FUZZY RATS!!!!!

So
I'm a rat. I've taken on puppetry at our church. They spent a great deal
of time on theme classrooms There's one that looks like a Egyptian dig. One
that looks like a castle. Very impressive.

On my end there's a theme of outerspace and an old sailors ship. I'm in the
ship. There are several characters that show up in the very well planned script
that is titled "The Ultimate Voyage."

There's blackheart the bad guy; The sailor; the captain; and of course Stem
& Stern the two fat little rats that provide comic relief. I'm Stem, a fat
yet lovable little gray rat.

We get there at 8am to go over the script for a bit as the kids are doing
their small group time in the two smaller rooms attached to the main "ship."
Then we get ready for the kids and get the rats on their crates ready to talk.
We have wireless headset mics on so the kiddies can understand the "Rat
Babble." We're pretty weak actors so we pin the script to the back of the
crates we're hiding behind and highlight out two lines in different colors.
If there's a third puppet character that week we just fall apart. (Not enough
highlighter colors, the whole system breaks down)

The
kids seem to love us, they always laugh when I feel the need to throw in a very
funny childlike ad-lib. I use a strange voice for Stem; Kind of a cross between
thick country and dumb sailor. I'm not sure where it came from it just came
out the first time I had to a say a line. I'm not sure why, but each time I
go to be Stem it just comes out that way.