Max Skeleton is 17 feet tall marionette co-created by Mary Plaster and Chris Lutter, thanks to a fall 2017 Career Development grant from Arrowhead Regional Arts Council (ARAC). Max Skeleton began as a giant skull and boney hands for a Death character in the first annual Duluth ALL Souls Night (DASN) by Mary Plaster in 2008. Mary received a 2017 Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Career Development grant to partner with the extensive Twin Cities puppet community to build and rehearse a full-scale gangly body for the 10th Duluth ALL Souls Night and the 24th Barebones Puppets Halloween Extravaganza.

Max Skeleton appeared on October 31, 2021, as part of the Festival de las Calveras
Twin Cities Latinx Music + Arts Festival 2021

Poster Art & Graphic Design by Jorge Amerigo

Max Skeleton appeared at Fermentation Fest
in Reedsburg, WI in October 2020

Mary Plaster and Christopher Lutter-gardella (technical designer), were joined by Willis Bowman and Matt Carlyle, who engineered and fabricated a rolling crane to suspend Max to lead the Southside Battle Train parade prologue to the MayDay Parade in 2018.

With the vision of Chris Lutter this wondrous skeleton became the largest marionette in Minnesota (performing with four puppeteers hung from a tree in Hidden Falls [photo: Max Haynes] and then from a support beam in the Duluth Depot [video: Chris Lutter]). Maximus continues to be lovingly repaired, adjusted and displayed far beyond the original ARAC art funds to the delight of growing audiences.

We hope they are only the first of many of these amazing traveling wonders communicating our connections!

Please encourage these unprecedented cooperative efforts of Minnesota's extensive street theatre network by friending Max on Facebook

Max Skeleton is 17' tall skeleton puppet created by Mary Plaster, artist, and Chris Lutter, technical designer, thanks to a fall 2017 Career Development grant from Arrowhead Regional Arts Council (ARAC).

Max's Creation Story

The original giant skull was created by Mary Plaster for a cloaked death figure in the first Duluth ALL Souls Night (DASN) in November 2008.

The first puppet consisted of giant skull, hands, and a black cloak covering the manipulator, Mary's son Zack Plaster for eight annual events.

Mary Plaster received an ARAC Career Development grant to coordinate building a scale skeleton body for Max in time to celebrate the tenth Duluth ALL Souls Night (DASN) on November 4th, 2017. The funds paid for materials and technical skills of Chris Lutter at Puppet Farm Studio and for a team of seasoned puppeteers from Barebones Puppets in Minneapolis.

Finished giant puppet Max enlisted four manipulators to crawl on the ground and then sit and stand as a giant marionette for the Halloween Extravaganza shows in Hidden Falls Regional Park of St Paul, MN. The apparatus hung from a tall tree branch. Max and their apparatus were then moved to a beam to dance in the Duluth Downtown Depot for the Duluth ALL Souls Night (DASN) celebration.

Building Max

Max taking some bamboo ribbing from Mary Plaster.

Technical designer, Chris Lutter, tests out the wooden inner core of the skeleton leg at his PuppetFarm studio.