Puppet collection finds new home at Brooklyn College

From the miniature, to the gigantic.

As librarian of the Puppet Museum, Theresa Linnihan oversees over 100 puppets, some as tall as 20 feet, created by the Brooklyn- and Boston-based Puppeteers Coop for festivities like the Park Slope Halloween Parade.

The museum previously found a home in Grand Army Plaza for four years, inside the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch.

“It was a mysterious place,” said Linnihan, who's participating in the Toy Theater Festival at St. Ann's Warehouse next month. “People never knew you could go inside.”

Of course, those who did would be privy to puppet shows and parade-style puppets, taken out for parades and performances, as well as loaned to filmmakers, birthday parties and even protests.

With the arch leaking, the museum was forced to leave two years ago, setting up shop ever since at Brooklyn College, in the Arts Lab at Roosevelt House.

“It’s been more difficult to get the word out that the library is there,” said Linnihan.

Linnihan would love to go back to the arch — the last she heard it would take about $300,000 to repair the roof — but is grateful to have a home in Brooklyn still.

“What would you do with 100 large puppets?” said Linnihan. “There’s no room under the bed.”

The Puppet Museum at Brooklyn College [2900 Bedford Ave. at Campus Road in Midwood, (718) 853-7350]. By appointment only.

Photo by Ted Levin

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'Emperor' and 'Queen'

Puppetworks presents its winter presentations of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Snow Queen,” two classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.

Adapted for the marionette stage by Puppetworks’ Artistic Director Nicolas Coppola, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” tells the tale of a vain emperor who buys a set of ‘invisible’ clothes, only to march down the street in his underwear. The play is accompanied by the music of Dmitri Shostakovich.

“The Snow Queen” tells the story of a mysterious lady who throws ice into the heart of a boy so that he becomes cold and mean. The story is accompanied by Norwegian folk tunes and other music from Norwegian composer Edvard Greig.“

The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Snow Queen” are being shown Saturdays and Sundays, now to March 28, with additional performances all of Presidents’ Week, February 15-19. All performances are at 12:30 & 2:30 p.m. and are held at Puppetworks, 338 Sixth Avenue at Fourth Street in Park Slope.

Admission is $7 for children, $8 for adults, and $5 each for groups of 20 or more.

To make reservations (suggested), call 718-965-3391 or go to www.puppetworks.org.

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The Colonists: unconventional puppets speak volumes without words

By Greg Hanlon

(Published in the 4.23 issue of 24/Seven)

The creators of the smash-hit puppet-show “Jollyship the Whiz-Bang” are back with their next zany and wonderfully imaginative visual fantasy, replete with the music, pyrotechnics, and electrically enhanced puppets.

“The Colonists,” produced by Terrible Baby Theater Co., premiered at Williamsburg’s Brick Theater on April 26 and runs twice every Sunday through May 24.

If the description at the beginning of this article does not paint a clear portrait, it is because the whimsical show is all but impossible to encapsulate in words. Perhaps this is because it doesn’t have any words itself, having been originally conceived for a puppet-show festival in Bangkok, where much of the audience was not likely to understand English.

Rather than words, the show uses the movement of the puppets and an eclectic blend of music directed by Raja Azar to achieve a surprising emotional power. Its somewhat incidental plot revolves around an earthworm with dreams of flying, and a forest overrun by an alien insect force (the titular colonists). It is played out in a series of vignettes in the style of a nature documentary.

“It’s like a ballet with puppets,” described Nick Jones, a founder of Terrible Baby Theater Co. who developed the show with Azar.

Punctuating the show are numerous flash paper explosions, along with a “swordfight” between bees with electrical stingers powered by car batteries and motor-powered mechanical flapping wings. The puppets, constructed with a combination of foam and plastic molding, were made by renowned puppet designer Robin Frohardt, and are operated by puppeteers in beekeeping suits.

“I can’t exactly say it’s high-tech, but we’re trying to take puppetry from the most basic and have some nice effects,” said Jones.

Jones and Azar also collaborated on “Jollyship the Whiz-Bang,” the smash-hit that premiered last summer at Manhattan’s Ars Nova and received widespread critical praise.

Like “The Colonists,” “Jollyship” eludes conventional explanation. In his review of the show, Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote:

“Merely describing what goes on in this show pirate-themed concoction is difficult, because unless you’ve seen the precursors by this troupe you’ve probably never seen anything like it. But the next step for a reviewer, analyzing why it all works so perfectly – well, time to fall back on the old ‘you had to have been there.’”

“The Colonists” will run every Sunday from April 26 through May 24 at the Brick Theater 575 Metropolitan Avenue. Shows are at 3 and 7 p.m., and tickets are $15.

To order tickets, go to http://www.bricktheater.com/, call 718-907-6189, or email info@bricktheater.com.

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