In the 50 years since legendary puppeteer Frank Ballard started teaching puppetry classes in UConn’s School of Fine Arts, alumni of the Puppet Arts Program have performed on Broadway, in films, on television, and on stages worldwide.
Many of these alums will return to campus this week among the more than 500 puppeteers from across the country and around the world who will attend professional workshops, participate in panel discussions, and present performances as part of the 2015 National Puppetry Festival, kicking off celebrations for the half-century of UConn puppet arts.
The work of some of UConn’s most prominent alumni puppeteers is featured in an exhibition “The Work That Follows: 50 Years of UConn Puppeteers” at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs Center. The exhibition, one of six exhibitions of puppets currently on display, showcases the work of alumni such as Jamie Keithline ’80 (SFA) and Bonny Hall ’81 (SFA) of Crabgrass Puppet Theatre, Jason Rosen ’85 MFA of Skinwalker Studios, Jim Napolitano ’93 (SFA) of Nappy’s Puppets, and Jean Marie Keevins ’99 (SFA), a puppet builder for “Avenue Q” and “The Muppets.”
Under the guidance of Ballard for the first 25 years and the leadership of Bart Roccoberton ’90 MFA over the past quarter century, the UConn program has emphasized training puppeteers who are well-rounded in the skills needed to develop an idea and turn it into reality.
“Most of all it’s the positive feeling of anything is possible,” says Rosen, a 1985 graduate of the master’s program. “That’s certainly something Bart has brought to the program – don’t let the idea of how you’re going to fabricate something or realize it limit your idea or the story you want to do. Tell the story you want to tell. Your job as a puppeteer-designer-builder is to figure out how it’s going to happen.”
Leslie Weinberg ’88 MFA says her studies under Ballard launched her on a performance and academic career at Wesleyan University that demonstrated the range of puppet arts, including collaboration with other art forms.
“Frank showed me a way to work in opera and in musical theater, that I could bring a seriousness to the work that was not always easy in America, because America saw puppets as children’s entertainment,” says Weinberg, whose work in the alumni exhibit includes a Don Quixote figure from a puppet opera. “The way I got to start doing puppet shows at Wesleyan was by doing operas and by collaborating with the music department, because the music department was so excited to be doing these things.”
When Hua Hua Zhang ’00 MFA arrived in Storrs as a graduate student in puppet arts, she was the first student from China to join the program. Trained in the ancient art of Chinese puppetry, she had previously toured the world as part of the China Puppet Arts Troupe of Beijing.
She was attracted by UConn’s close-knit community in puppet arts. “The students were so wonderful and close to each other at UConn. It was a big family,” says Zhang, who is now based in Philadelphia. “I learned so much from my classmates.”
This year, Zhang had an opportunity to teach UConn students and introduce them to Chinese rod puppets. “The quality of the students and their passion for puppet arts was exciting,” she says.
She notes that the University is becoming increasingly attractive to potential students. As a teacher in Philadelphia, she adds, “If I see somebody motivated, I suggest they go to UConn.”
Pam Arciero ’82 MFA is a voice-over artist and principal puppeteer with “Sesame Street” (Grundgetta Grouch) and “Between the Lions” (Leona Lion), and also the artistic director of the Eugene O’Neill Center National Puppetry Conference in Waterford, Conn. She travels to puppetry festivals around the world to see new productions and how other puppeteers perform, but often looks to UConn puppeteers for her own projects.
“The program has accelerated under Bart, who has taken it to another level,” she says. “The kids are talented, skilled, and incredibly varied. I work on a lot of different projects as well as ‘Sesame Street,’ and when something comes up, I call those kids just coming out of school or others who have been out and have become partners with me. You can rely on them to do a level of work that’s fantastic. I’m very confident if it’s a UConn graduate walking through the door.”
Recent graduates such as Lauren Horoszewski ’05 (SFA), ’10 MFA continue to extend the program into new areas.
Horoszewski, who earned her undergraduate degree in sculpture and now specializes as a fabricator building puppets, spent several years working on characters for the stop-motion animation studio Stoopid Buddy Stoodios in Los Angeles, where she worked on productions such as “MAD,” a children’s cartoon show, and “The Simpsons.” Recently she moved to Michael Curry Design in Portland, Ore., and is now building large-scale puppets for Disney characters, including a touring production of “The Lion King.”
“At UConn we learned about [Lion King director] Julie Taymor; now I get to build some of these puppets that are going to New York, Australia, and Shanghai,” she says. “Everything I Iearned at UConn prepared me to branch out into all areas of puppetry.”
The exhibition “The Work That Follows: 50 Years of UConn Puppeteers,” which is open to the public, continues through Nov. 15.
For information about the 2015 National Puppetry Festival go to: www.nationalpuppetryfestival2015.com.
