ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) –– This week welcomes the 2025 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival to the city. Meet Puppet Pants Productions, one of the performers participating in the alternative arts festival.
Puppet Pants Productions will be performing at 9 p.m. tonight, Saturday, March 22 at Asheville Community Theatre.
Adam Clarke is the one-man show behind Puppet Pants Productions, a marionette puppet show with a large cast of carnival characters.
A marionette is a puppet controlled by a puppet master from above with strings or wires. Clarke, as the puppeteer, can make his marionettes do a wide variety of expressive tricks with a flick of a string, from flips to splits.
“It is a marionette variety show. So, it is a series of short-form acts ranging between three to seven minutes,” Clarke explained. “It’s a constantly rotating cast of characters, very circus-heavy theming. There’s all sorts of trick marionettes like trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, and all sorts of fun things that you wouldn’t imagine seeing a puppet on strings do.”
While other Fringe Fest acts involve multiple company members, Puppet Pants is just Clarke.
“It is just me. It is a one man operation. I make the puppets, I do all the music, I do all the booking, the merch. It is, it’s like two full time jobs,” Clarke laughed.
In fact, the Atlanta-based Clarke has been performing Puppet Pants full-time since August 2024. He tours his show all over the country, from Asheville to Tallahassee. In two weeks, he’ll head to New Orleans, Louisiana for their Giant Puppet Festival.
The job is fulfilling to Clarke in several ways.
“Puppetry is the ultimate combination of all of the things that I like. Painting, sculpting, performing, writing, choreography, music, lighting, all of it,” Clarke said. “It’s the best.”
The show is open to everyone.
“It is a show that is made for all ages,” Clarke promised. “There’s a lot of audience interaction. It’s very sweet, endearing, and it’s just a lot of fun. It’s about 45, 50 minutes long.
Tickets to “The Puppet Pants Encounter” are $16 and can be purchased at tickets.ashevillefringe.org/events/the-puppet-pants-encounter.