Today we learn more about the career of ventriloquist Lisa Laird. You can find her website at: PocketsFullOfFun.com
This is Part Two of a six part interview.
Video Transcript:
So, what types of shows do you do?
I mainly do children’s shows. I perform for schools, daycares, libraries, and churches. I do the occasional birthday party or community event, but most of the time I’m hired as a children’s performer. I also do family entertainment at fairs and other community events, which are often family-oriented.
Recently, I’ve been exploring branching out a little into women’s meetings. I did my first official gig two weeks ago at a women’s conference. I wrote a new show with a grandma puppet for that. It was a little different for me, but most of what I do is still children’s entertainment.
What encouraged you to branch out into the women’s conference and that market?
You know, that’s a funny story. Mainly it’s because we just moved my mother-in-law into an assisted living complex here in Orange City, where my husband and I live. As we were going through all of her things, I realized there were a lot of stories hidden away that no one had ever heard.
I had gone through something similar years ago when my grandmother passed away. She was 103 when she died. My mother-in-law is 91 now, and it struck me that most of us are too busy living life to realize that our family history needs to be remembered and written down somewhere.
My husband had an old man puppet made by Wanlu, and I converted it into an old lady puppet named Grandma Dori. I wrote a program based on stories from both my grandmother and my mother-in-law. The premise is that Lily, my little girl puppet, is upset because she had to visit her great-grandma. She doesn’t think her great-grandma is all that great, and she thinks the gifts she got were terrible — a stupid old quilt and a pillowcase doll. Being the fashionable young girl she is, she doesn’t know what to do with them.
But those gifts become the bridge to understanding that her grandmother was really trying to give her a treasure — sharing her story.
I tested the program in a few nursing homes and assisted living complexes and got a lot of good feedback. That’s basically where the program came from.
That’s excellent. It’s been a lot of fun.
That’s an excellent story, and it shows that you can literally open up any market for yourself as an entertainer.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you for sharing that.
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