This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.
This year’s FestiFools puppet parade in Ann Arbor took on distinctly political undertones, with puppets inspired by President Donald Trump’s administration, Elon Musk, and other controversial figures. The theme of the annual parade, which celebrates chaos, foolishness, general anarchy, and the coming of spring, was "RevFOOLution."
"We work hard to keep people from trying to keep [FestiFools] organized," says FestiFools founder and University of Michigan (U-M) professor Mark Tucker.
He adds that his students who make the puppets are not art majors.
"They're bringing all of their classes or coursework, the things they're thinking about philosophically, politically, et cetera, and they're putting them in those puppets," he says.
Tucker says his students "have really put a lot of love and thought into these [puppets] – and the great thing is, the community responds to that, and they are the ones that bring these puppets alive. Otherwise, they're just a bunch of cardboard and string and paper and glue."
We asked puppet-masters, community members, and other participants about their FestiFools experience.
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Doug CoombeDylan Teper (center, obscured by puppet) with "Mr. MAGA: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing"
Teper, a U-M student, designed a puppet meant to resemble a wolf in sheep’s clothing, saying, "It’s a commentary about our current [presidential] administration. A lot of folks who voted for [Trump] really did feel like he was going to do something good for them and help them out. And I think that the administration, although they pose as something really great and beneficial, at the end of the day, they’re really in it for themselves."
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Doug Coombe
"Marie Antoinette"
Jaya Roethlisberger and Sydney Black's Marie Antoinette puppet, which was beheaded via guillotine mid-parade, was inspired by the idea of "people who are ignorant to the life of others," Black said.
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Doug CoombeJaya Roethlisberger holds "Marie Antoinette"'s head.
In a reference to Marie Antoinette’s infamous statement, "Let them eat cake," the puppet came replete with prop cakes painted with more modern political messaging such as "I can’t breathe," "What is DEI," and "Your body, my choice." "We’re trying to just get the point [across] that being ignorant is not really helping anyone and that ignorant leaders don’t really help anyone," Black said.
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Doug Coombe
Meagan Dietz and Niketha Moore
"I always dress up like a clown. I do it all the time," Dietz said. When she and Moore talked about coming to this year’s parade, Moore asked Dietz if she could borrow an outfit. "I said, ‘I have options,'" Dietz said. Both Moore and Dietz are artists based in Monroe, Mich. Moore said they came to FestiFools "to check out the art and see what kind of fools there are – [and to] join the fools."
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Doug Coombe
Violet Raterman and family
"This is a tradition. Every spring, we come out here for the parade [and] bring the kids," Raterman said. She said this year’s RevFOOLutionary theme has been "starting a lot of conversations with us and our kids and they’ve been asking a lot of good questions – and it’s different than last year, definitely. It’s opened up a lot of dialogue. The kids are enjoying it."
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Doug Coombe
Evelyn Mousigian with "Praying Mantis"
Mousigian, a senior at U-M, created "a giant praying mantis eating a fly Elon Musk," describing the puppet as "a very sort of goofy, light-hearted way of getting out some frustration." While Musk has been described as "the green billionaire," Mousigian said "he hasn’t really shown up for that [cause] at all," and that the Musk-owned X "fuels climate denialism."
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Doug Coombe
Amanda Edmonds
Edmonds, former mayor of Ypsilanti, said she repurposed a giraffe head she’d originally made for the similar ypsiGLOW parade "many, many, many years ago now." "If you’re going to go to a parade, you might as well wear a giant giraffe head," she said. "I love a parade that’s so DIY, where people make things and don’t just throw candy from a car. … This is, to me, the true spirit of what a parade is really about."
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Doug Coombe
Emrys Dayringer, Niel Dayringer, and Amber Miller
"When I was a kid, my dad had made a mask for Halloween that was much more detailed than this, that was just paper all crunched up and stapled together and spray-painted, and it always just really creeped everybody out," Niel Dayringer said. "Everyone would cross the street to get away from him. And I always just remembered how simple of a mask it was and how easy and how effective it was. Nowadays I just make fun masks. It only takes about an hour to make something."
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Doug Coombe
Maya Baum-Ferrise
Baum-Ferrise, who grew up in Ann Arbor, has been coming to FestiFools with her family "since I was little." This year, she said "I threw together a bunch of things I have from previous events and thought were fun and colorful," including "crowns from Pride last year … made out of zip-ties on a hair band."
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Doug Coombe
Skunk
"Clowns are revolutionary and they’re fantastic and in times of strife, they take apart the tension and replace it with community, and we really need that right now," said Skunk, a professional circus clown. "It’s so beautiful to come together as a community in times of crisis – because we can overcome everything together."
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Doug Coombe
Jellybean of the Plant Sluts
"We actually are not always super appropriate," said Jellybean, founder and leading member of the Plant Sluts, a burlesque body-positivity troupe based in Grand Rapids. "Ever since I was a kid, people [would] call you really raunchy, terrible names, and it doesn't matter what you're wearing." Jellybean said the troupe has reclaimed the word "slut." "We really mean it in a nice, endearing way," Jellybean said. "... We’re just happy sluts all the time."
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Doug Coombe
State Rep. Carrie Rheingans (on the right)
Rheingans was at the first FestiFools in 2007. This year’s theme, Rheingans said, has been "much more political … than I have seen, even in Trump’s first term." She added, "Ann Arbor has a really strong history of using art to express our feelings and our pain and helping us get through rough times."
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Doug Coombe
Gordie Wykes
"This is actually an everyday look for me," Wykes said. "Nobody believes it, but I’m a shy person." He said he likes unicorns because "they’re unique" and "kind of the last of their kind." Wykes said he "stumbled on [FestiFools] accidentally one year," and kept coming back, year after year, after realizing, "This is the perfect way to spend my Sunday."
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Doug Coombe
Mark Tucker
According to the coy FestiFools founder, "Some of my students were responding to world events, and you might have seen that in some of the puppets today." This year, Tucker said, "we're bringing the joy and the fun, and [while] we could have brought some [puppets] that were much darker and much more on the nose, we chose not to – but we talked a lot about it." He added, "We feel like we're the musicians on the Titanic, you know?"
Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.
All photos by Doug Coombe.