Puppetry Pedagogy in the Digital Age: A Strategy for Effective Storytelling in Contemporary Theatre

Exploring puppetry pedagogy as a learner-centered experiential training to enhance creative storytelling in the digital age demands for artistic and technical competence to bridge the communicative and aesthetic function of theatre in education. Puppetry pedagogy transcends the manual manipulation and the traditional display of puppets to its effective usage as a teaching and learning strategy through sentient design, construction and manipulation of puppetry performance as a teaching tool. In the digital age, particular attention to effective storytelling in technical collaboration to enhance its narrative competencies. It examines how digital tools, through the film medium can be integrated into puppetry education. This study is anchored on Constructivist Learning Theory and Multimodal Theory using The Untold Story written and directed by Aniebiet Mbede for Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU) Pinnacle Theatre (Twelfth Season of Productions, 2026). In a qualitative case study design, data was collected through experimentation, participant’s observation and key informant’s interview. Findings reveal that whereas, traditional methods of puppetry manipulation enhance the imagination; the innovative narrative structure of the digital age extends the frontiers of the performance in an interactive and transmissible media that embodies intentional storytelling in a format adept to contemporary society. The study demonstrates that well-designed puppets, combined with effective manipulation techniques, contribute to audience engagement, character development, visual aesthetics, and the communication of dramatic themes. The findings further reveal that puppetry encourages audience participation, particularly among children and young adults. The research recommends partnerships between professional puppeteers and the film/creative industry to establish collaborative pedagogical productions.