Podcast Summary: How to Be Anything

Host: Emily McCrary
Episode 4: How to Be a Puppetry Artist
Release Date: July 30, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores the life and career of Heidi Rugg, a professional puppetry artist. Host Emily McCrary guides listeners through Heidi’s unconventional journey: from childhood passions and pivotal college moments to years spent creating, performing, and advocating for the art of puppetry. The conversation is rich with insights about building a multifaceted art practice, confronting creative doubts, and the community behind puppetry. This is a nuanced portrait of an artist who quietly invents her own work, continually expanding the boundaries and impact of her medium.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Finding Puppetry: An Unexpected Path

• Heidi discovered puppetry as a way to combine diverse interests—art, building, storytelling—finding a unique and fulfilling calling she hadn’t anticipated.
  • Heidi Rugg [01:34]:
    “If I did puppet shows, it would combine together all these interests I have that don’t seem connected. But if I put them in this box called puppetry, they can all be happy and coexist here.”
• The inclusive, interdisciplinary nature of puppetry is a home for “majoring in everything.”

2. Early Artistic Influences and Challenges

• Family support was key; visits to her great aunt’s painting studio and private art lessons fueled her imagination.
  • Heidi Rugg [02:24]:
    “My family was actually really supportive ... I just like working with all the materials.”
• But institutional skepticism was real—her high school counselor advised against pursuing art:
  • Heidi Rugg [03:23]:
    “I feel like we don’t realize until much later that the grownups around us are just people who are bumbling around. We’re all just kind of bumbling around, doing our best.”

3. Discovering Performance: Overcoming Stage Fright

• Heidi’s first puppet, an Anne Frank marionette for a fifth-grade book report, became a tool to conquer anxiety about public speaking.
  • Emily McCrary [03:03]:
    “[She] realized her classmates were looking at the puppet and not at her. Heidi finally felt comfortable in front of an audience.”

4. Building a Career: From College to the Stage

• Initially studying sociology, Heidi switched to art at VCU, finding her “people” and creative community.
  • Heidi Rugg [04:14]:
    “It was nice to be around other weirdness. And that normalized my weirdness…”
• Her first show, “Little Red and the Gingerbread Man,” was a solo, highly interactive performance that’s still in her repertoire.
  • Heidi Rugg [05:05]:
    “It’s a mishmash of Little Red Riding Hood and the Gingerbread Man… I started doing my first live performances in December of 1997.”

5. The Reality of Puppetry Work

• Heidi wears many hats: writing, designing, building, performing, and teaching.
• Her work is itinerant—often performing for children in venues ranging from schools to hospitals, with up to 100 shows a year pre-pandemic.
  • Emily McCrary [05:55]:
    “Heidi does it all, the whole process, from start to finish. She writes her shows, builds the sets and puppets, and performs them.”
• The work is demanding and unpredictable, involving “shifting between different work modes.”
  • Heidi Rugg [07:05]:
    “You’re writing, you’re building, you’re designing, you’re throwing your hands up in frustration… It really took me a long time to figure out... it takes time.”

6. Getting Comfortable with Creative Failure

• Heidi stresses the importance of enduring beginner’s discomfort and resisting perfectionism intensified by social media’s public eye.
  • Heidi Rugg [08:13]:
    “There’s this point at which, when you’re trying to make things where you recognize that your work sucks... it’s okay to be bad. Everyone has to go through that hard space before they can do their work.”

7. Themes and Storytelling

• Childhood fascination with nature (sparked by encyclopedias) led to “Galapagos George,” a show with strong environmental themes, inspired by the story of the last Pinta Island tortoise.
  • Heidi Rugg [10:06]:
    “…sometimes you have an idea and it just... will not leave you alone. You know, it, like, keeps pulling on your shirt and waking you up.”
• Transitioned from classic fairy tales to original, values-driven work.

8. Teaching About Puppets: Process and Awareness

• Many children’s first exposure to live puppetry is through Heidi’s shows, though media like Sesame Street obscure the fact that they are watching puppets.
  • Heidi Rugg [13:07]:
    “I know for many, in many communities, I will be the first exposure to live puppetry. They’ll have seen puppets on TV… but they haven’t maybe put together that they're puppets — they’re just like, it’s Elmo.”
• The boundaries between puppetry, robotics, and digital performance (e.g., “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings”) are increasingly blurred.
  • Heidi Rugg [14:59]:
    “I would be like, yeah, it’s like digital puppetry. So it’s weird, but technically puppets...”

9. Process and Participation

• At craft fairs and public events, Heidi notices children’s instinctual draw to puppets as objects to play with—evidence of puppetry’s accessibility.
  • Heidi Rugg [18:25]:
    “Children are always way more enthusiastic and much bolder about coming up to you… when you have puppets just out, kids really see that as an invitation.”
• She emphasizes the value of understanding and teaching how things are made, and the time investment of artmaking.

10. What’s in a Name: Puppetry Artist vs. Puppeteer

• “Puppetry artist” best reflects the self-sufficiency and creative ambition behind Heidi’s practice:
  • Heidi Rugg [20:14]:
    “People have assumptions about what [puppeteer] means. And so I started using the term puppetry artist… I write and develop stories. I create worlds.”

11. The State and Future of Puppetry

• Despite perceptions of decline, the field remains strong—institutional programs may wane, but community learning and global connection (especially post-2020) are robust.
  • Heidi Rugg [21:08]:
    “People will be like, oh, puppetry, it’s really too bad it’s a dying art form… But there are many opportunities for learning in less traditional ways for people who are a little bold and willing to sort of go off-roading a bit.”
• Puppeteers are often eager to share knowledge, contrasting with more secretive artistic communities.
  • Heidi Rugg [22:35]:
    “Puppeteers are more like, yes, come, come and see behind… I’ll bring you backstage and you can see.”

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On artistic discovery and synthesis
  Heidi Rugg [01:34]: “Naturally, as a puppeteer you are really able to ‘major in everything,’ so to speak.”
• On creative frustration and process
  Heidi Rugg [07:05]: “You’re throwing your hands up in frustration, and you just need to go walk the dog… it takes time.”
• On failure and learning
  Heidi Rugg [08:13]: “There’s this point at which... your work sucks… But it’s okay to be bad. Everyone has to go through that hard space before they can do their work.”
• On children and puppetry
  Heidi Rugg [18:25]: “Children are always way more enthusiastic... they see this stuff out, and when it’s out, like when you have puppets just out, kids really see that as an invitation.”
• On human imagination
  Heidi Rugg [22:35]: “This is a really human thing, you know, this puppet thing that we do.”
• On community and resilience
  Heidi Rugg [22:10]: “The puppetry community as a whole got better connected in 2020 because we were all sitting around going, what do we do?”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:34] — Heidi’s “aha moment” choosing puppetry
• [03:03] — Childhood puppetry as a solution for stage fright
• [04:14] — The creative atmosphere at VCU and first solo shows
• [07:05] — Realities and rhythms of a puppetry artist’s day
• [08:13] — Creative self-doubt and the importance of allowing failure
• [10:06] — The genesis of “Galapagos George” and making environmentally themed art
• [12:32] — Are children today still familiar with puppets?
• [13:45] — Media confusion: Robots, digital characters, and what counts as a puppet
• [18:25] — Kids and the instinctual playfulness with puppets at public events
• [20:14] — The distinction between “puppeteer” and “puppetry artist”
• [21:08] — State and future of puppetry as a field; global connections

Final Thoughts

The episode paints an intimate picture of what it means to forge a career out of an art form that combines play, performance, craftsmanship, and storytelling. Heidi Rugg emerges as both an artist and an advocate, deeply aware of the power of puppetry to educate, connect, and delight audiences of all ages. The discussion illuminates both the joy and labor of creative work, and underscores puppetry’s ongoing, deeply human relevance.