Fingolfin’s Findings LXXXI: The Oakenshield Marionettes

I am very happy so far to be on Bluesky, particularly because there is a very active Tolkien-interested community sharing all sorts of tidbits.

With this one I had a feeling I might have heard about this - but then this is such a unique and singular experience, it was next to impossible to find out stuff about it.

My thanks go out to Gregory Daurer aka Gregory Ego¹ who wrote this:

And then he realised something else.

The Oakenshield Marionettes

This group obviously was a local group of performers as their name never came up anywhere else.

In fact, the only easily accessible online newspapers has only one photo² and the mention³ that their nine shows were all sold out.

They obviously happened on October 3-5, 1974 (Thu-Sat) with the report showing the photo on October 7.

(Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Is that tension or merely absorption we see on young faces as they watch the dragon, nasty trolls and evil orcs at Sunday’s matinee performance of The Hobbit by the Oakenshield Marionettes. All nine performances in the UMC Ballroom (Si apre in una nuova finestra) this weekend were completely sold out.

When Bilbo came to Boulder

In time for the first so-called Hobbit film - Dec 2012 - journalist Clay Evans wrote this piece (Si apre in una nuova finestra), explaining a lot of the details to this fascinating piece of puppetry.

One of the important names in this venture is Bill Johnk.

And just to save you the disappointment at the end:

Sadly, the “Hobbit” puppets were lost to a divorce and a one-time friend who spirited them away overseas.

But I got lucky. And you, too, so to speak.

Because there was a FIRST staging of The Hobbit⁴. On September 14, 1974 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), thanks to the Vail Institute⁵.

And here are two of the puppets.

Gandalf & Bilbo.

And it is getting better…

Yes, it is. Well, if we all get lucky.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnk have handcrafted the marionettes over a period of six years in their home studio. The Johnks' new book Marionettes and Middle Earth about their production of The Hobbit, and their Oakenshield Marionettes, will be on sale at the theatre. Color photos, drawings, and the script from the production are included in the book.

The staging took place at the Crossroads Cinema (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (which no longer exists (Si apre in una nuova finestra).)

And you could buy this copy (Si apre in una nuova finestra), if you like. Or take it out at your library (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Send me photos, right?

Fun fact The book was published as a Horizons project under the National Bicentennial Internship Program (Si apre in una nuova finestra), so if you feel like going through these archives (Si apre in una nuova finestra) you might find out even more about this.

Let me know!

Update the very same day 😅

You may have noticed that somehow the dates/ chronology does not quite add up as mentioned above.

Well, I have a solution to that issue now.

(Si apre in una nuova finestra)

The Special Children’s Matinee offered the photo of the kids you can see above⁶.

I have also found a review with a photo of Smaug (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and an excellent write-up with the two puppeteers (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and their hopes for the then future.

1. Visit his original post with Bluesky (Si apre in una nuova finestra). ↩

2. Taken from Colorado Daily - University of Colorado Boulder, Volume 23, Number 81, October 7, 1974. ↩

3. The photographer, John Puerner, might be publisher John Puerner (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of the L.A. Times. It would fit into a career timeline (early 20s, does photos, 25 years later taking up this responsibility.) In this post (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (not available from Europe) with the Orlando Sentinel it is said: “He joined Tribune Co. in 1979, fresh out of the University of Colorado with a master’s degree in business administration.” ↩

4. See this post (Si apre in una nuova finestra). ↩

5. I cannot determine what this “Institute” was or is but you can find the newspaper piece with The Vail Trail, Volume IX, Number 46, September 13, 1974. ↩

6. Ad taken from Colorado Daily - University of Colorado Boulder, Volume 23, Number 80, October 4, 1974. ↩