The Inquiry

I received a call in early February from the head of the drama department at my daughter's school. She inquired if I would be interested in building a dragon for the school's production of "Shrek, the Musical" in early April. It turns out that she thought they would be able to rent one of the dragon puppets, but from the sources she checked they were either already rented out or would cost thousands of dollars to rent, including freight shipping both ways because it was so large. The head of the drama department said they'd like a 20' to 25' puppet that could be operated by three or four individuals.

She called me because I had done some work helping with my daughter's homecoming float over the past couple of years, and she didn't know where else to turn. I'd never attempted anything like this, and my initial reaction was "Ummm.... let me think about this."  I have a history of diving into big projects without taking everything into consideration (my wonderful wife can attest to this), so I made sure to discuss it with her to make sure she didn't think I was getting in over my head.