Current Exhibitions

Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium, 10/25-10/26

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is excited to host a “Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium” on Friday and Saturday, October 25-26, in conjunction with our Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community exhibition curated by Dr. Paulette Richards. 

The “Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium” is inspired by and explores in more details the work of Alice Swann and Nancy Schmale, housewives from the interracial Concord Park subdivision near Philadelphia, who, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of a more equitable “beloved community,” worked together to create a popular hand-puppet theater. Founded in 1961, their company, reflecting contemporary developments in the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, and innovations in children’s media, created entertaining and educational puppet productions performed throughout the Northeast. The symposium will bring together University of Connecticut faculty from the departments of Economics, History, English, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with scholars, puppeteers, and activists from the U.S. and abroad. 

The symposium is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register to attend in person, visit: bimp.ticketleap.com.  

The symposium will be live streamed via Zoom. To register to attend virtually, please visit: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rQdSZJe8TOmmETxtwng3Xw.

The “Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium” is supported by a UConn School of Fine Arts Anti-Racism Grant and University of Connecticut Humanities Institute Speaker, Conference, and Workshop funding; and is co-sponsored by UConn’s African American Cultural Center, Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, and the Robert T. Leo, Jr. Fund for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts.

The schedule will include:  

Friday, October 25 

4-5 p.m.: Wonderland Puppet Theater exhibition tour with curator Dr. Paulette Richards  

5-6:30 p.m.: Dinner break  (not provided)

6:30-7 p.m.: Keynote Address: Dr. Paulette Richards  

7-8 p.m.: Film Screening: In Black, a documentary on African American puppeteers directed by Jacqueline Wade, with post-screening discussion with the director.  

Saturday, October 26 

9:30-11 a.m.: “’The Marriage Agreement’: Women Artists Navigate Gendered Divisions of Labor” with Dr. Nancy Naples (UConn Departments of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Dr. Alissa Mello (University of Exeter), and Jacqueline Wade (filmmaker and puppeteer). 

Early press for Wonderland Puppet Theater identified the artists as Mrs. James Swann and Mrs. Raymond Schmale. Yet 1963, the year they attended the Puppeteers of America national festival was also the year that Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. Wonderland Puppet Theater addressed the discontent around the “traditional” role of women, especially in their portrayals of traditional puppets Punch and Judy. How much progress have women made in re-negotiating “the marriage agreement” and extricating themselves from “the second shift” of housework and childcare that women carried as they moved into occupations, including artistic careers, that took them out of the home?  

11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.: “Children’s Media: Literature, Television, Theater” with Dr. Vibiana Bowman (Rutgers University emerita), Dr. Katharine Capshaw (UConn Department of English), and Khalilah Brooks (Puppeteer, Aunty B’s House).

In 1966 Alice Swann and Nancy Schmale began to perform their puppetry on live television. Each week alternated between the two women puppeteering on a show hosted by Willadine Bain, a former high school English teacher. Swann, a certified kindergarten teacher, collaborated with Bain on scripts that presented age-appropriate literacy lessons and information about African American history. How much power do women and people of color have in creating children’s media today?  Is children’s media bringing us closer to or taking is further from embracing the vision of “Beloved Community” as a core value?  

12:45-2 p.m.: Lunch break  (not provided)

2-3:30 p.m.: “Residential Segregation” with Dr. Stephen L. Ross (UConn Department of Economics), and Dr. Jeffrey Ogbar (UConn Departments of History and American Studies).  

Morris Milgram was the son of impoverished immigrants in New York City. Expelled from college for leading an anti-fascist protest, he joined the real estate development industry and was a pioneer in desegregated living communities. In 1954 he established Concord Park, an interracial subdivision of single-family homes for middle-class buyers just outside of Philadelphia. This symposium aims to answer the following questions: What is the status of residential desegregation today vs. 1956 when Milgram broke ground on Concord Park?  What do developers, lenders, elected officials, and community organizers need to do to make further progress towards realizing Milgram’s dream?  

 3:30-4: Final Thoughts, moderated by Dr. Paulette Richards, with all symposium participants. 

Puppets and the Immaterial World with Tim Cusack and Claudia Orenstein on 10/10

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As part of its 2024 Fall Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is pleased to host Puppets and the Immaterial World, a discussion with Tim Cusack and Claudia Orenstein, moderated by Ballard Institute director John Bell on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. This forum will also be broadcast via Ballard Institute Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute).  

 The Puppets and the Immaterial World Forum will focus on Orenstein and Cusack’s explorations of contemporary puppetry and spirituality in the recently published second volume of Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects. Volume Two is subtitled “Contemporary Branchings: Secular Benedictions, Activated Energies, Uncanny Faiths,” and the essays in it continue the series’ consideration of a difficult, perhaps uncomfortable, and certainly overlooked aspect of modern puppetry: its spiritual functions. 

Dr. Claudia Orenstein is a Professor of Theater and Performance at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, and has spent almost two decades writing on contemporary and traditional puppetry in the US and Asia. One of her recent books is Reading the Puppet Stage: Reflections on Dramaturgy and Performing Objects, and she co-edited, with Tim Cusack, the two volumes of Puppet and Spirit: Ritual Religion and Performing Objects. She is also the editor of the online peer review journal Puppetry International Research, and is the recipient of a 2021-22 Fulbright Research Fellowship.   

Tim Cusack was the assistant editor for both the Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance and Women and Puppetry, and with Claudia Orenstein, has co-edited both volumes of Puppet and Spirit. He is particularly interested in the intersections of queer culture, theatre, and spiritual beliefs. He is an adjunct lecturer in the Theatre Department at Hunter College where he teaches acting.  

Admission to this event is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served. For more information or if you require accommodation to attend a forum, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860.486.8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.  

Opening of Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community on 8/21

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The Ballard Institute will present the grand opening of its new exhibition Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community on Wednesday, Aug. 21, with refreshments served at 4:30 p.m. and an in-person exhibition tour at 5 p.m. by curator Dr. Paulette Richards and Ballard Institute Director Dr. John Bell, which will also be streamed on Ballard Institute’s Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/). All events will take place at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

In the summer of 1961 in the suburban community of Concord Park, near Philadelphia, Nancy Schmale persuaded her neighbor Alice Swann to put on The Magic Onion, a puppet show written by Bil and Cora Baird, even though neither Schmale nor Swann had any experience performing with puppets. This collaboration set into motion Wonderland Puppet Theater a fifty-year interracial puppetry collaboration that took place during—and reflected—the late-20th century’s experience of the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s movement, and the flowering of puppetry for children. With original puppets, photographs, audio-visual media, and archival documents Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community chronicles Swann and Schmale’s collaboration in the context of residential desegregation, children’s media, and women’s careers in puppetry.

Swann and Schmale’s Concord Park subdivision had been designed in 1954 by Civil Rights activist-turned housing-developer Morris Milgram as an intentional interracial community. The Magic Onion’s themes of tolerance and understanding resonated deeply with the two Concord Park neighbors, who were trying to realize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of “the beloved community,” which would remedy the “triple evils” of poverty, racism, and militarism. Swann and Schmale’s first puppet show was a hit, and it led them to form the Wonderland Puppet Theater, through which they continued performing together for twenty years, including regular appearances on Philadelphia public television station WHYY’s Story Corner. In 2006 The Magic Onion was revived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Concord Park. Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community will be on display through Dec. 15, 2024.

The museum will be closed through Aug. 21 while the new exhibition is installed. After the opening, the Ballard Institute will be open Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. There is no set admission, but visitors are encouraged to pay as they wish. Learn more at bimp.uconn.edu.

 

I Am the Village: A Puppet Pageant Celebrating the Life and Art of Marc Chagall, 4/20 and 4/21

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the Puppet Arts Program at the University of Connecticut present I Am the Village: A Puppet Pageant Celebrating the Life and Art of Marc Chagall, an MFA production written by UConn Puppet Arts student Alyson Doyle (’24) and directed by Doyle and Mel Carter. I am the Village events—including a community puppet-making workshop, a parade, and the performance of the pageant proper each day—will take place Saturday and Sunday, April 20 and 21, from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Ballard Institute and in Betsy Paterson Square, all in Downtown Storrs. These events are co-sponsored by Mansfield Downtown Partnership.

Written by Alyson Doyle, directed by Mel Carter and Alyson Doyle, and scored with traditional klezmer songs and new compositions by renowned clarinetist Nat Seelen of Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band, this outdoor spectacle features giant colorful figures and fantastic performing objects made of cardboard and paper-mâché floating to life to tell a story of acclaimed modernist painter Marc Chagall—from his beginnings as a poor child in the Pale of Settlement to his legacy as one of the most lauded painters in history.

On both April 20 and 21 in Downtown Storrs, the events will begin at 1:30 p.m. with a free, outdoor public puppet-making workshop at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, where participants can paint an emotive umbrella or fish. At 3:30 you and your creation can be part of a parade around Betsy Paterson Square. The I Am the Village pageant will begin in the Square at 4 p.m., and last 45 minutes. These are free events; no tickets or registration required. All are welcome, but minors must be accompanied by adults. Seating is not provided for the performance, so bring your own chairs and blankets. In case of rain, all events will take place inside the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, located at 1 Royce Circle, Storrs, Conn. 06268.

In addition to the workshop and performance, Alyson Doyle will curate an installation in the Ballard Institute Theater that will share more about the history surrounding Chagall’s life, as it pertains to elements of the pageant’s script. This display will be on exhibit during Ballard Institute operating hours from Wednesday, April 17 to Sunday, April 21.

For more information, or if you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860.486.8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.

Opening of “Taking Care: Puppets and Their Collectors” on 2/15

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the grand opening of its new exhibition Taking Care: Puppets and Their Collectors on Thursday, February 15, with refreshments served at 4:30 p.m. and an in-person exhibition tour at 5 p.m. by curator Dr. Jungmin Song and Ballard Institute director Dr. John Bell, which will also be streamed on Ballard Institute’s Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/). This exhibition opening also kicks off celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the Ballard Institute’s Downtown Storrs location.  All events will take place at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Since its founding in 1989, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry’s collections have grown thanks to the generous contributions from many puppet collectors. Taking Care: Puppets and Their Collectors, curated by Dr. Jungmin Song, will showcase some of the highlights of the collections including 1930s marionettes, Sicilian pupi, Chinese shadow figures, African rod puppets, overhead projector innovations, and Frank Ballard musicals, along with backstories explaining how this global array of puppets came to the Ballard Institute. Taking Care will explore puppet collecting as a vital cultural activity, delving into the various reasons donors dedicate themselves to the preservation of puppetry’s heritage. The exhibition will be on display through June 16, 2024. 

The museum will be closed through February 15 while the new exhibition is installed. The Ballard Institute will be open Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. There is no set admission, but visitors are encouraged to pay as they wish. 

Marvelous Metamorphoses by Sova Dance & Puppet Theater on 7/8

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As part of its 2023 Summertime Saturday Puppet Show Series, the Ballard Institute will present Marvelous Metamorphoses by Connecticut-based Sova Dance & Puppet Theater on July 8 at 11 a.m. ET in Betsy Paterson Square in Downtown Storrs.

Bring the family to an engaging Sova Dance & Puppet Theater performance that brings nature’s cycles to life through song, dance and the art of puppetry. Celebrate beautiful transformations in our world and the ecological health of our planet! Caterpillar to butterfly, polliwog to frog, and more! Performers dance and sing their way through these cycles and celebrate ecological health on our planet. 

Sova Dance & Puppet Theater celebrates humanity and the environment by engaging audiences with live performance, communicating that which cannot be described in words, and making art accessible to communities around the globe. Learn more about Sova Dance & Puppet Theater at sovatheater.com.

Due to generous support during our 2023 UConn Gives campaign, admission is free, but donations are encouraged. Reservations are not required. Chairs will not be provided, and audience members are encouraged to bring their own blankets and seating. Seating space will be first come, first served. In the event of inclement weather, the show will be rescheduled for Sunday, July 9 at 11 a.m. ET. This performance is co-sponsored by the Mansfield Downtown Partnership. 

Grand Opening of “Swing into Action: Maurice Sendak and the World of Puppetry” on July 7 at 4:30PM

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the grand opening of its new exhibition Swing into Action: Maurice Sendak and the World of Puppetry, curated by Ballard Institute director Dr. John Bell on Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 4:30 p.m. The opening will include in-person performances and an exhibition tour; the exhibition tour will be streamed on Ballard Institute’s Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/). All events will take place at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. The exhibition will be on display through Friday, December 16, 2022. 

Although Maurice Sendak was not a puppeteer, he understood the nature of puppetry’s never-ending fascination with objects, images, movement, music, and text, and how the creation of those combinations with a collaborative team of artists can make puppets come alive. This exhibition, created in partnership with The Maurice Sendak Foundation, will look at the various ways Sendak designed, collected, and collaborated with puppets and puppet productions, from his childhood days making mechanical toys with his brother, to his collections of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, his inventive collaborations with puppeteer Amy Luckenbach, his puppet designs for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Mozart Opera Goose of Cairo, and the way Sendak’s book inspired Sonny Gerasimowicz’s creatures for Spike Jonze’s film Where the Wild Things Are. 

The grand opening of Swing Into Action will include live performances of a new toy theater spectacle by UConn Puppet Arts graduate students Abigail Baird and Jaron Hollander based on Sendak’s 1993 book We Are All in the Dumps With Jack and Guy.

The Ballard Institute will be open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Face masks are strongly recommended but not required.

Grand Opening of “Puppetry’s Racial Reckoning on 5/28 at 5 p.m.!

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the grand opening of its new exhibition Puppetry’s Racial Reckoning, curated by Dr. Jungmin Song, along with the re-opening of a redesigned World of Puppetry: From the Collections of the Ballard Institute exhibition, on Friday, May 28, 2021, by reservation only at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. A virtual tour will air on Ballard Institute Facebook Live on Friday, May 28, 2021 at 5 p.m. ET. The exhibition will be on display through Oct. 17, 2021.

Puppetry’s Racial Reckoning aims to foster conversation and understanding about the complexities of race, prejudice, stereotypes, and systemic racism by presenting puppets from around the world. The exhibition examines fantasies of the East and misrepresentations of African Americans used in puppetry in relation to social and cultural constructions of race, and asks how fabricated differences affect the actual lives of people. Historical puppets from the Ballard Institute’s collections are juxtaposed with work by contemporary artists such as Kara Walker, Alva Rogers, Michael Richardson, Kimi Maeda, Akbar Imhotep, and Garland Farwell. Puppets from Asia representing different races and ethnicities offer viewers an understanding of race and racism in wider global contexts. Exhibiting puppets from the past in the here-and-now of Puppetry’s Racial Reckoning provides an opportunity to learn from past misrepresentations, consider the extent to which such negative images remain in circulation, contribute to the fight against systemic racism, and discuss possibilities for a more inclusive future. This exhibition is supported in part by a UConn School of Fine Arts Anti-Racism Grant.

Dr. Jungmin Song completed a practice-as-research PhD titled Animating Everyday Objects in Performance at the University of Roehampton in 2014. Her writings have appeared in Performance Research, Artpress 2, Asian Theatre Journal, and Contemporary Theatre Review. In 2017 she edited a special issue of Puppet Notebook on Shakespeare and puppets and was a researcher in residence at the Institut International de la Marionnette (IIM) in Charleville-Mézières, France to lay the ground for a book on Shakespeare and puppetry. As a puppet maker she has participated in numerous projects, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Little Angel Theatre’s co-production of Venus and Adonis (2004).  She has taught in the fields of theater and fine arts at the University of Roehampton, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Kent. 

Due to restrictions and safety precautions related to COVID-19, the museum will reopen on May 28 on Fridays and Saturdays only from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by reservation. Only one group of up to 6 visitors from a family or quarantine unit will be allowed in the museum at a time during each time slot. Face masks are required at all times when visiting the museum for ages two and up. Hand sanitizer is available throughout the museum and staff clean high-touch surfaces once per hour. Please note that restrooms and water fountains are closed to the public. To learn more about the Ballard Institute’s COVID-19 protocols and to reserve a time slot, visit: bimp.uconn.edu/about/covid-policies/. Visitors may also reserve a time slot by calling 860.486.8580 on Fridays and Saturdays.

ON EXHIBIT: “Paul Vincent Davis and the Art of Puppet Theater” and “Shakespeare and Puppetry”

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A vibrant, colorful, and thought-provoking exhibition of work by one of the United States’s most dynamic 20th-century puppeteers, Paul Vincent Davis and the Art of Puppet Theater celebrates the career of the long-time Artist in Residence at Boston’s Puppet Showplace Theater, in celebration of and in homage to Davis’s 85th year. Paul Vincent Davis’s award-winning productions have ranged from the joyous fun of fairy tales, folklore, and clown circus to works by Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. Focused primarily on the design, construction, and performance of hand puppets, Paul Vincent Davis has always sought to expand America’s sometimes “limited vision of this amazing art form,” as he put it in his book Exploring the Art of Puppet Theater. In every aspect of his work, from his early years with Carol Fijan’s National Theatre of Puppet Arts in New York City, to his creation of the Repertory Puppet Theatre at the Puppet Showplace, Davis has consistently explored what it means to approach puppetry in the same manner that we approach dance, music, or visual art. Paul Vincent Davis and the Art of Puppet Theater will present puppets, props, and stages from such spectacles as Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp, Rumpelstiltskin, Here Come the Clowns, and Bingo the Circus Dog, as well as Richard III, and Shakes versus Shav. View an online version of Paul Vincent Davis and the Art of Puppet Theater here. 

Curated by performance artist, and writer Dr. Jungmin Song, Shakespeare and Puppetry presents exciting and thought-provoking examples of the many ways puppets and objects have been used to interpret the works of the greatest playwright of the English language. Ranging from the giant cardboard cutouts of Bread and Puppet Theater’s Out of Joint Hamlet, to Forced Entertainment’s everyday-object performance of Macbeth, the exhibition introduces new perspectives about how dramatic characters are fashioned, and how “things” can be cast in dramas. Shakespeare and Puppetry also includes work by Tiny Ninja Theatre, Jon Ludwig, Hogarth Puppets, Little Angel Theatre, Fred Curchack, Great Small Works, and Larry Reed. Through its juxtaposition of modern and contemporary puppet and object interpretations of Macbeth, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the exhibition invites viewers to contemplate the materiality of character and the physical embodiment of roles, to question our preconceptions of character, and ask what it means for an object to perform onstage. View an online version of Shakespeare and Puppetry here. 

Dr. Jungmin Song completed a practice-as-research PhD titled Animating Everyday Objects in Performance at the University of Roehampton in 2014. Her writings have appeared in Performance Research, Artpress 2, Asian Theatre Journal, and Contemporary Theatre Review. In 2017 she edited a special issue of Puppet Notebook on Shakespeare and puppets and was a researcher in residence at the Institut International de la Marionnette (IIM) in Charleville-Mézières, France to lay the ground for a book on Shakespeare and puppetry. As a puppet maker she has participated in numerous projects, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Little Angel Theatre’s co-production of Venus and Adonis (2004).  She has taught in the fields of theatre and fine arts at the University of Roehampton, University of Connecticut, and the University of Kent. 

Grand Opening of “It’s Always Pandemonium: The Puppets of Bart Roccoberton” on 4/27

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the grand opening of its new exhibition It’s Always Pandemonium: The Puppets of Bart Roccoberton,on Saturday, April 27, 2019, with refreshments at noon followed by a free tour of the new exhibition at 12:30 p.m. All events will take place at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. The exhibition will be on display through Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019.

It’s Always Pandemonium celebrates the ongoing puppetry career of Bart. P. Roccoberton, Jr., from his touring days performing with his troupe thePandemonium Puppet Company; to his founding of theEugene O’Neill Theater Center’s Institute of Professional Puppetry Arts; and now, to his work building puppets and puppeteers as Director of the UConn Puppet Arts Program. It’s Always Pandemonium, curated by UConn Puppet Arts MFA candidate Matt Sorensen,features over 60 puppets, masterfully designed and crafted by Bart Roccoberton, his Pandemonium collaborators, and countless UConn Puppet Arts students under his guidance.

Bart. P. Roccoberton, Jr. is Director of the University of Connecticut’s unique Puppet Arts Program—the only one of its kind in the U.S.—which offers BFA, MA, and MFA degrees in puppetry. His professional projects include work in film, television and the stage, including Broadway. He serves the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center as Director of Production, and is recognized internationally as an advocate for the Puppet Arts in the United States.

In addition to the exhibition opening, and as part of our Spring Puppet Performances Series,Stevens Puppets will perform Goldilocks and the Three Bearsat the Ballard Institute Theater at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. For more information about this performance and to buy tickets, visit bimp.ticketleap.com.

If you require an accommodation to attend an event, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu at least five days in advance.