the Hearth Lungs
BareBones Puppets Halloween Extravaganza, 2025
The Hearth Lungs guide the audience through this journey of smoke, fire, devastation, rebirth, and resistance. A touch point for audience and performers alike to ask, "What sets our beating hearts on fire?"
This sculptural puppet consists of a steel ribcage with hinging doors (10 ft x 8 ft x 4 ft). It is composed of sheet metal and salvaged steel that is MIG welded together. Its design prioritizes the need for impressive size balanced with easy and secure (dis)assembly by a crew of three people. This sculpture breaks down to three main pieces reducing the necessary storage space to 10 ft x 3ft x 2 ft. No individual piece weighs more than 50 lb. It was both one of the largest puppets in the show and the most compact for onsite storage.
On either side of the sternum are 4ft doors that hinge to open the ribs. This reveals the shadow puppet projections being performed inside. At the end of the show, the rib doors are soaked and lit on fire, burning for two minutes uninterrupted.
This outlandish undertaking would not have been possible without Caleb and Raj's generous space and materials donation, Arlo and Leo's welding knowledge and dedication, and Jake's shadow projection techniques and design. An additional thank you to Earnest, Curtis, Minnow, and Finley for their work on the projections.
You can watch the BareBones 2025 production 'Up in Smoke' on BareBones YouTube channel.
learn more about BareBones Puppets
This sculptural puppet consists of a steel ribcage with hinging doors (10 ft x 8 ft x 4 ft). It is composed of sheet metal and salvaged steel that is MIG welded together. Its design prioritizes the need for impressive size balanced with easy and secure (dis)assembly by a crew of three people. This sculpture breaks down to three main pieces reducing the necessary storage space to 10 ft x 3ft x 2 ft. No individual piece weighs more than 50 lb. It was both one of the largest puppets in the show and the most compact for onsite storage.
On either side of the sternum are 4ft doors that hinge to open the ribs. This reveals the shadow puppet projections being performed inside. At the end of the show, the rib doors are soaked and lit on fire, burning for two minutes uninterrupted.
This outlandish undertaking would not have been possible without Caleb and Raj's generous space and materials donation, Arlo and Leo's welding knowledge and dedication, and Jake's shadow projection techniques and design. An additional thank you to Earnest, Curtis, Minnow, and Finley for their work on the projections.
You can watch the BareBones 2025 production 'Up in Smoke' on BareBones YouTube channel.
learn more about BareBones Puppets