You can see the puppeteers silhouettes for about the first two minutes of the show, said St-Denis, a puppeteer and tour director of The Hobbit. After that it disappears. The magical set and mystical puppets capture your attention and the focus is on the story, not us or our silhouettes.

The story, a legendary tale depicting the fantasy of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who ventures from his comfortable home to encounter Trolls, Goblins and hideous monsters, is a work that took creators nearly two years to adapt for the stage.

It took about a year for all of the creators to make an adaptation from the book, St-Denis said. After this a designer was asked to make costumes, and finally sets were drawn and put to scale.

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He also admitted that although his puppet mastering talents are now polished and perfected, his ability to perform the craft of the puppeteer was also to begin with.

There are thousands and thousands of movements for your puppet, St-Denis said. You have to find what movements you are proficient at and work from there.

The craft of puppeteering was originally studied by the Japanese in a technique called Bunraku, a familiar practice for the puppet masters of The Hobbit.

The Japanese tradition of Bunraku is what every puppeteer begins with, St-Denis said. Now, or at least eventually, we as puppeteers find our own way to manipulate the puppet and move on from the form of Bunraku.

Each puppet is usually navigated by more than one actor, who may manipulate the arms, feet or head. The size of each puppet determines the manpower needed to control them.

The puppets are as little as 3 feet tall to 25 feet in length, St-Denis said. Each puppet, with the exception of the 3 foot, is operated by two actors. The dragon, big and magical, has four manipulators.

St-Denis said with only five puppeteer operators involved in The Hobbit, rehearsals are important, but time for rehearsal is difficult for the cast to find.

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It is very tight work considering that more than one entertainer is creating one character, he said. We only spend a few days in each place and we don’t have time to rehearse, but we did practice for nearly two months before we began touring.

The time spent away from the actors’ native city of Montreal is stressful at times, but St-Denis said it the profession they chose and the lifestyle they prefer.

My God we travel quickly, he said. We travel around the world and sometimes it is difficult, but we chose the job because we want to be on stage to tell the story to the people.

We are prepared for living week to week or month to month the amazement of each city makes the travel a little easier.

St-Denis and his fellow cast members are from colorful backgrounds and find the utmost joy in the performing arts field.

All of the actors come from the artistic world, but they are all very different, he said. Some of them are dancers or musicians or actors. There is no particular thing for a puppeteer.

It is amazing because everywhere we go we talk about the show and the city we are in, and everyone has a different perspective of each.

Factoid:The performance of The Hobbit will be at 3 p.m. Saturday in Shryock Auditorium. All seats are $14.50. For information, call 453-3379 or fax 453-8164.