{"id":247113,"date":"2026-06-22T07:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=247113"},"modified":"2026-06-18T12:54:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:54:27","slug":"becoming-modern-exhibition-at-ballard-institute-traces-puppetrys-20th-century-evolution-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/06\/becoming-modern-exhibition-at-ballard-institute-traces-puppetrys-20th-century-evolution-in-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Becoming Modern\u2019 Exhibition at Ballard Institute Traces Puppetry\u2019s 20th Century Evolution in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Biographies of the 20th century puppeteers in the latest exhibition at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry<\/a> roll off John Bell\u2019s tongue almost as easily as he recounts his own professional history.<\/p>\n

Dan Hurlin is a dancer from New Hampshire who fell into puppetry through the post-modern dance world of the 1980s in New York City.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles native Bob Baker grew up doing puppet shows for the kids in his neighborhood and went on to do stop-motion and live puppet animation in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Janie Geiser studied art at the University of Georgia and later worked at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta before moving to New York City and contributing a feminist perspective to the experimental theater scene in the late 20th century.<\/p>\n

In an hour-long conversation, Bell, the Ballard Institute\u2019s director, ranges across decades of U.S. puppetry history, talking about how people like Basil Milovsoroff and Larry Reed tapped experiences with traditional Russian and Indonesian puppetry for their own projects here.<\/p>\n

He shares that Charles Ludlam\u2019s work was a precursor to today\u2019s drag shows, and that Sandy Spieler\u2019s In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre seeks to connect the very Minneapolis neighborhoods where George Floyd and Ren\u00e9e Good were killed.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to forget Peter Schumann, who started the Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont in the early 1960s as an activist troupe and influenced the future of a young college student interested in acting but struggling on stage.<\/p>\n

Yes, that English major who liked the idea of performing was Bell. He says he was taken by the \u201cmasks and puppets and pieces of cloth\u201d the Bread and Puppet artists performed with and was a member of the group for 10 years before moving into academia in the Boston area before arriving at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I think puppetry is so ubiquitous it\u2019s become invisible,\u201d Bell says. \u201cPuppetry and object performance and mask performance is all around us \u2013 just look at Jonathan the Husky at an athletic event. In political demonstrations, there are puppets. In advertising, there are puppets. The most successful film series of our time are filled with puppets: \u2018Star Wars,\u2019 \u2018Indiana Jones,\u2019 and \u2018Jurassic Park.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Items on display in the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry’s “Becoming Modern: U.S. Puppetry in the 20th Century” exhibition on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Sydney Herdle\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evolution Into Serious Art<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One wouldn\u2019t be wrong to suggest the Ballard Institute\u2019s latest exhibition, \u201cBecoming Modern: U.S. Puppetry in the 20th Century,\u201d<\/a> is an appropriate curatorial bow for Bell, who is retiring as the museum\u2019s director Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

The show offers visitors the opportunity to muse on the morphing of live theater puppetry in this country from a place of entertainment into a house of art. It also gives Bell the chance to reflect on his influences and more than five decades of contributions.<\/p>\n

Puppetry in North America dates to the religious ceremonies of Indigenous people who used masks and sculptures in their rituals, he explains. Only, because those objects didn\u2019t look like the traditional European hand, marionette, string, or shadow puppets, they weren\u2019t referred to as puppets until recently.<\/p>\n

Those more common European styles arrived here as people crossed the Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries and brought with them the classic Punch and Judy shows they enjoyed at home. The 19th century brought technological advances like photography and mechanical performances to the world of puppetry, which spurred massive change throughout the 1900s, most notably filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the early 20th century, people in the U.S. theater world wanted the same kind of deep theatrical tradition of Europe \u2013 Shakespeare in England, Moliere in France \u2013 because at that time in the U.S., we had mostly light entertainment. Broadway was just a lot of dancers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell says there was an itch to develop the U.S. theater into a place of serious artmaking.<\/p>\n

Dramatists Eugene O\u2019Neill and Susan Glaspell took the call, giving way to the likes of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, Bell says. Puppetry followed the wave, seeking to shed its status here as low-class entertainment and build a reputation as an art form connected to the rich histories of China, Indonesia, and Japan.<\/p>\n