Little Blue Moon Theatre featured on the cover of the Preetz Paper Theatre Festival (Preetz, Germany) review magazine (review to follow photos, below)

Preetz Festival Celebrates its Coming of Age

The 19th Preetz Paper Theatre Meeting
By Willers Amtrup /Translation by Renate Lampert

(excerpted)

When 18 years ago the first International Paper Theatre Festival took place nobody would have thought what along and successful life this event would be having. Now it has come of age in the 19th festival and is abundant with vivacity and enthusiasm. Weven more than that-I would be easy for me to just be content with describing nearly all the performances I saw as “great”, setting aside some petty faultfinding of someone who could never do it nearly as well. Such a procedure, however, would not do justice to the numerous witty and creative ideas of individual players and theatres. …

Mutiny on the Bounty/Natalie
Quite different in its music and no less convincing was the performance by Michael and Valerie Nelson with their Little Blue Moon Theatre. In last year’s festival we had already enjoyed their light-hearted racy performances and this time we saw “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Natalie” - both written and drawn by the two Nelsons accompanying the play with their electrifying singing and ukulele playing. At the beginning the mutiny has already taken place, we see the abandoned boat with Captain Bligh rowing off under fire from the ship. Afterwards the mutineers - having burned their ship in a very impressive way - stay on a tropical island where they very soon fraternize with the beautiful girls of the island (or should I better say they sororize?) They enjoy a relaxed sunny beach life and in the course of time they beget so many children that they have to carry that heavy load hanging on their arms. All this is so humorously shown that the spectators enjoy it thoroughly. How enjoyable e.g. the hula dances carried out by movable figurines where not only the Polynesian females but also the mutineers take part - all clothed in swinging raffia skirts.
In the following play “Natalie” the adventures of a puppeteer are shown. As it is so terribly hot one day she undresses (inside her puppet stage), loses her clothes through a heavy gust of wind and has to run away naked until the jacket of a young man covers her nakedness at least partly. After she has gotten a strict lecture from him because of her foolishness the two become a couple and in consequence she becomes famous - sex sells! - as the naked puppeteer. This little story full of subtle irony impresses by its many funny-risqué details. Best of all the strict “lecture” where we can only see the naked legs of the woman behind a folding screen moving up and down wildly. So this play is a single great highly applauded fun where you sense every minute how much the players themselves are caught up in their play.