Events

“Exploring Puppetry in The Old Man and the Old Moon” Puppet Forum on 11/20

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As part of its 2024 Fall Puppet Forum Series and in conjunction with the Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s fall season, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is pleased to host “Exploring Puppetry in The Old Man and the Old Moon” on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2024 at 5:30 p.m. at the Jorgensen Gallery, located at 2132 Hillside Rd, Storrs, Conn. 06268. This forum is co-sponsored by the UConn Connecticut Repertory Theatre and will be streamed via Ballard Institute Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute).

“Exploring Puppetry in The Old Man and the Old Moon” will offer a special behind-the-scenes glimpse of this new Connecticut Repertory Theatre production before that evening’s 7:30 p.m. performance at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre. The forum will discuss the design, construction, and performance of shadow figures and three-dimensional puppets in of a PigPen Theater Company play with music, directed by Matt Sorensen, a Visiting Professor of Dramatic Arts in UConn’s Puppet Arts Program. In conversation with Ballard Institute Director John Bell, Sorensen and Puppet Arts MFA student designers Harley Walker and Mel Carter will discuss the process of conceiving and creating puppetry elements for this acclaimed Off-Broadway production about the aging caretaker of the moon, and the conflicts of duty and love he faces.

Admission to the forum 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.

To purchase tickets for The Old Man and the Old Moon, visit crt.uconn.edu.

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. 

The Baffo Box Show by Modern Times Theater on 10/19

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As part of its 2024 Fall Puppet Performance Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to welcome back Modern Times Theater to perform The Baffo Box Show, on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Audiences are captivated throughout this one-of-a-kind show performed by Justin Lander and directed by Rose Friedman. Find out what happens when the Baffos, two slapstick chaps who keep the sun, moon, and everything else running, juggle their changing world. With classic hand puppetry, Dadaist ventriloquism, and stand-up comedy, all from a cardboard box, this show will have audiences of all ages laughing out loud.

Modern Times Theater has been making and touring puppet shows and acts and creating community events since 2007. They seek to reinvent classic American entertainment, by pursuing out-of-the box models of art making, often creating venues out of historic or run-down locations. Co-founders Rose Friedman and Justin Lander are a husband-and-wife duo, and producers for Vermont Vaudeville and alumni of the Bread and Puppet Theater. Learn more and purchase tickets: bimp.ticketleap.com/baffo

­­­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 bimp.ticketleap.com. A surcharge will be added to any purchases made online. 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 Storrs Center 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.

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.  

The Loose Caboose by Harry LaCoste, featuring Good News Gus on 9/21

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To kick off its 2024 Fall Puppet Performance Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to welcome Boston puppeteer Harry LaCoste to perform The Loose Caboose, featuring Good News Gus, on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Children perk up with curiosity and excitement throughout this interactive tale. Find out what happens when a train engineer finds his caboose has disconnected and is left stranded without an engine. With cheerful puppet characters and enchanting musical stories, this show will have audiences looking through suitcases and meeting friendly faces. Recommended for ages 3+.

Harry LaCoste has been working with puppets for years, starting at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Educational Television, where he created a character named Carl who loved cooking and nature. After college, he worked as a kid wrangler on the set of Sesame Street in New York City, which fueled his interest in puppetry. Following a short hiatus to work at an early childhood enrichment program, Free to Be Under Three, he came back to Puppet School, where he honed his craft and made Good News Gus, his new furry yellow friend. LaCoste now travels throughout the Northeast, performing at birthday parties, regional festivals and other events. Learn more and purchase tickets: bimp.ticketleap.com/caboose.

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 bimp.ticketleap.com. A surcharge will be added to any purchases made online. 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 Storrs Center 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.

2024 Celebrate Mansfield Festival Puppet-Building Workshops

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will once again offer fall community puppet-building workshops to design and build life-size and over-life-size puppets for a new pageant production—The Conference of the Birds—to be performed at the Celebrate Mansfield Festival in Downtown Storrs. These free workshops will be led by internationally acclaimed puppeteer and pageant director Sara Peattie of Boston’s Puppeteers Cooperative, and will take place Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 14 and 15, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

 The Conference of the Birds puppet pageant, directed by Sara Peattie, and loosely based on the 12th-century poem by Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar, will employ masks and puppets of all sizes, created by workshop participants, to celebrate specific birds of Connecticut, as well as endangered bird species and imaginary birds. The pageant will be performed outdoors in Betsy Paterson Square with live music as part of the 21st-annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 28.

 No experience is necessary to participate in these free community puppet-building workshops. Space is limited, so advance registration is strongly encouraged. Participants can come for one or both days but should register for the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. or/and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. time slot(s). Minors must be accompanied by an adult. To register for the workshop, visit bimp.ticketleap.com/2024-cmf. If you require accommodation to participate, contact the Ballard Institute at bimp@uconn.edu or 860-486-8580.

 This community puppet project is sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. For more information about the 21st-annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival, visit downtownstorrsfestival.org.

New Exhibition and New Hours for Fall 2024

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The Ballard Institute’s newest exhibition, Wonderland Puppet Theater: Visions of the Beloved Community, curated by Dr. Paulette Richards, is now open!

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 also have new hours for fall 2024!

Wednesday: 11:00am-5:00pm
Thursday: 11:00am-7:00pm
Friday: 11:00am-5:00pm
Saturday: 11:00am-7:00pm
Sunday: 11:00am-5:00pm
Monday-Tuesday: Closed

 

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 Love Tacos by Paper Heart Puppets on 8/3

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As part of its 2024 Summertime Saturday Puppet Show Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to present I Love Tacos by Brad Shur of Paper Heart Puppets on August 3, 2024 at 11 a.m. in Betsy Paterson Square in Downtown Storrs.

There is joy in the world, and it comes wrapped in a tortilla! Join White Nosed Coati and a cast of amazing Mexican wildlife in three original stories celebrating tacos and the place they were created. Each story is packed with exuberant humor, and colorful characters.

Founded in 2017 by Brad Shur, Paper Heart Puppets is dedicated to sharing and expanding the art of puppetry. Headquartered in Poughkeepsie, New York, the company offers touring shows, workshops, and custom puppet building. Puppeteer, puppet builder, and arts educator Brad Shur began performing as a student at Rhode Island School of Design. In 2009, he became the Resident Artist at Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, Mass. where he was lead teaching artist and touring puppeteer for eight years. During that time, Brad developed six original shows and revived several classic shows created by acclaimed puppeteer Paul Vincent Davis.

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 case of rain, the shows will take place in the Ballard Institute Theater at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Note: The Storrs Parking Garage will be closed. Visitors can park at EO Smith High School, in the Dog Lane Lot, or in on-street parking.

The Summertime Saturday Puppet Show Series is co-sponsored by the Mansfield Downtown Partnership and supported by a generous gift from Phillip Mairorana in memory of his wife Theresa Mairorana and donations by Ballard Institute supporters to UConn Gives.

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.