As part of its 2025 Fall Puppet Performance Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to welcome back UConn Puppet Arts alumna Sarah Nolen to perform Party Animals on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Party Animals follows five furry friends as they navigate the biggest social hurdle of their young lives — throwing their first party! Meet a bunny with boundless energy, a sloth with social anxiety, a hedgehog wrestling with wrapping, and a skunk who’s trying to keep everything cool and under control. Through song, dance, and original rock ‘n’ roll music by Boston local Phil Berman (of Puppet Playtime and The Holiday Sing-Along), these little stars discover that music can be an exuberant and healthy way to express their inner selves. Learn more and purchase tickets: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/bimp-0/party-animals.

Sarah Nolen is a puppeteer and filmmaker originally from Austin, Texas. As Puppet Showplace Theater’s Resident Artist, she performs regularly for youth and family audiences and teaches puppetry in camps, workshops, residencies, and evening adult classes. Sarah earned her BFA in film from Southern Methodist University, and an MFA from the UConn Puppet Arts Program.

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 Downtown Storrs Garage located at 33 Royce Circle. For more information about these performances or if you require an accommodation to attend this event, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.

The Ballard Institute will be closed for Thanksgiving Break from November 24-27, 2025. The museum will reopen for regular business hours on Friday, November 28.

 

As part of its 2025 Fall Puppet Performance Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to welcome Tanglewood Marionettes to perform The Fairy Circus on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Featuring over twenty beautifully hand-crafted marionettes, The Fairy Circus is a showcase for turn-of-the-century-style trick puppetry. The puppets will dance, play instruments, juggle, contort, transform, and fly, all to the best-loved music of favorite composers! The Fairy Circus is geared primarily toward children from pre-kindergarten through Grade 2. The production is approximately 40 minutes in length and includes a puppetry demonstration prior to the show as well as a question-and-answer session following the performance. Learn more and purchase tickets: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/bimp-0/a-fairy-circus.

­­­Founded in 1993, Tanglewood Marionettes is a nationally touring marionette theater based in New England. Large, beautifully handcrafted marionettes, colorful sets, and integrated lighting and sound create a fully immersive theatrical experience. They are the recipients of two UNIMA awards, puppetry’s highest honor, for their productions An Arabian Adventure and The Dragon King.

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 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.

 

As part of its 2025 Fall Puppet Forum Series and in conjunction with the William Benton Museum of Art’s current exhibition Fate and Magic: The Art of Maureen McCabe, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to host “Image, Magic, and Objects: The Art of Maureen McCabe” on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle, Storrs, CT.

In this Puppet Forum event McCabe and Ballard Institute Director John Bell will discuss connections between art, puppetry, and magic, especially as they appear in McCabe’s use of game boards, toy theater proscenia, tarot cards, dice, birds, ouija boards, and other uncanny objects. 

Maureen McCabe is a celebrated collage artist whose playful yet carefully composed assemblages weave imagery from ancient and current cultures, together with aspects of folklore, magic, myth, and the unexplained. In a career that spans six decades, this Connecticut-based artist has exhibited her work in museums in the United States and Mexico, and was the subject of a major retrospective at Washington’s Bellevue Arts Museum in 2006. In her assemblages and installations McCabe creates poetic images charged with humor and wit, inspired by the world around her and fascinated by its mysteries. Her current exhibition at the Benton—on display through December 14, 2025—presents rarely seen works from the artist’s studio and private collections alongside the objects that have inspired her.  

This forum will also be broadcast via Ballard Institute Facebook Live, and is co-sponsored by the William Benton Museum of Art.

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 Ballard Institute will be closed as we install our new exhibition, Somos Uno: Mexican and Mexican American Puppetry. 

Join us for the grand opening on 11/15 at 4:30 p.m.! No reservations needed.

As part of its 2025 Fall Puppet Performance Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is thrilled to welcome back UConn Puppet Arts alumnus Mark Blashford to perform Peter and the Wolf on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Mark Blashford Marionettes presents an Appalachian adaptation of Peter and the Wolf, featuring hand-carved wooden puppets and a reclaimed barn-board set. While staying true to the original story and music created by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936, this classic tale familiarizes children with the instruments of the orchestra in a charming performance for the whole family.

Formerly based in Reykjavík, Iceland as an instructor in the online Academy of the Wooden Puppet, Mark Blashford now lives in rural Pennsylvania and teaches woodcarving in person. He performs around the world as Mark Blashford Marionettes and in Iceland as Flóki Brúðuleikhús. Blashford has trained across Europe as a professional puppeteer and received his MFA from the UConn Puppet Arts program in 2017. Learn more and purchase tickets here: ticketleap.events/tickets/bimp-0/peter-and-the-wolf.

­­­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.

As part of its 2025 Fall Puppet Forum Series and in conjunction with its exhibition Art, Movement, Imagination: 60 Years of UConn Puppeteers, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is pleased to host an Alumni Puppet Forum on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle, Storrs, CT.

 In honor of the 60^th anniversary of the UConn Puppet Arts program, this lively discussion, led by Ballard Institute Director John Bell, will feature alumni Frankie Cordero (BFA 2004), Joe Therrien (MFA 2017), and Megan and John Regan (BFA 2005) to explore UConn’s internationally acclaimed puppetry program and the fascinating work that UConn puppeteers create after graduation This forum will also be broadcast via Ballard Institute Facebook Live.

Chicago native Frankie Cordero is an Emmy-nominated puppeteer, puppet builder, and director for live and television puppetry, best known for his roles as Purple Panda and Turtle-Lou on Spiffy Pictures’ Donkey Hodie, as Rudy on Sesame Street, and in theater productions with such companies as Phantom Limb, Blair Thomas & Co., and Walking with Dinosaurs. He also teaches television-style puppetry in the Chicago area.  

Joe Therrien builds, directs, and performs in puppet shows throughout the Northeast, working with groups including Bread and Puppet Theater, Great Small Works, Papel Machete, and Al Limite, among others. He is a founding member of the Brooklyn-based Boxcutter Collective. In 2011, he founded the People’s Puppets of Occupy Wall Street, a democratic art collective which created street performance, puppets, and visual art for various grassroots and community organizations in New York City and the surrounding area. 

Megan and John Regan created CactusHead Puppets in 2010 after they both graduated from the UConn Puppet Arts program. Since then, they have created several fun family shows, often based on favorite folktales, and have toured throughout the Northeast. CactusHead Puppets also hosted the Paper City Puppet Slam in Holyoke, MA for several years. They are affiliated artists with Boston’s Puppet Showplace Theater.

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 Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut presents a special performance of Not My Grandmother’s Daughter by UConn Puppet Arts MFA candidate Harley Brooke Walker on Thursday, July 24 at 7 p.m. The show will take place at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. This will be a preview presentation before their run at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.  

Not My Grandmother’s Daughter is a newly revised work that explores the relationship a young woman has with her mother through the relationship she has with her grandmother. She interconnects the history of their hands through generations with the help of shadow, sound, and paper mâché. A love letter through time. The runtime of the show is approximately 45 minutes. Recommended for ages 15+.  

This will be a free performance with no reservation required. Donations to the museum are greatly appreciated! Doors will open at 6:45 p.m. Visitors can park in the Downtown Storrs Garage located at 33 Royce Circle. 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.