The UConn Puppet Arts Program and Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will host the end-of-semester presentation of UConn Puppet Arts undergraduate and graduate class finals on Thursday, May 7 and Friday, May 8 at 7 p.m. EST. These presentations will take place on Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/). Talkbacks led by famed puppeteer Blair Thomas will also take place each night.
On Thursday, May 7, final presentations and performances and talkbacks for Marionette Fabrication; Movement for Puppet Performance; and Puppetry and Modernism will take place via Facebook Live. Students in the Marionette Fabrication class will present performance figures that they have designed, patterned, assembled, and strung. Movement for Puppet Performance students will each present short pieces showing how movement and breath tell a story. Students in Puppetry and Modernism will present brief “pecha kucha” distillations of their final research projects. Anticipated runtime for the evening is 2.5 hours.
On Friday, May 8, join the students of Dr. Matthew Cohen’s Hand Puppetry class for an evening of hand puppet shows based on Connecticut history, legends, and personages. Plays include stories about Coventry-based gardener and author Adelma Grenier Simmons, Easton-based activist and journalist Ida Tarbell, the Glawackus monster of Glastonbury, the wandering Leatherman, and the legend of New Milford’s Lovers Leap. Anticipated runtime for the evening is 3.25 hours.
Blair Thomas, Founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago International Puppet Festival, will join us both evenings as a Responder to the students’ work.
Blair is an internationally recognized puppet artist who co-founded Red Moon Theater in Chicago in 1990. In 2002 he created his own solo company, Blair Thomas & Co., which has garnered outstanding critiques and responses from puppet festivals around the world. blairthomas.org
For more information, please contact Ballard Institute staff at bimp@uconn.edu.