About David Winstein
Hi, I'm David.
I have always entertained myself by entertaining people, especially kids and old folks. A theater arts degree, more than 30 years of performing, and a lot of experimenting with audiences of all ages have evolved into the Get Puppetty experience.
The Reason I Do This
It clicked when I started handing people a small puppet of themselves.
I have been revising and evolving these experiences over many years and many different materials. The real breakthrough came when I was able to quickly turn somebody into a puppet and hand them a representation of themselves. Every time I do, people buy in immediately. They understand what is going on and are very open to what is being offered.
Every time I do a workshop, I come away with amazing stories. Not only the ones that are retold, but also the collective experience that we share together.
The Origin Story
It started with an overhead projector in Hailey, Idaho.
I started performing with overhead projectors around the beginning of the century. It happened by chance. I had recently been kicked out of a friend's band due to what can only be described as an overly enthusiastic love of playing the cowbell, and a singing voice akin to swinging a bag of cats. Hard to tell.
I started working as a substitute teacher in Hailey, Idaho, and my first assignment was a classroom of rabid junior high schoolers on the verge of rebellion. Armed only with my own memories of torturing subs and an up to that point fairly useless theater arts degree, I tried to motivate the class to write a play about the subject they were studying. They cobbled together a scene about the Tang Dynasty. Yes, Scott, very funny, "Tang" is delicious, let's focus please.
The next logical step was to stage the scene. I forgot that these students were not enthusiastic little theater nerds, and that getting up to perform in front of their fellow students was terrifying and potentially social suicide. That was when I noticed an old school overhead projector sitting in the corner of the room and asked some of the students to draw the backgrounds for the scene they had written. Once the backgrounds were finished, some of them found their courage and got up and read their piece.
That is the moment Get Puppetty came from.
What I Do Now
Performance and storytelling are one half of my life. Hospitality is the other.
I have worked in high-end restaurants, served as a sommelier, and designed curated food and performance experiences where the meal, the story, and the room work together. Get Puppetty is the place where the two halves meet.
I work with senior care communities, schools, libraries, events, teams, and (next) cruises and resorts. I bring the materials, the energy, the prompts, and the structure. The room brings the stories.
If you have a group, a venue, or an event in mind, I would love to hear from you.
Email: getpuppetty@gmail.com