Puppet show with a message

COEUR d'ALENE - No ugly ducklings here, and no beautiful swans either.

There was, instead, a platypus that hatched from the mama duck's egg in "The Ugliest Duckling," a puppet version of the Hans Christian Anderson tale performed Wednesday for Borah Elementary School students.

The platypus twist to the re-told tale changes the story's message to one of growth through self-acceptance rather than outer beauty.

"Kids that normally have trouble focusing were just mesmerized," said Julie Cooper, a third-grade teacher at the school.

Every student in the kindergarten to fifth-grade school watched a performance in the morning and then attended an afternoon workshop led by one of the puppeteers.

The show was brought to Borah by Tears of Joy Theatre, a nationally acclaimed resident company of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts.

The annual puppetry event is funded each year by the school's Parent Teacher Organization, said Borah Principal Sharon Hanson.

"We're always talking about responsibility and respect, so this fits in to our character education program," Hanson said.

Tears of Joy Theatre performer Sara Lynn Herman led a group of younger students through the afternoon workshop. Herman pulled back the veil between performer, puppet and audience, and shared some of the secrets of the show they had seen earlier. She led them in some puppetry performance exercises, and answered some of their questions.

"What does Yuckay look like when he's grown up?" asked one child.

Herman explained that platypus like Yuckay don't look very different when they grow up, just bigger.

The children learned how to move with a puppet, and how to use their voices to create character voices.

"This is my throat voice," Herman said, in a harsh, guttural way.

She had the students join her in practicing their own throat voices while swinging a hand through the air, finger crooked like a hook: "Yarrrrrrrrrrrr!"

Herman, a physical theater performer as well as a puppeteer, said she loves bringing theater to the schools.

"I think it shows bravery on stage, and in the characters they see that everyone is unique and it's OK to be different," Herman said.