Fact Sheet

Dragons Are Too Seldom Puppet Productions began in the summer of 1971. That summer Markie Scholz and her sister Claire Scholz went to New Jersey to entertain families by doing puppet shows. Their first performance netted $.37 in donations. That convinced them to take their profession more seriously. And so they did. The theatre expanded to six members with Markie, Sue Hey and Leonard Running touring, and the rest booking and creating shows and designing puppets from their home base in Deadwood, SD. Then the touring troupe became a one person/ many puppeted show. Markie is currently a one person troupe. She and her puppets have performed in thirty-nine states and six countries. She travels 30,000 to 70,000 miles a year in her pursuit to bring puppets to the masses.

She has performed at art festivals, senior citizen centers, schools, day care centers, benefits, birthday parties, and on the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour traffic, to name just a few.

Scholz has a studio in Spearfish SD where she creates puppets, writes scripts, rehearses, designs and books her shows. She shares this space with some six hundred retired puppets who line the walls and ceiling.

This is Markie’s full time job. She has performed for an audience as large as 5000 at a Girl Scout Jamboree and as small as five at a rural school 72 miles from the nearest town. She has performed for over a million South Dakotans and just as many others throughout the world.

Each year she travels and performs for schools, the Summer Reading Program in libraries, art festivals, recreation departments, military schools in Europe and the States, birthday parties, retirement parties, school reunions and any event that needs a little laughter and fun.

“Puppetry is a wonderful profession!” says Scholz. “It allows you to share a magical time with wonderful people. I hope I will still be a puppeteer when I am 95.”