The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the UConn Puppet Arts Program will present the 2025 UConn Spring Puppet Slam on Friday, April 11, 2025 at 8 p.m. in UConn’s Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, on the lower level of the Jorgensen Performing Arts Center at 2132 Hillside Road, Storrs, CT 06269. The UConn Spring Puppet Slam will feature new and experimental short works by professional puppeteers and performers, including Tau Bennett and Charlotte Lily Gaspard from New York City, as well as new works by UConn Puppet Arts students. Mansfield’s Waldron’s Studios 88 will return once more as the Puppet Slam house band.

The 2025 UConn Spring Puppet Slam welcomes acclaimed Brooklyn-based puppeteers Tau Bennett and Charlotte Lily Gaspard. Bennett will perform Herbert’s Lament, which explores how life isn’t easy when you’re not only broke, but also narcoleptic. Shadow puppet artist, educator, entertainer, and “bona fide fairy princess” Charlotte Lily Gaspard will perform her crankie production A Mermaid’s Life Story and Strange Bird, a shadow-puppet show played with an umbrella screen. The UConn Spring Puppet Slam also features new works by graduate and undergraduate students from the UConn Puppet Arts Program. Funding for the Slam is made possible, in part, by the Puppet Slam Network. These performances are recommended for mature audiences.

The UConn Spring Puppet Slam is free and open to the public; donations are greatly appreciated. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. The event will take place in UConn’s Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, located at 2132 Hillside Road, Storrs, Conn. 06269, on the lower level. (use rear entrance). For directions to the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, visit crt.uconn.edu. For more information about these performances or if you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.

As part of its 2025 Spring Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is pleased to host Puppetry and Photography, a Puppet Forum with Richard Termine on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 at 7 p.m. at 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).

Join us in person or online on Wednesday, April 2 for a Puppet Forum discussion with famed photographer (and UConn Puppet Arts alumnus) Richard Termine, whose compelling work is celebrated in American Puppet Theater Today: The Photography of Richard Termine, the current Ballard Institute exhibition. Termine, who has documented American puppet theater for over 30 years, will share his insights on the arts of photography and puppetry, and how they can combine in stunning still images evoking the powerful movement potential of the material world in performance. Termine is the lead performing arts photographer for The New York Times and has been the in-house photographer for Sesame Street since 1988. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, People, American Theatre, USA Today, and other publications around the world.

Richard Termine attended the University of Connecticut and completed his MFA in Puppet Arts in 1978. In 1980, he began his association with The Jim Henson Company as a puppet designer and builder for a variety of Muppet productions. While working on the set of Sesame Street, Termine began photographing behind the scenes, leading to a new career as a performing arts photographer. He has been the in-house photographer for Sesame Street since 1988 and has been on the board of The Jim Henson Foundation since 1987, currently serving as the Foundation’s Vice President.

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.

As part of its 2025 Spring Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is pleased to host Puppets and Masks in Star Wars, a UConn Puppet Forum with Professor Colette Searls, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at 7 p.m. at 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).

Professor Colette Searls, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will discuss the essential role of puppets, masks, and performing objects in the many different aspects of the venerable and popular Star Wars epic. Based on her 2023 book A Galaxy of Things: The Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond, Dr. Searls will examine how, since 1977, creatures, droids, masked figures, and other material characters have been central to Star Wars trilogies and stories, telling meaningful stories that conventional human characters can’t, through the powers of what Dr. Searls calls “distance, distillation, and duality.” 

Colette Searls is Professor of Theatre at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) where has directed over twenty productions, including award-winning works of puppetry and material performance. Other directing credits include Noah Haidle’s Vigils at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (four Helen Hayes Award nominations), Kendra’s Bay at the inaugural Light City Baltimore International Arts Festival, and Fixed Boundary at San Francisco’s Exit Theatre (winner of the Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival award). She has received grants from the Jim Henson Foundation, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Puppeteers of America for her original works in found-object puppetry. Her book A Galaxy of Things: the Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond received the 2024 Nancy Staub Publications Award; she is also the performance review editor for the journal Puppetry International Research (PIR).

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.

As part of its 2025 Spring Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is pleased to host Funny Boy: The Life of Richard Hunt, a Puppet Forum with Jessica Max Stein, on Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 7 p.m. at 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). 

Join us on Wednesday, March 5 with author Jessica Max Stein to look at the life of Richard Hunt, the dynamic, irreverent, and spirited puppeteer who played an essential role in the success of the Muppets. Hunt joined the Muppets in 1970 at the age of 18, and developed such essential puppet characters as Scooter, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums, appearing on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and in multiple Muppet movies. Equally important, Stein’s book explains in a fascinating manner how this gay American artist thrived as a performer and human being in the late-twentieth-century age of AIDS. 

Jessica Max Stein writes vivid, novelistic history that brings the past to life. Most recently, she is the author of Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography (Rutgers University Press, 2024). She writes frequently for New York newspaper The Indypendent, and her writing has received awards from Poets and Writers Magazine, the Independent Press Association, and the Biographers International Organization, as well as being published widely. She teaches writing and literature at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). 

 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.  

Join us on 3/1 at 11am and 2pm as we bring back the popular Boston-based company The Gottabees to perform their new production Don’t Make Me Get Dressed!

For every child who has struggled to get into their clothes first thing in the morning (and for every parent who has fought valiantly in the battleground of the morning routine), comes Don’t Make Me Get Dressed – a gloriously silly and inventive ode to the feelings we have when we choose our clothes… and to what happens when our clothes come to life and choose us. Don’t Make Me Get Dressed features The Gottabees’ trademark mix of puppetry, joyously absurd silliness, physical theater, live music, and surprising poignancy. Recommended for ages 3+. Runtime is approximately 35 minutes plus a question-and-answer session.

The Gottabees are passionate about community, family joy, and empowerment, and have been guiding families through stage performances, interactive experiences, and audio adventures since 2013. The Gottabees have performed in 19 states, and five countries for over 45,000 people, and were awarded a UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence. Their projects have been funded by the Jim Henson Foundation, Puppeteers of America, US Artists International, and the Boston Foundation.

Ticket Prices: Adults: $12; Members/Seniors: $10; Students: $8; Kids: $6 (12 years and under).

Tickets can be purchased in advance at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, by calling 860-486-8580, or online at https://shorturl.at/cyG2r. Tickets may also be purchased at the Ballard Institute on the day of the performance starting at 10 a.m. There will be open seating and no reservations. Visitors can park in the Downtown Storrs Garage located at 33 Royce Circle. For more information about these performances or if you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.