Bright as butterflies in multicolored yarmulkes, the children gathered on the mat at her feet, wiggling and chattering in anticipation. The storyteller was still and focused and soon the children settled. She began: "in the beginning…" and the ancient story wove its spell. … As she wove the Biblical tale of young King David and his difficulties with the King, Marilyn Price reached behind a screen and produced The King, a puppet face built upon a tennis racquet ("– because, the King was, of course, a member of the court") who was searching for him. For his part, David was a brightly colored tennis ball who has no intention of being whacked by the racquet king.

"All of my characters are kind of kitsch," she confesses, "they have something in the construction that visually connects them to the story." In a traditional Yiddish story about a poor woman who just wants a bit of peace and quiet, for example, the cat is build from a cat food box and the cow is built from a milk jug.

Marilyn Price is used to people dismissing her offering as "just a puppet show," but she-and most of her audiences- know better. "After doing this sort of thing for 35 years now- and I average about 300 shows a year -everyone pretty much gets it. That dismissive attitude gets ameliorated when I fill them in on the historical background of puppets, that they were originally used in the context of worship. We are a people of the story," she says, "and nobody doesn’t love a story.

"The puppets that I use are visual aids, reminders. They are simply different ways by which to enter into the story. During the telling, the visual aids melt away, but the value of the visual clues is that children remember the story. You will notice that I don’t use fancy puppets; I use simple, everyday things because I want the children to go home and make their own puppets that will remind them of the stories they have heard."

The other reason she uses everyday objects and materials for her puppets points to the greater purpose Marilyn Price embraces. "I love being Jewish and am so grateful I was raised Jewish," she says. "At the same time, we live in America. What we need to do is to connect to the secular world, make our Judaism part of our way of being in the secular world. Rabbi Mordaici Kaplan said we live in two civilizations, Jewish and American, when what we need to do is live in one civilization that combines both. I use everyday objects to tell Jewish stories so that Judaism is part of everyday life in America."

Marilyn Price shares her talents through many teacher training workshops nationwide, as well as having taught storytelling skills to rabbis at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Pennsylvania.

Pam Spence (contact: Puppetkind)