Angry Young Men Ltd: Puppets, Theater and Comedy

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Photo courtesy Angry Young Men Ltd

Angry Young Men Ltd

Angry Young Men Ltd

Angry Young Men, Ltd is a Milwaukee-based puppet troupe and performance collective who combine theater with comedy. They are known for their flagship, Night of the Living Dead: The Puppet Show, which they put on for a number of years before Covid hit. “Full Frontal Püppetry” is their sketch series, comprising both live productions and the troupe’s YouTube channel.

The cast (and characters, in parentheses) of Angry Young Men Ltd consists of Billy Ray Olsen (Lumpy), Kelsey Taylor (Ronnie), Darrin Alston Jr (Smartass), Miranda Pride (Lillee), Liz Ahlstrom (Razzle), Josh Perkins (Murray Gauntman) and Alice Hammers (Blondie). Christee Reince, Steve Wolterstorff, Liz Getschow and Ashley Cianci are also in the troupe and play miscellaneous characters, as do the rest of the cast when they are not in their main roles.

Angry Young Men Ltd traces their origins back to 2007. Olsen is a founding member. “I’d been messing around with mostly large-scale festival puppets at the time,” he recalls. “A friend of mine was working for a short-lived horror-pop culture convention that year called ‘It Came from Lake Michigan!’ and the producers were looking for some kind of alternate programming apart from the usual. They invited us to do a puppet show and make it about whatever we wanted.”

Night of the Living Puppets

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Photo by Mark Frohna

Milwaukee Opera Theatre ‘Night of the Living Opera’

Milwaukee Opera Theatre's ‘Night of the Living Opera’

Olsen and company chose to base their show on 1968 cult horror film Night of the Living Dead. He continues, “After we did it, we got asked when we would be doing it again.”

 Murray Gauntman became the first official puppet of Angry Young Men Ltd . “He was the prototype we based everything off of, with pantyhose stretched over pieces of foam and then painted,” Perkins adds. “Everyone in the cast is a very fun and creative person, so we got more and more ideas over the years that didn’t fit into Night of the Living Dead.”

 Once Soulstice Theater gave the troupe permission to use their sets, Angry Young Men Ltd began making more puppets and writing material for what would evolve into “Full Frontal Püppetry.” Most of the puppets are made from garbage the troupe found while dumpster diving.

“Billy, Josh and myself all went to college at UWM together as theater students,” Ahlstrom explains. “We were just in the regular theater program—not with puppets—but it seemed like a fun idea to work and build from.”Alston Jr. had been cast in the original “Night of the Living Dead" puppet show. “I wasn’t originally cast as Ben, but another dude got double cast by accident,” he remembers. “After that show, nothing felt more fun than playing with puppets more than once.”

Taylor met Perkins and Olsen through a mutual friend; her first production with Angry Young Men Ltd had been their most recent “Night of the Living Dead” show in 2019. “I used to do burlesque and drag king stuff, but I’d always had a passion for puppetry and Jim Henson too,” she related. “I started hanging out, then helping out, and now I’m here.” “We’re pretty much self-taught with all this,” Olsen notes about the troupe. “So we’ve got a lot of bad habits (laughs).”

 Fear of Puppets?

“I’m actually just now getting over my fear of puppets,” Reince laughs. “How could you not want to walk around with a zombie puppet singing Christmas carols? I absolutely want to do that.”

“Full Frontal Püppetry” sketches start as simple ideas or concepts before everyone riffs off of one another until it is fully fleshed out. “Sometimes we write as a group; sometimes someone comes to the group with a sketch already written,” Perkins said. “Everyone has their own approach.”

 Ahlstrom adds, “We have different voices writing with different types of humor so it’s easy to write something small and then have your creatively fun friends help you make it even better.” Pride notes, “That’s what’s great about our YouTube channel. If you’re interested in political humor, zombie humor, something that’s just weird and wrong…it’s all there.”

 “The way we write actually makes it easier when you’re not the puppeteer,” Olsen asserts. “We did a sketch where we actually casted these characters as actors in a Shakespeare parody, so that’s where we decide things like that Blondie is the inventor, Razzle is the tough one, Lillee is kind of witchy…the sketches very much come from where the characters come from.”

 The troupe essentially has to do two castings for sketches—one for who is available and one for which characters are involved. Inspired by “The Muppet Show,” Angry Young Men Ltd love to incorporate human special guests into sketches. “Once we know who our guest is, we can write them into some of the things we do,” Perkins said. “Our guests are often other people in the arts field so we’ll have them do their specialty. We’ve had musicians and comedians and other theater people.”

 Recent live sketches have included “Lumpy & Pals” at Krampusnacht 2023 in December, “Late Nite All Day” at Center Street Days last August and “Chekhov: Half Baked” at Milwaukee Fringe Festival also in August. Milwaukee Opera Theatre (MOT) recently commissioned Angry Young Men Ltd for an opera that was also based on the 1968 film, premiered last Halloween weekend. Perkins' wife, Julianne, had pitched the idea to MOT; after enthusiastic approval from MOT, Josh wrote the libretto and also directed Night of the Living Opera, complete with a score composed by Andrew Dewey. A non-comedic adaptation, Perkins’ concept encompassed the living being played by humans and zombies being represented by puppets designed, built and performed by Angry Young Men Ltd.

“It really challenged us to do things we hadn’t done before, and we loved doing it,” Perkins reflects on the opera.

 The troupe has done community projects such as puppet-making workshops at high schools as well. In terms of future plans, Angry Young Men Ltd are bringing “Full Frontal Püppetry” back for World Puppetry Day on March 21 at Brick House, 504 E Center St. They also plan to bring Night of the Living Deadback once they refine and reassemble the production. In fact, original cast members of the 1968 film have seen the puppet show. Olsen attests, “Kyra Schon, who played the little girl Karen, was in the front row clapping like a wild person with tears of joy down her face.”

Visit Angry Young Men Ltd’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/@angryyoungmenltd/videos and Facebook page at facebook.com/AngryYoungMenltd. 

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