Short version:
Puppeteer Richard Merrill
Richard Merrill discovered puppetry at age 8 in a summer arts program. Since then, he has founded two puppet theaters, making the stages, puppets and scenery and writing the plays. Merrillıs background in mechanical engineering, music and art find their perfect expression in puppetry. His shadow puppets have been enjoyed throughout Maine and were on exhibit for four months at the Farnsworth Art Museum in the Characters in Hand exhibition in 2001-2002. Merrill was a workshop presenter at Sharing the Fire, the nationıs oldest and largest storytellerıs conference in March 2002. His current projects are The Outrageous Wisdom of Nasruddin, hilarious stories from many spiritual traditions, and The Pocket Shadow Theater, showing shadow plays of the unsinkable Elmer and tales of Nasruddin. Merrill can be reached at 207-326-9503, by email at rmerrill@pinegraphics.com, or through his website, www.pinegraphics.com.
Longer version:
Puppeteer Richard Merrill
 Since early childhood Richard Merrill worked with clay as a response to the world around him. He discovered puppetry at age 8 when a summer arts program offered puppetry. A shy child, Merrill surprised himself and everyone else by virtually took over the class. Merrill presided over the choosing of the story and the writing of the play; he made most of the marionettes, including his own character who picked things up and put them in a bag, helped with the stage design, and coached the other puppeteers. Since then, through school and careers as a high-tech mechanical engineer, music and art teacher, building contractor and graphic designer, puppetry has remained a leitmotif running through his experience. 
When the only available engineering work in Massachusetts was in designing weapons systems, Merrill and his family moved to Maine, settling in the coastal town of Brooksville, where they have lived for nearly twenty years. There Merrill founded a full-time puppet theater, Puppet, Song and Thou, performing throughout eastern Maine for schools, organizations, and festivals for three years. Merrill also ran a summer arts day camp where children drew and painted, built pots from clay and fired them in traditional pit kilns, and made kites, musical instruments, boomerangs, and of course puppets.
Paying the bills is always a challenge for the puppeteer. Merrill became a carpenter; his engineering experience moved him ahead quickly, and he became a design-build contractor for homes in the Blue Hill area. On-the-job injuries forced him to reevaluate his career path, and in 1994 Merrill learned computer graphics. His business, Autograff, allows him him to perform a moderate schedule. Nasruddin, the storytelling Persian folk character, appeared about 1995, when Merrill studied with master puppeteer John Farrell at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle. Nasruddin is a direct-manipulation puppet two feet tall, without strings or wires. Sometimes Nasruddin will begin a story and it will be taken up by shadow puppets. There are also plays for shadow puppets, notably those starring  Elmer, a simple character who is delighted with whatever befalls him.
Nasruddinıs influence has caused Merrill to focus on stories with spiritual content, usually well-disguised, in the Sufi tradition (the poet Rumi was a Sufi). Sufis taught spiritual and social truths based on the level of knowledge of their audiences, often telling very humorous stories to make a spiritual point. Nasruddin was originally a Persian folk character, a fool whose antics contained valuable kernels of wisdom. In his present incarnation, Nasruddin tells Sufi tales and stories from Jewish, Buddhist and Christian wisdom traditions. His inimitable style captures audiences of all ages.
Merrill has created shadow puppets for Figures of Speech Theater, Freeport, Maine, and exhibited his puppets at the Peregrine Gallery in Blue Hill, Schoodic Arts Festival, and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, where he also gave three performances. Merrill was a workshop presenter at Sharing the Fire, the nationıs oldest and largest storytellerıs conference in March 2002. He has given puppetry workshops for diverse audiences, from children of migrant blueberry harvesters to schools and arts organizations to families at arts festivals.
Merrill can be reached at 207-326-9503, by email at rmerrill@pinegraphics.com, or through his website, www.pinegraphics.com.
Audience response to Nasruddin:
³Nasruddin is so alive, I was so fascinated. His hand movements are so expressive!²
³He seems to change the expression on his face. How do you do that? And his stories are just a scream!²
³I just canıt believe how a puppet can stand there and tell stories for an hour, and we all are just entranced.²
Responses from pastors:
³Thank you and Nasruddin for what was one of the high points of my Festival.  I will never forget Nasruddin, and my gratitude to you is therefore permanent.²
									Rev. Eugene Schwab
³Those stories­ they just tickle me. They stick with you, because theyıre so funny.²
									Rev. Harald Smedal
³What heıs doing is so important! Heıs telling the truth! Itıs wonderful! Itıs priceless!²
									Brother Blue, storyteller
									at Sharing the Fire