A Day of Puppetry
Melissa Dvozenja-Thomas, Executive Director, Arts Mid-Hudson
About a decade ago, I was cast in a theater production of Snow White (with a twist) where I had the chance to work with a puppet. The process of working with a puppet was intriguing and much different than I expected. Since then, I realized that puppetry’s art form is incredibly special and something we often have less access to. Over the past month, the Folk Arts Program at Arts Mid-Hudson and Paper Heart Puppets brought the first Hudson Valley Puppet Festival to the area concluding on April 27, 2024, with “A Day of Puppetry” from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Cornell Creative Arts Center in Kingston.
Brad Shur, the founder and lead artist of Paper Heart Puppets, is based in Poughkeepsie. For over twenty years, Brad has been creating and touring original puppetry productions that combine ancient traditions with innovative ways of connecting with audiences using puppets of all sizes, materials, and disciplines.
“I am incredibly excited for the very first Hudson Valley Puppetry Festival. I hope it will be the beginning of a long tradition,” Shur stated. “We’ve had a library exhibit and talk from Wood and Strings Theatre, a sponsored performance of Pirate Song by Up in Arms in Newburgh and we’re closing out the festival with A Day of Puppetry featuring six puppet companies from around the Hudson Valley with a huge range of styles.”
Together, Marlena Marallo and Patrick Walden are the backbone of Arm-of-the-Sea Theater’s creative team and the founders of the company. They are an eco-conscious couple with a longtime homestead in Saugerties and have been actively contributing community members since the 1980s.
Wood and Strings Theater, founded and directed by Clarissa Lega and Leon Fuller, produced original works involving nationally renowned writers, directors, puppeteers, and musicians. The company operated for 34 years with four puppeteers, five productions, and a host of astounding puppets.
Up in Arms creates engaging soundscapes with professional voice actors in the studio and performs their shows with professional puppeteers that audiences will never forget. For over 20 years, The Puppet People has carefully crafted and designed each show. They are known for incorporating many styles of puppetry into their performances, which makes each show distinctly different.
Redwing Blackbird Theater, based in Rosendale, creates puppet parades, shows, and exhibits that ask how people can live together in today’s world. They strive to create what does not yet exist and to draw out what has always been there.
Families are invited for a day filled with fun and creativity. Each person can pick up a passport and get stamps at each location as they interact with these remarkable groups. Turn in your passport at the end to receive a prize. The Hudson Valley Puppet Festival 2024 is partially funded by a grant from the Robert R. Chapman Fund of the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley and Stewarts Shop.
Shur shares, “Puppetry tends to be a well-kept secret. If you want to see paintings, every city has galleries, every city has painting lessons for all ages, and every city even has a dance school. But people don’t encounter live puppetry as much. While people of all ages light up when they see well-performed puppet shows, they often don’t know enough to go looking for it. We in the puppetry community need to keep working a little more to let the secret out.”
If you go:
A Day of Puppetry
Cornell Creative Arts Center
129 Cornell Street, Kingston, NY 12401
April 27, 2024
10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
info@artsmidhudson.org
845-454-3222
