catches it without you ever seeing their hand.

SW: Oh my lord.

MRK: Like, they can, they can draw swords. They can release swords. They can like, change clothes. It is wild stuff. 

SW: Ohhhh wow

MRK: And so that is like a professional recorder player.

SW: Yes.

MRK: Like, someone who’s spent years and like, is doing, like, interesting medieval work and 

SW: Yeah

MRK: you know, that’s that kind of thing.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: So then you’ve got your marionettes and marionettes would be more like picking up a violin. It’s like, you pick up a violin, you haven’t been trained on it. It sounds like garbage. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: Like, it’s

SW: I’ve been there.

MRK: Uh-huh. Yeah, I, I played violin for, like, 17 years. But my parents did these recordings when I was starting up. And you’ve got this recording of me saying, you know, like five-year-old me saying [little girl voice] “My name is Mary Robinette. I’m gonna play Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.” And then it’s like, ter-rible. And it was like, after my first lesson

SW: Right [still laughing]

MRK: and then they’ve got a year later. So I’m six now, and I’m like, I’m going to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars. And it is just as bad. And I’m like, wha—? My parents kept encouraging me to practice and they had to listen to this. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: So that’s a marionette, right? 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: It’s got multiple strings. You, you have to pay really close attention to a lot of things. And so it’s much harder to, to get…to get into it.

SW: Right.

MRK: But you can get nuance with any style of puppetry. You can get this nuance, this, this artistry. It’s just, it’s just where the difficulty level hits.

SW: Yeah. Well, it’s—as you say, you can learn to do something, and then there’s learning to do it well.

MRK: Mm-hmm.

SW: Right?

MRK: Yeah. 

SW: Which, yeah, requires a lot of practice. Anyone can write a sentence

MRK: Exactly

SW: but you have to practice to write a novel.

MRK: Yeah.

SW: [laughing] Just puttin’ that out there.

MRK: Yes. No. But I think it’s exactly right. I think that’s one of the reasons that people think that they can… But with writing in particular, they’re like, Oh, someday I’m going to write a novel or Oh, you write. How cute.It’s because they, they can write a sentence. 

SW: Yes.

MRK: And they haven’t tried it and they don’t understand it. Like, as soon as they actually start trying and hit the point of, oh, there’s nuance! Like, okay, all right. Yeah. And so, like, with puppets, a lot of times you do—The reason that we get looked down on is that everybody’s played with a puppet at home

SW: Right.

MRK: and so they think, how hard can it be. But they’ve never tried to do, you know, actually deliver a performance. They’ve never tried to really act with it.

SW: Yeah. Well and then you’re, I mean, it’s so complicated. I just love all of this insider information. Like, literally inside. [laughing]

MRK: Yes. So I mentioned, I mentioned a Seymour that had not been in the right place.

SW: Yes. Okay, let’s… Before you do that, we should explain. In case people don’t know what blocking is.

MRK: Oh, yes. 

SW: Right?

MRK: Right. Blocking is a term in theater, which means, this is where you’re supposed to stand… It’s like choreography, but for actors.

SW: Right.

MRK: So Seymour was supposed to… Because of, in this particular scene—I promise this is related, directly related. But in this particular scene, the way the puppet was set, he was supposed to be standing stage left because standing stage right put me in an awkward position. And it was harder to perform. And we were in rehearsal and, and he, he didn’t go to stage left, he stayed on my right side and it was hard. And after a little bit I’m like, you know what? He’s in the wrong place. This is a rehearsal. I’m just going to stick with the blocking that we, we have set. And I had warned him that I could not see and that he had to be very careful not to be straddling the legs of the puppet, the roots of the puppet.

SW: Right.

MRK: And he’s in the wrong spot, and he’s straddling one of the legs, and it’s got this really, like…into my toe and then another four feet

SW: Oh, yeah. Wow.

MRK: of root. And I, like, we’re at the point in the show where I am just supposed to flail wildly and he’s straddling that—and he went down. [Sandra laughing hard] And he was an, he was an, he was an asshole to begin with. 

SW: Clearly!

MRK: Normally, Seymour’s are lovely lovely people. But, you know, I’m like, I’m so sorry. And he’s like, You’ve got to be more careful. I’m like, You have to remember your blocking. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And he said, You don’t understand. I have to sing and dance and act all at the same time. And you’re just in a puppet. And I’m just like, it’s a musical. Everyone has to sing and dance and act at the same time. And I have to do that while in a puppet. 

SW: Wow

MRK: I have to do that—and that was one of the shows where the puppet was 125 pounds. I was just like

SW: Ugh

MRK: I was like, I was so done with him. The, the director…I will never love someone quite so much as I did in this moment. I went outside to cool off because I was

SW: Uh-huh

MRK: furious at this point. And the director comes out. Like, I’ve been walking in circles. Like, I’m going to have to go in and apologize because he’s not going to, and we have to move past this. And the director comes out and says, I just want you to know that I talked to him. And I explained to him that he is replaceable and that you are not.

[big laughs from both]

MRK: I was like, I love you so much. Because he recognized that I had a specialized skill set.

SW: Yeah. Wow. Aww, we love stories like that.

MRK: [laughs] I was just like, [mimicking that Seymour] I have to sing and dance and act all at the same time. I’m like, musical, musical theater. Did you not know what you signed up for? Like, literally everyone in the cast.

SW: Wow. Oh, I’m so glad you were vindicated. As you, as you should have been. [more laughs] Wow. So, you know, I’m still hoping this is a joyful question. Like, what’s the state of puppetry these days? Are there touring companies? Are they…You know, I’m guessing that, as with every art that involved live shows, touring, having Covid hit was a massive—you know, there’s a massive impact to that. So how has puppetry…has it recovered?

MRK: So this is a, it’s a really good question. I’m happy to say that the state of puppetry is, is actually quite good. There’s wonderful shows…all over the place.

SW: Hooray

MRK: For, for people in the United States, you can look for Puppeteers of America. And then when you go to their website, I think it’s puppeteers dot o-r-g. When you go to their website, there are guilds, and each guild will list the performances that are happening in your local area. And Canada, and the rest of the world, you can look for Unima and then usually your country name attached to it. We also have Unima USA. Unima is an acronym that stands for Union Internationale de la Marionette. Which is the oldest continually operating performing arts organization in the world.

SW: Wow.

MRK: And there are chapters in most of the countries around the planet. Unima Canada’s very strong…Unima Germany or Unima Deutschland… So, there’s a bunch of different ones. And similarly, if you go to that website, that will tell you where local live shows are. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: Live performances are different than television puppetry, than film and television. There, it’s also quite good. We’re seeing, I think, a wonderful resurgence of puppetry. There was a point where CGI was happening and people got very excited about CG puppet—CGI puppetry, and then… Honestly, I think CGI Yoda happened and everyone was like, oh no, actually, this is bad. [Sandra laughs] We should go back to practical puppets.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: Let’s not. And which is what I’m hoping will happen with “AI.” 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: You know, that people will be like, oh, no, this is bad. This is basically a Casio keyboard, isn’t it? [more laughter from Sandra] So, so you’re seeing puppets, like, on Broadway. Life of Pi has a wonderful—wonderful puppetry in that. Yeah. The War Horse. Phenomenal puppetry, if you see a touring production of that anywhere. Life of Pi and War Horse are both on tour. And then, and then there’s also, you know, smaller companies, regional companies that do touring. A lot of puppetry, people tend to think of puppetry for, as for kids—which is another thing it has in common with science fiction and fantasy. It’s like, no, we, we write for grown ups. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: But when you say, I do adult puppetry, people get very a different picture in their minds…

[both laugh]

SW: Please…please don’t Google that, friends.

MRK: No. There is, there is that also. There’s some great, like, really, really wonderful puppet burlesque out there.

SW: Oh, wow.

MRK: Yeah. Oh. It’s great. So good. But if you want to see stuff for grown ups, one of the things you can look for is something called a puppet slam, which is like a poetry slam.

SW: Mm-hmm? Neat!

MRK: And they, again, happen all over the place and it’s like a bunch of…it’s, it’s like a…little samplers, little tiny shows, often very irreverent. But one of the side effects of the pandemic and this is, a large part, a part of, I should say… Part of the reason I haven’t performed since before pandemic, is that during pandemic, everybody bubbled because you have to be really close to each other to do puppetry

SW: Right, right 

MRK: Particularly film and television.

SW: Right.

MRK: On stage, it might actually be possible to get some distancing. But not for film and television. You’ve got to be right up on top of each other. If you think about, a puppet like Ernie or Cookie Monster, that’s… Those are two puppeteers. Like, I’ve performed that style. It’s called, live hand. So that means they have live hands,

SW: Yeah.

MRK: humans hands in them. And basically, my face is shoved into the other person’s armpit.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: Also, yeah—personal hygiene. Very important in this particular field. So, so basically everybody bubbled and, and then when they came back, when things started opening up, people tended to still work with the bubbles that they had been working with, in part because they had built a lot of trust and built rhythm and had developed that sync and teamwork, and in part, probably because there’s still the, you know, that latent fear.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And then while all of that was going on, I also moved…twice. And I’m like, Chattanooga actually has some, has a good puppet theater. But I moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is not a hotbed of film and television puppetry, so

SW: Right

MRK: So I was just no longer in the region where the film and television stuff had happened.

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And the writing side of my life had taken off to an extent that it was hard to justify the time it would take to go do stage. 

SW: Right

MRK: Because—they don’t get paid a lot of money. [laughs ruefully] A lotta work.

SW: Yeah. Which is, you know, that’s not how it should be. In a perfect world, artists should be paid well because it’s hard work.

MRK: Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, when you go to Europe…Germany, France. Scotland, England, a lot of these other places have puppet theater that’s state supported. 

SW: Right, yeah

MRK: And it’s phenomenal. You know, just really, really beautiful. If anyone has a trip to Prague, go to the Prague, the marionette theater of Prague and thank me later, send me a postcard. Oh my God, puppets doing opera. It’s amazing.

SW: Oh, wow. 

MRK: Yeah.

SW: That’s amazing. That sounds amazing.

MRK: Like, Mozart wrote opera for puppets. That was a whole thing.

SW: Oh, my. I have to look that up. Yeah, I’m…I’m gonna look that up. I’ll put it in the show notes. I’m going to look up the—Did you say Taiwanese? The hand puppets?

MRK: Yeah. Taiwanese hand puppets.

SW: Yeah, I’m going to look that up, put It in the show notes. I am also going to look up a little clip of CGI Yoda. So you people can see what we mean 

MRK: Oh my goodness

SW: when we say people said, never mind. Okay. So thank you so much for sharing that. I wish we could go on and on and on, but I did promise there would be an end to this interview for you. And I know that you are, you have a very busy schedule…but, like

MRK: I did tell you that you were inviting me to talk about something that I was extremely passionate about.

SW: I’m so excited because I, I just think that. So. Probably I, like many children of my generation, which is Gen X, I fell in love with the puppets in The Sound of Music.

MRK: Oh, yeah. Here’s the

SW: That was amazing.

MRK: Right. Here’s, here’s the amazing, amazing thing about this. So those were built by Bill Baird. B-i-l. He didn’t…he said the second “l” wasn’t pronounced, so he didn’t use it anymore. And Bil Baird was the Jim Henson of his day. He did marionettes. You can look for his Peter and the Wolf. I know that it’s on YouTube.

SW: Oh, I’ve seen that. 

MRK: And it was. It’s. Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. Amazing thing. But, so he built these puppets for the, for The Sound of Music. He taught, he taught Julie Andrews and all of the kids to do the whole show so that they could do shots of them performing. 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: All of the shots where you only see the puppets, that is Bil and his team. 

SW: Yes.

MRK: But any of the shots where they are performing, they are doing all of the correct blocking for the show.

SW: Wow.

MRK: It’s really cool. 

SW: That is so cool.

MRK: If I ever get a chance to talk to Julie Andrews, that is the thing I want to talk to her about.

SW: Yes. Okay. [laughs] Anyone out there who can make that happen, please get on it. 

MRK: Yes.

SW: And in the meantime. In the meantime, we’re going to start wrapping up. Is there anything, like, if you want to—I know that you would. For anyone out there who’s listening, who’s thinking, oh, maybe I would like to try. Do they just go to those same guild websites that you mentioned already and look for maybe classes? Is that, do they post them?

MRK: Yeah. So you can look for classes. A lot of places do have, have classes, but these days you can actually… There are people who are teaching puppetry online now. And so you can find pre-recorded things on YouTube. There’s a number of different companies, that, that teach different classes. My brain has just blanked on the names of…of any of the ones that I am confident do classes or have, may have classes coming up. But I know that you can can find them. If…I may, I may just email you afterwards.

SW: Yes. I was just going to say. I was going to say yeah, if you, if you think of them, just send them to me and I’ll get them in the, in the show notes, before the show goes live. But yeah. Because I mean, who knows, like anyone who’s listening now may be inspired to try it out or, or think of someone who might be inspired to check it out and, and I think that’s… That would be a whole other generation, a whole ’nother generation of bringing joy to people. Because I think performance art is amazing and it’s, you know, joy giving, joy bringing. So, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I have just, like, I cannot wait to go back and watch Rick Moranis on film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s going to be so cool.

MRK: Can I give one more thing that I want people to watch?

SW: Absolutely. Please do.

MRK: Jim Henson, I think he was filming this in the 1980s or 90s. Jim Henson, the—that would have in the 80s, actually—Jim Henson’s World of Puppetry, I believe is what it’s called. And he went around the world to different master puppeteers and talked to them about their art. And so—and filmed, filmed what they were doing. So it’s a chance to see, like, really high-caliber puppetry that is designed for adults, for—It’s not all serious. Like, like, some of it’s quite funny, but that is, it’s literally world-class puppetry.

SW: Yeah. Fantastic. I’m going to check that out too, and I will definitely look it up and link to it. Okay. We’re just going to move into our Small Joys question, which is: What do you do or have when you need a little pick-me-up, to lift your spirits? What do you do? Where do you go to?

MRK: Outside. [laughs]

SW: Yeah.

MRK: I, I really love gardening, which was one of the other things on the list. And so in the summer, I try to garden, and I just got something. A friend of mine had it. I pooh-poohed it when I saw it, but I just got it, and it’s giving me so much joy. It’s called, it’s called a Click and Grow Garden. It’s, it’s basically a little indoor hydroponic situation.

SW: Okay.

MRK: And, and I got it because I’m in Denver and natural daylight…we’re… It’s starting to get thin, right? 

SW: Yeah.

MRK: And parts of our apartment don’t have windows because it’s a basement. So I got this to put in one of the windowless areas. And…just, like, seeing a tomato plant be a little bit bigger than it was yesterday? It’s just so comforting. And the smell, the spicy smell of the leaves, like, I don’t even have tomatoes yet. It just gives me so much tiny joy.

SW: Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, growing things. 

MRK: Mm-hm.

SW: Mm. That’s lovely. Thank you so much for sharing that. We are going to end now with my world-famous Speed Round. So this is where I give you a choice of two options to choose between at a time. You just answer off the top of your head.

MRK: Okay.

SW: Anything. There’s no judgments, okay. There’s no right or wrong, so just, just be silly. And whatever comes to mind, it doesn’t even have to be—anyway, whatever comes to mind. Here we go. Popcorn or potato chips?

MRK: Popcorn.

SW: Mm-hm. Jelly beans or jujubes?

MRK: Jelly beans.

SW: Sweet or savoury.

MRK: Oh. Savory.

SW: Okay. Night owl or early bird.

MRK: Yes.

SW: [laughs] Okay. Perfect. When do you sleep then? That’s the question.

MRK: Sleeping?

SW: Yes. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Okay. Okay, here’s the next choice. Socks or bare feet.

MRK: Bare feet.

SW: Mm?

MRK: I have heated floors. 

SW: Oh gosh. Well, that’s fancy.

MRK: [laughs] I love this apartment.

SW: Yes I can see why. I can understand why. Okay. Ocean voyage or mountain cabin.

MRK: Ocean voyage.

SW: Ah okay. You, you’re not working. You’re not doing a Writing Excuses cruise.

MRK: No that’s right, that’s right. I’m, I’m just… But no one can reach you on an ocean voyage.

SW: Ah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, no judgements, like I said. Okay. Two more left. Fine dining or drive-thru.

MRK: Fine dining. 

SW: That was a very fast answer. And finally, mild or spicy?

MRK: [sighs, then reluctantly] Mild. 

SW: [laughs] She said, sadly. 

MRK: I love spicy, but, the problem with aging is that one sometimes develops acid reflux and spicy does not love me back.

SW: Ohhh I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

MRK: [mock petulantly] Me, too!

SW: Yeah. [MRK laughs ruefully] Such is life, though, right? 

MRK: Yeah, yeah. 

SW: Okay. Thank you so much, Mary Robinette, for joining me. This has been so joyful. And I learned so much too, which I love.

MRK: Thank you. This was so much fun. And you ask fun and different questions than I usually get asked when I talk about puppets. So this also makes me very happy.

SW: Ya-a-ay! Okay, so, where can people learn more about you and your work?

MRK: The easiest thing is to go to my website. Mary Robinette Kowal dot com. And then there, sign up for my newsletter. Which will…you only get it once a month. But you also get a story when you sign up, and another story on your birthday.

SW: Wow.

MRK: So. And…and pictures of my cat.

SW: Oh, yeah. Yeah, people. Sign up, sign up. This is fancy. Fancy! [laughs]

MRK: Mm-hmm.

SW: Okay, so as always, friends, I will put up all the relevant links that I can remember and think of and find, in episode show notes. And I also have a web page on my website. My website is sgwong.com and there is a podcast page for We Contain Multitudes there and I will have show links there too. I mean…relevant links there too. [laughing] So thank you again, Mary Robinette. Thank you everyone out there in Listening Land for joining us. And until next time, create joy for yourself and others, however, works for you because…we contain multitudes.

[jazzy jumpin’ music]

SW: We Contain Multitudes is on The Incomparable network of smart and funny pop culture podcasts where members can access exclusive podcasts and a wonderful community. Find out more at theincomparable.com. 

Special thanks, as always, to Erika Ensign, our editrix extraordinaire of Castria Communications. Award-winning excellence in podcast production and media solutions. Check them out at wearecastria.com.

[music fades]

Robotic voice: The incomparable podcast network. Become a member and support this show today. theincomparable.com/members

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SHOW NOTES:

Curious to try puppetry? Try searching out online classes and/or your local puppet theatre companies for hands-on learning opportunities.

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ICYMI: What does it mean to be famous? – https://sgwong.com/blog/what-does-it-mean-to-be-famous/