Puppets Bring Dinosaurs To Larger'Than'Life at PAC

It’s not easy being a 27-foot-long, banana yellow Apatosaurus.

This weekend, families can see Bessie—one of the giant puppets starring in the musical “Mammoth Follies”—for themselves as the colossal cast takes the stage at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday.

The brainchild of the Hudson Vagabond Puppets, “Mammoth Follies” features oversized puppets as they dance and sing their way through prehistoric times in the one-hour musical, written by Andrew Wilder and Bernie Garzia. The show’s stars include oversized clams singing country music, Willie the mammoth, two playful triceratops, baby dinosaurs, three dodo birds, a pterodactyl, and an 11-foot-tall tyrannosaurus rex.

Geared toward children age 5 and older, “Mammoth Follies” includes all different kinds of puppets. In addition to the enormous dinosaur puppets, the performers also use hand puppets, body puppets and rod puppets to tell a story of the dinosaur age.

Back by popular demand, this is the second run of “Mammoth Follies,” which has been out of retirement for about three years.

The show was first launched in the early 1980s and ran for nearly a decade before the cast decided to retire the show, Lois Bohovesky, founding director of the group, explained last week. “We were so tired. It was a big, big show,” she said. “But people kept asking for it.”

And so the mammoth characters of Bessie, Rex and the gang have taken the stage once again.

Parents and children alike will enjoy the show, Ms. Bohovesky assured. “Adults like this show. You hear a lot of laughs from them, too,” she said. “It’s a fun show. One of the things we’ve always wanted to do is make shows that adults enjoy as well as children.”

The size of the gigantic puppets is an aspect of the show that sets the Hudson Vagabond Puppets apart from the norm.

In the same vein, using larger-than-life-sized puppets, the group is also working to launch a show focusing on the life cycle of the butterfly and has performed various adaptations of classics such as “Ferdinand the Bull” and “Peter and the Wolf.”

“We need to have the large puppets so we can play large theaters,” Ms. Bohovesky said.

The show was born when Ms. Bohovesky spent many rainy days with her own children at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, carefully inspecting the massive dinosaur fossils. Today, her son, Peter, who was an original inspiration for the show, is now working with the group to bring the dinosaurs to life and entertain children all over the country.

“It just refuses to die,” Ms. Bohovesky said of the show.

All of the puppets are created by hand out of pipes, nylon rods and foam rubber. A single puppet can take up to three months to finish, Ms. Bohovesky explained. Depending on the size of the puppet, she said, it can take up to three people to make it move and dance across the stage.

Clad in black, the puppeteers borrow from the traditional Japanese Bunraku style of puppetry, becoming mere shadows of the enormous figures they bring to life.

“If the puppeteers do their job, you really forget them,” she said.

A veteran puppeteer, Ms. Bohovesky began building puppets in the early 1970s and worked Bill Baird, danced with Erik Hawkins, and worked at Henson Associates for a time.

A not-for-profit organization since 1990, Hudson Vagabond Puppets has secured funding for the Westhampton Beach performance from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency dedicated to bringing high quality arts programs to citizens.

The puppet troupe is based in Rockland, New York. And although most of the group’s performers are professional dancers and live in Manhattan, Ms. Bohovesky said space is always an issue in the Big Apple. “It’s hard to find a place for dinosaurs in Manhattan,” she said.

The Hudson Vagabond Puppets show, “Mammoth Follies,” will be presented at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 3, at 1 p.m. Tickets are $25, $20, and $15. For more information, call the theater at (631) 288-1500, or purchase tickets online at www.WHBPAC.org.