PORTLAND — Austin Phillips picks up one of the several disembodied heads on his workbench and begins to show off what it can do. Using a couple small levers, Phillips makes its eyes move from side to side, its eyebrows go up and down and its mouth open wide.

But when Phillips asks the head to talk, it balks. When Phillips insists, the head asks “How come I’m not finished?” Phillips stammers and stumbles for an answer before the head blurts, “Too many coffee breaks.”

Phillips, 33, has been a full-time maker and fixer of ventriloquist dummies for 10 years, working alone in a two-room studio in the State Theatre building on Congress Street. He’s one of the last in the country and sells some 40 to 50 of his creations a year to collectors or performers around the world. Prices range from $700 to more than $12,000, for a dummy that’s based on a living person.

Austin Phillips makes and repairs ventroloquist dummies from his studio in Portland’s State Theatre building. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

While there may be a few other people making and repairing ventriloquist figures full time, Phillips’ reputation among collectors and experts is hard to match, says Lisa Sweasy, director of the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, the only one in the world dedicated to ventriloquism.

“The quality of his work will stand the test of time, and decades from now people will boast that they have an Austin Phillips creation in their act or collection,” said Sweasy. “His regard and admiration for those figure makers who predate him have inspired him to set personal standards that are head and shoulders above what is necessary to just produce a working dummy.”

A box of hands stand at the ready, at Austin Phillips’ Portland workshop. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this imageThe guy with the doll

Phillips was 5 years old when he saw a replica of Charlie McCarthy, who belonged to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and was as well-known to American audiences in the 1930s and 40s as Taylor Swift is today. The figure was in a toy store at the Fox Run Mall in Newington, New Hampshire, and wore McCarthy’s signature outfit: top hat, tuxedo and monocle.

The toy figure looked out of place in the 1990s, when Nintendo Game Boy and Pokemon were all the rage. Phillips remembers being fascinated with how it looked and moved, especially the square-jawed face and dangling limbs.

“It looked so mechanical and I was always ripping things apart to see how they worked,” said Phillips, who grew up in York and lives in Buxton.

After getting the figure for Christmas, he spent years learning about the art and history of ventriloquism. It became a popular form of entertainment around the time of the Civil War, in parlors and taverns. Twenty or 30 years later, ventriloquists and their dummies were performing in English music halls and American vaudeville theaters.

In a time before computer-generated action films and TikTok videos, a man sitting on stage having funny conversations with a doll that seemed alive was considered highly entertaining. Since Charlie McCarthy’s heyday in the 1940s, ventriloquists and their dummies have gained mainstream popularity in fits and starts, including Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, Wayland Flowers and Madame, and Willie Tyler and Lester. In the 2000s, comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham has sold out concert arenas and had specials on Comedy Central and Netflix. Today, ventriloquists and their dummies star in YouTube or TikTok videos.

Austin Phillips works in his studio in Portland. Phillips is one of the last full-time professional makers of ventriloquist dummies in the U.S. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Phillips taught himself ventriloquism, how to make it sound as though his voice was coming from the dummy while the dummy’s expressions and movements matched and enhanced the dialogue. Without giving away too many secrets, Phillips says ventriloquism is manipulating your voice so it seems like it’s coming from another direction. And a dummy rolling his eyes, smacking his lips and turning his head is all part of that misdirection.

In high school, Phillips started building his own dummies. He thought if he was ever going be a really good ventriloquist, he’d need a better dummy, but couldn’t afford a custom one. His grandfather, a woodworker, helped him learn to carve figures. Working with knives, sandpaper and files, he made his first dummies.

At some point Phillips said he put dummies on the back burner and focused his attention on more crucial teenage issues, like trying to get a girlfriend.

“They weren’t exactly impressed with the guy with the doll, so I shifted focus a little bit,” Phillips said.

Getting smart about dummies

After high school Phillips went to the University of Maine at Farmington, where he was a technical theater major, focused on building sets and props. But he also began searching out master ventriloquist makers around the world, trying to learn from them. One was Geoff Felix, a celebrated British maker who also restored antique figures. Phillips’ father worked for Delta Airlines at Logan Airport in Boston, so using his father’s flight benefits, he went to England to meet and learn from Felix. Felix has kept track of Phillips and his work in the dozen or so years since and praises Phillips’ attention to detail, mechanisms, knowledge of the art’s history and aesthetics.

“They look nicer than most,” Felix said of Phillips’ dummies.

Besides making and restoring ventriloquist figures, Phillips has been production manager for Portland Ballet’s “A Victorian Nutcracker” and performed ventriloquism with his dummies at Mayo Street Arts in Portland.

Austin Phillips is one of the last full-time professional makers of ventriloquist dummies in the U.S. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

But most of his time is spent wearing an apron, sitting in front of a work bench lined with chisels, knives and other tools, plus heads, hands and assorted body parts. He uses an epoxy resin, poured in molds, to make the faces and body parts. Then he carves out the finer features. He solders the brass rods and mechanisms used to move eyelids, mouths and ears. He fits a wooden stick into the head with little levers to control movements.

Most of the dummies take him about 12 weeks to six months or more, while doing repairs and working on other things. He’s got a line of basic figures, by his standards, which he sells for about $700. He makes the faces and body parts in batches, from the same molds. It’s his version of an assembly line for starter dummies. People can choose the hair, eye color and clothes. But the “bells and whistles” like blinking eyes or wiggling ears are only available on more expensive custom models. If someone orders a custom job based on a real person, it would probably cost $12,000 or more.

“It takes a lot of work to get the likeness right. I spend a lot more time on those,” said Phillips.

The front room of Austin Phillips’ Portland studio holds his collection of antique dummies, puppets and figures. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Phillips says he probably makes 40 to 50 figures a year and does repairs or restorations on another 30 or so. Only about 15% of Phillips’ customers perform, and most of those use the dummies to make online and social media content. The days of a large dummy sitting on a ventriloquist’s knee on stage are mostly gone, Phillips says.

He also makes figures for film and TV productions. He recently supplied dummies for the NBC crime drama “The Hunting Party.” The episode featured a comedian-turned-serial killer who incorporates a ventriloquist’s dummy into his sinister plots. Dunham had a guest role on the show as a target of the killer ventriloquist. Phillips had to make some stunt dummies that could be smashed, and was also on set in New York as a consultant to the show.

The majority of Phillips’ customers are collectors interested in the nostalgia of the figures. They might have been fans of Edgar Bergen or of Paul Winchell, who was popular on TV in the 1950s and ’60s. Bruce Beyer, a doctor in Nashville, Tennessee, owns 10 of Phillips’ figures. He’s also donated three of Phillip’s creations to the Vent Haven Museum. As somebody who has owned more than 100 figures over the years, Beyer appreciates Phillips ability to make a dummy “look alive” even when sitting still.

Punch and Judy puppets from Austin Phillips’ collection, at his studio in Portland. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Phillips is a collector himself. He has about 50 puppets, dummies and figures displayed in the front room of his shop, with some dating to the 1800s. It’s become sort of a museum, where Phillips displays works by important figure makers, as well as his favorites. He’s happy to schedule appointments for people to come in and see the collection. Phillips says he keeps the collectable figures close by so he can use them as a reference, and as inspiration.

“Looking at the real deal every day,” he said, “I’m always charged up to hit the bench and think of what else I can do.”