An eye-opening exhibition of a ground-breaking 20th-century American puppeteer, Dick Myers, is now on display at the Ballard Museum.  “Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a fascinating in-depth look at a puppeteer’s puppeteer—an innovative and ingenious designer, builder, and performer whose work, while highly respected in the international world of puppetry, never brought him fame.

Curated by Puppet Arts Program graduate student Seth Shaffer, “Exceptional and Uncommon” brings together scores of rod puppets, marionettes, and hand puppets designed and performed by Myers; innovative sound, lighting, and stage equipment he designed; photographs of Myers at work and in performance; and a documentary video filmed and edited by Shaffer in which Myers’s friends and colleagues describe his work and his life.

Dick Myers was one of the leading American puppeteers of the later 20^th century.  Although his work is now relatively unknown, in its time his puppet shows were highly respected by puppeteers around the world for the compelling and original design of the puppets, Myers’ skillful manipulation, and the challenging tasks he set out and achieved with his creations.

In the early years of his career Dick Myers worked with many well-known puppeteers including Connecticut’s Rufus and Margo Rose, and Martin and Olga Stevens of Indiana.  He was, however, best known for his unique solo rod puppet shows: Dick Whittington’s Cat (1966), Cinderella (1967), Beauty and the Beast (1969), Simple Simon (1976), and Divertissement (1978).

“Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a revelatory and thought-provoking window into puppetry of the late 20th century, when American puppeteers combined technological innovations with home-grown humor and popular culture in order to re-define puppetry as an aspect of contemporary American culture.

The popular Frank Ballard: Roots and Branches exhibition at the Ballard Institute has re-opened for the season, with many new additions to this rich review of the wide-ranging puppet forms that influenced the work of the founder of UConn’s puppetry programs.  Roots and Branches features the work of significant American puppeteers of the early, mid-, and late-twentieth century whose work Frank saw while growing up in Illinois: Martin and Olga Stevens, Tony Sarg, Jero Magon, Rufus and Margo Rose, and Romain and Ellen Proctor; as well as contemporary puppeteers from across the country, including Ralph Chessé, the Kungsholm Miniature Grand Opera, Bil Baird, Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, and the Turnabout Theater; and Ballard’s own contemporaries and colleagues, including Sidney Chrysler, Jim Henson, Dick Myers, Basil Milovsoroff, George Latshaw, and Peter Schumann.

The exhibition also features Asian and European puppet forms that also influenced Ballard’s understanding of puppetry, including Javanese wayang kulit shadow puppets, Chinese shadow theater, Sicilian marionette theater, and Javanese wayang golek rod puppets.

The Ballard Institute’s new exhibition Red Gate: Pauline Benton and Chinese Shadow Theater in the United States, an exhibition of rare Chinese shadow figures from the collection of Pauline Benton, curated by Stephen Kaplin and Kuang-Yu Fong of New York’s Chinese Theatre Works is now open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12 to 5 p.m.

Pauline Benton was one of the revolutionary innovators of American puppetry in the early 20th century; but rather than creating her own western-style puppets, Benton brought the performance of Chinese shadow theater to the United States in the 1920s and 30s–one of the earliest cross-cultural presentations of Chinese performing arts for American audiences.  Benton’s Red Gate Shadow Players performed across the country for popular as well as exclusive audiences, bringing Benton’s own particular hybrid version of Chinese shadows to audiences unfamiliar with Chinese culture.

The Red Gate exhibition features classical Chinese shadow figures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as figures Benton commissioned from Beijing shadow puppet craftsmen in the 1930s, depicting not only traditional characters and scenes, but also contemporary Chinese life and images from popular American children’s books.  The many photographs of Benton and her work document how this unusually gifted woman created modern links to Chinese shadow theater culture, influencing the course of puppetry in the United States to this day.  The exhibition also features video recordings of Benton’s version of the classic White Snake, and hands-on areas where museum visitors can try out traditional and contemporary shadow theater techniques.

Pauline Benton was a noteworthy pioneer in the transmission of global culture in the U.S., and Red Gate: Pauline Benton and Chinese Shadow Theater in the United States marks the first extensive exhibition and overview of her work.  The exhibition will be open until December 16, 2012.

An exhibition featuring puppets from the University of Connecticut’s 1996 production of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is now on view at The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, and will be on display until March 5, 2012 . The exhibition, presented by the Ballard Institute, UConn’s Puppet Arts Program and the Mark Twain House, also features original illustrations for Twain’s novel by Dan Beard, rare editions of the book, an international collection of posters for the various films based on the 1889 novel, and design sketches for the 1996 puppet production, which was directed by Jerry Krasser and Bart Roccoberton

The Connecticut Yankee exhibition is part of the year-long “World of Puppetry in Hartford” project the Ballard Institute and the Puppet Arts Program have undertaken with the generous assistance of the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation and Ballard Institute Advisory Board member Judith Zachs.

Click here to see See Susan Dunne’s review of the exhibition in the Hartford Courant.

 Puppets from the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry are currently on display at the lobby of the Nathan Hale Inn & Conference Center on the UConn Campus in Storrs.  The puppets include a handpuppet Devil used by the Ridiculous Theater’s Charles Ludlam in his Punch and Judy shows, a Czech Kasparek marionette used in family household theaters, a German handpuppet from a 19th-century Kasperl set, and San Francisco puppeteer Lewis Mahlmann’s rod puppet Judith from his 1960s production of Bluebird.

A compelling exhibition of over 70 Ballard Institute puppets from around the world at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut (just north of Hartford) has been extended through January, 2012.  Originally scheduled to close in November, this popular display of world puppetry traditions will now be on display for holiday travelers.

The exhibition, titled The World of Puppetry, was curated by Nicole Hartigan, a graduate student in UConn’s famed Puppet Arts Program, and the graduate assistant to the Ballard Institute.  The exhibition fills four cases adjacent to Bradley Airport’s departure gates, and includes rod puppets, hand puppets, shadow puppets, oversized masks, and marionettes.

Click here to read more about the exhibition.

An exciting exhibition of over 70 Ballard Institute puppets from around the world is currently on display at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut (just north of Hartford) and will be on view for airport travelers from now until November.

The exhibition, titled The World of Puppetry, was curated by Nicole Hartigan, a graduate student in UConn’s famed Puppet Arts Program, and the graduate assistant to the Ballard Institute.  The exhibition fills four cases adjacent to Bradley Airport’s departure gates, and includes rod puppets, hand puppets, shadow puppets, oversized masks, and marionettes.

The first case features shadow puppets, and includes dramatic figures from the Tolu Bommalata tradition of Andhra Pradesh, as well as Javanese and Balinese wayang kulit figures, and puppets from similar traditions in Thailand and Malaysia.  This section also features colorful marionettes from Burma and China, and a four-armed, elephant-headed Ganesha marionette from Nepal, as well as masks from Bali, Java, and Mexico.

Handpuppets are featured in the exhibition’s second case, including Connecticut puppeteer Ray Mount’s colorful figures from Old Wive’s Tale, three vivid handpuppets from Haiti, a rare handpuppet from Poland’s Arlekin Theater of Lodz, a Chinese handpuppet, and one-of-a-kind figures by Cincinnati puppeteer Larry Smith for The Uncle Al Show, the longest-running American television series of the last century.

A case devoted to the Punch and Judy traditions of European and American puppetry includes rare 19th-century Punch puppets, an extensive array of puppets built and used by the Ridiculous Theater’s Charles Ludlam, a set of early 20th-century Guignol puppets, and a set of political caricature handpuppets of 1960s Connecticut politicians used by puppeteer Rufus Rose in the Connecticut Statehouse when he was a state legislator from Waterford.

Rod puppets are featured in the last case of the exhibition, including three striking figures from Frank Ballard’s 1980 production of The Ring of the Nibelungen, a Samurai puppet from the Japanese inland island of Awaji, a clown and nobleman from Java’s wayang golek traditions, two modernist rod puppets by famed puppeteer George Latshaw, an African puppet from Mali, a Russian rod puppet, and three over-life-sized masks by Frank Ballard.

The University of Connecticut Health Center is hosting a selection of shadow figures from the Ballard Institute’s Epic Shadows: Tolu Bommalata Puppets from Andhra Pradesh exhibition, from now until July 27 at the Health Center Hospital Lobby in Farmington.

Examples of the rich traditions of South Indian shadow puppetry are on display in exhibition cases in the hospital’s lobby and mezzanine.  The exhibition is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

The UConn Health Center is located at 263 Farmington Avenue in Farmington, Connecticut  06030.  For directions to the Health Center call 860 679 2000.

This exhibition is part of the World of Puppetry in Hartford series of exhibitions, workshops, and performances sponsored by the Edward C. & Ann T. Roberts Foundation.