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Nobody wants the eggplant. The women making puppets are choosing objects to serve as heads, and styrofoam balls are popular. So are brown spheroids that look like acorns. Acorns are cute. But no one picks the waxy fake eggplant.

That's why Robin Walsh is the pro. As she leads a Stanford Lively Arts workshop teaching Palo Alto teachers how to craft puppets, she chooses the eggplant -- and transforms it.

Before long, the aubergine is a regal purple head, its stem like a crown. Red and orange scarves become the puppet's robes. Walsh controls the puppet with one rod attached to the head and two in the corners of the scarves to make hands.

Gently, Walsh makes the puppet sway and glide. You know she's the one controlling it, but you find yourself following the eggplant as it gives a noble nod. The teachers watch silently.

"Music speaks to the heart. So do puppets," Walsh says. "You know it's not alive, but then it's looking at you. It's breathing. It's dancing."

Walsh's puppets will be dancing on the stage of Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium later this month, woven into the dramatic music of Sergei Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet." The performances will be part of "The Prokofiev Project," a Lively Arts festival of concerts and talks focused on the composer and pianist, running Nov. 12 through Nov. 15 on campus.

Walsh and fellow puppeteer Jesse Kingsley will perform with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra in a symphonic suite extracted from Prokofiev's three "Romeo and Juliet" suites. On Nov. 14, "Romeo and Juliet" is on the program with Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, op. 16, featuring pianist Alexander Toradze; and "May Night: Intermezzo from 'War and Peace.'"

The following day, the puppeteers and orchestra will again perform the "Romeo and Juliet" suite as a family matinee. (A special matinee on Nov. 13 for local teachers and students features the Gunn High School orchestra.)

Walsh, who is based in Los Angeles, came early to the Peninsula to lead the teachers' workshop. The goal behind these periodic Lively Arts workshops is to help teachers and students better understand and appreciate performances.

One thing audiences young and old might want to know in advance is that this "Romeo and Juliet" is not meant to be violent. As a Lively Arts teachers' guide puts it: "While this performance will follow the essential outlines of Shakespeare's play, representations of violence and death will be symbolic rather than literal, making use of fabric, color and movement." With puppets, Walsh says, conflict and even death can be safely played out.

But there won't be as much death as one might think. This "Romeo and Juliet" has a happy ending. According to the concert program, Prokofiev originally wrote a ballet in which a grieving Romeo is about to commit suicide after thinking Juliet is dead -- but then Friar Laurence stays Romeo's hand, and Juliet awakens. Under pressure from Soviet authorities, though, Prokofiev changed the ending back.

At its core, Walsh says, the tale is a simple story of dualities: love and loss, life and death. Her puppets are simple, too. While Romeo and Juliet are statuesque -- Romeo is more than 8 feet tall -- their structures are basic: folded-paper heads on bodies of flowing fabric and rods.

At the Palo Alto workshop, held late last month in the library at Barron Park Elementary School, the teachers are crafting smaller versions of these fabric rod puppets, learning a method they'll show their students before the performance. Colorful silk and polyester pieces cover one table, while another is piled with potential decorations: pipe cleaners, feathers, beads, a tiny straw hat and a bag of spangles.

The teachers choose their materials and create as Walsh directs them through the process, wielding pins and glue guns. Her enthusiasm is infectious.

"I'm a puppeteer -- I openly admit. And make a living at it," Walsh says, grinning. She's worked in puppetry for two decades: on stage, in movies, in the United States, Europe and China.

Students can learn various lessons from the puppets and the performance, Walsh tells the teachers. There are difficult issues to be discussed, such as teen suicide. There is also appreciation for "the flowing, grand richness of the music," she says. Students can learn to write new stories for their puppets, or practice coordination by having two people work together to wield the same puppet.

Terri Feinberg, who teaches fourth and fifth grade at Ohlone Elementary School, says she's eager to have her students dive in. "I think that they learn more with an art-infused curriculum."

She ponders using puppets for other lessons as well, particularly when teaching about explorers. "I was thinking that the kids could write a script," she says. "This way they will remember the explorers, where they went."

When the teachers finish their puppets, they practice bringing them to life, having them dance or sway or embrace other puppets. Walsh gives them a tip on adding drama: Hold the puppet completely still, then move just one thing, like a hand.

"I follow 'Zen puppetry.' When you work the puppet, it isn't you doing it. I just let it go, let the magic happen," Walsh says. "A puppeteer is more like a director than an actor."


What: "The Prokofiev Project," a four-day festival of concerts and talks

Where and when: Curator/scholar Joseph Horowitz begins the festival at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 12 with a free evening of discussion, film, performance and recordings in Campbell Recital Hall, joined by pianists Alexander Toradze, Kumaran Arul and George Barth.

On Nov. 13, the "Pianistic Prokofiev" concert features Toradze, Arul and Barth, at 8 p.m. in Dinkelspiel Auditorium, with works including "Sarcasms," op. 17; and "Cinderella," op. 45.

On Nov. 14, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and puppeteers Robin Walsh and Jesse Kingsley perform at 8 p.m. in Dinkelspiel, with the program including "Romeo and Juliet." A family matinee of "Romeo and Juliet" is at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 15 in Dinkelspiel.

Cost: The Nov. 12 evening event is free; ticket prices for the other events are $10-$46.

Info: For details, go to livelyarts.stanford.edu or call 650-725-ARTS.