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<\/p>\nHer troupe of puppets \u2013 from a sassy wooden figure to a sensitive skunk \u2013 reflects a lifetime of craft shaped by imagination, loss and performance.<\/p>\n
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Christine Barger-Lutes with her puppet Darwin D. Dodo. Photo courtesy of Christine Barger-Lutes<\/p>\n
Darlene Hollywood has strong opinions and is a bit of a flirt. Stunkles the skunk gets very offended if you say he stinks. Darwin D. Dodo means well \u2013 even when he says something that isn\u2019t totally appropriate.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly Yonkers is a young, adult male, soft puppet that is my improv partner and we do something called Ventrilo-Prov together,\u201d said Christine Barger-Lutes of Anaheim. \u201cHe is witty and quick and will sometimes be a bit blunt or rude.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barger-Lutes has a team of puppets she\u2019s developed over the years as a ventriloquist, each with their own defined personality, character and look. But the 46-year-old actress, social media content creator and escape room owner didn\u2019t start playing with puppets with performance in mind. It rose out of necessity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI started doing ventriloquism when I was very young as a way to cope with my baby brother\u2019s illness and then his death,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her brother, Bobby, was born prematurely and his lungs didn\u2019t develop fully, leading to health issues.\u00a0He passed away at age 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in the hospital and we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House and there was another child staying there,\u201d she said. \u201c(The child) had a stuffed Gizmo doll and \u2026 said that he didn\u2019t want to talk to me because he didn\u2019t like me, so I made my teddy bear\u00a0talk\u00a0to everybody except that child because I wanted to show them how bad it felt when\u00a0a stuffed animal didn\u2019t like you \u2013 plus I didn\u2019t believe that Gizmo really talked to (the child).\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after her brother passed away, her family moved and she started a new school in third grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really hard to come into a new school at that age and make friends,\u201d she said. \u201cI was teased a lot and having my imaginary friends to talk to helped and then I started to kind of get known for that talent, which both helped and hurt my popularity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though some children would make fun of her for talking to herself, most people found it interesting. She won talent shows and in high school, she won a state-wide talent competition in Indiana, getting her on television for the first time\u00a0performing ventriloquism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ventriloquism, which developed as a form of entertainment by the 18th century, has two days of recognition because they celebrate puppetry. World Puppetry Day is on March 21 and National Day of Puppetry is on the fourth Saturday in April, this year on April 25.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barger-Lutes was doing it before she even knew what it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a kid, I just thought it was an easy thing to do and I did it,\u201d she said. \u201cI never really learned from books or took classes or anything. I didn\u2019t even know what a ventriloquist was. I just knew I could make my toys talk and then I got a puppet and started making puppets talk. I was older when I saw a ventriloquist for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A young Christine Barger-Lutes posing with a young Darlene Hollywood. Photo courtesy of Christine Barger-Lutes<\/p>\n
Puppet Talk\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barger-Lutes got Darlene Hollywood in the mid-\u201890s in Littleton, Colorado from a ventriloquists\u2019 store. Darlene is made of wood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe looks a little bit like me, but she\u2019s much sassier and her hair is in pigtails because if you take it out, it\u2019s a mullet,\u201d Barger-Lutes said. \u201cBasically she is the most typical ventriloquist character that I have.\u00a0She will often razz me and give me a hard time, poking fun at me as the ventriloquist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stunkles the skunk is an Axtell puppet with big, blue eyes. Since he\u2019s been \u201cde-scented,” he does not stink and gets offended if told otherwise. (Axtell Expressions was founded by Steve Axtell in California in 1982.)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the puppet that I have used for years at kids\u2019 shows to discuss topics like judging a book by its cover and bullying,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Darwin D. Dodo is a sleepy dodo bird who\u2019s a little slow in his rate of speech and also in noticing things. He\u2019s also an Axtell puppet.\u00a0She said she and Billy Yonkers did a Fringe Festival show together years ago doing Ventrilo-Prov.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically short-form improv with a two-person team and I am the two-person team,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She has 20 or more other puppets, but she doesn\u2019t use them as often.<\/p>\n
She usually gets a puppet because she\u2019s drawn to it and then creates the personality, voice and name after playing with it for a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a few puppets that I\u2019ve had for years and I\u2019ve tried multiple times to come up with voices and personalities and names and still haven\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cI rarely come up with a character first and then try to place a puppet with the character \u2013 although I did that once and it didn\u2019t go well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she had an entire character based around a personality she\u2019d created and\u00a0ordered a custom-made puppet. But when she got it, things didn\u2019t feel right with the personality or voice she had developed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that puppet is sitting in a suitcase and occasionally comes out for lip sync on TikTok, but it has no voice, no name and no personality and it\u2019s a beautiful puppet and I love the puppet,\u201d she said. \u201cI just don\u2019t know what to do with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having puppets isn\u2019t all about playing with them, there\u2019s some care involved. Barger-Lutes said puppet pricing can range from the cost of materials to build them yourself to thousands of dollars \u2014 depending on what type of puppet you\u2019re getting, who\u2019s making it and what features you want to have.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA wooden figure could be hand-carved and have features like winking and blinking eyes, mechanisms that make her cry or spit,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of those additional things cost more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She keeps Darlene Hollywood lying on her back in a case so pressure isn\u2019t on the puppet\u2019s face or jaw. Darlene is also surrounded with foam to keep her protected. The puppet has strings inside of her head that pull the levers to move her facial features \u2013 her eyebrows, eyes, eyelids and mouth all move.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the string to her mouth broke and I had to take her to have somebody fix her because I didn\u2019t know how and they showed me,\u201d Barger-Lutes said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I could do it myself. It\u2019s really scary to me to do surgery like that on such a close friend. I\u2019m a bit protective of her so I won\u2019t usually let anybody else carry her case or handle her except me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the soft puppets are easier to maintain because they won\u2019t get damaged as easily from something like an accidental drop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a lot easier to travel with and I don\u2019t have to be as careful with temperature control because they\u2019re not made of wood that could expand or contract in extreme temperatures,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She spot cleans the soft puppets and tries to be careful to avoid sweating too much inside when wearing them so she keeps her hands clean and dry or wears gloves. The Axtell soft puppets that have latex faces must be cleaned and treated with special\u00a0products.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething got inside of Stunkles\u2019 head. I don\u2019t know if it was on my hands or when I was cleaning him, but his face deteriorated all of a sudden out of nowhere and I had to order a new one,\u201d she said. \u201cIt had something to do with the latex, it cracked and his face just essentially broke. I had Stunkles for probably 20 years without any issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Christine Barger-Lutes with her puppet Stunkles the skunk. Photo courtesy of Christine Barger-Lutes<\/p>\n
Performance Life<\/p>\n
Though Barger-Lutes started performing in her youth in Indiana, she moved to Los Angeles while in college in 2003 to pursue acting.\u00a0She\u2019s continued to perform as an actress and as a ventriloquist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a ventriloquist, she\u2019s performed at a variety of venues \u2013 from college and corporate events to fairs, festivals,\u00a0 private parties and comedy clubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can still see me in reruns of \u2018Penn & Teller\u2019 and a few game shows like \u2018Catch 21\u2019 on television doing ventriloquism,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she started doing ventriloquism on social media because of the app LiveMe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey reached out to me when streaming was kind of new for creators outside of gaming and they were trying to build their platform with more talent-based creators,\u201d she said. \u201cThen I met other content creators and influencers, and fell into that world pretty quickly. I started using multiple\u00a0platforms and attending VidCon.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s always wanted to perform on TV and film, so anytime she\u2019s had the opportunity over the years to use a puppet on a game show or shows like \u201cPenn & Teller: Fool Us,\u201d she would.\u00a0<\/p>\n