Two guys and two girls walk into a bar. No – that’s not the start of a bad joke, but it could be the start of a professional shadow puppet troupe in Tallahassee.
Liz Bowldman and Zachary Garner met Monica West and Shawn Havrey at a bar. They hadn’t planned to meet up, and didn’t even actually know each other, but based on their shirt choice, thought they might get along
Garner said the four had gone to the bar for a release party for a beer called Holy Grail Ale. Part of the Party included a showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So, the four decided to sit together and get to know each other.
But, the classic comedy barely made it through its introduction before the bulb in the projector blew out. There wasn’t a picture but the soundtrack kept playing. David Henning was there the night everything went wrong.
“There was a bit of a pricey cost to get in because they paired with like food and special drinks and all kinds of stuff and we didn’t have the images at all. It would come on for like two minutes before the bulb would burn out and so we all had paid a decent amount and we were all excited about seeing it and were going to be disappointed”, Henning said.
But then, Liz Bowldman made the group’s very first shadow puppet.
“It was just a basic little knight and she started wriggling it around using one of the other group members, Shawn, he had a flashlight app on his phone. He just pointed it at the screen and started making the little knight dance around people started laughing and I quickly rigged up another one and then we had two characters going and acting out parts of the movie and it just snowballed into a full production”, Garner said.
The group says the whole thing was really a fluke, from the four of them meeting, to the bulb going out to them actually having the supplies to make shadow puppets in a bar.
“They gave out Holy Grail ale post-it cards, and so like I just ripped them off of that and just made it into a little post-it card and so there was paper flying everywhere. And we made these little knights that we were doing. So I would rip it into a knight and stuff and then if he needed a sword, I would rip up the take and tape a little sword onto him. So whatever was in front of us is what we used”, Bowldman said
That night the bar’s owner called the puppeteers heroes, saying they’d saved the night, and David Henning said they really did. In fact, the owners were so happy they asked the group if they’d put the show on again—this time, for pay and that’s how the group “Some Call Us Tim” got started. Now they have more than 100 shadow puppet characters cut out of stiff black paper, which they attached to bamboo skewers. The puppets include a castle, women, animals, men, and each of the knights, which are cut in with unique details so that each character is clearly distinguishable. More than 40 people showed up for the group’s first officials show, on a big white outdoor screen.
The group’s members say as long as it stays fun, they’d like to do it again – maybe with a different movie like The Little Shop of Horrors or possibly even The Matrix.
