{"id":76676,"date":"2013-04-24T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T18:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=76676"},"modified":"2013-04-26T10:03:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T14:03:23","slug":"world-renowned-ballard-institute-museum-of-puppetry-moving-to-storrs-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/04\/world-renowned-ballard-institute-museum-of-puppetry-moving-to-storrs-center\/","title":{"rendered":"World-Renowned Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry Moving to Storrs Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bart<\/a>
Bart Roccoberton, left, director of UConn’s puppets arts program, speaks about the relocation this fall of the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry to Storrs Center during a press event April 24. At right is John Bell, director of the BIMP. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, part of the University of Connecticut\u2019s world-renowned puppet programs in the School of Fine Arts, will become part of Storrs Center in the fall.<\/p>\n

The museum will relocate from its current location at UConn\u2019s Depot Campus to a more accessible exhibition and performance space that is part of the new branch of the UConn Co-op slated to open at Storrs Center.<\/p>\n

\"Louis<\/a>
Louis G. Marquet, principal, LeylandAlliance LLC, speaks at the press event. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOur move to Storrs Center is a great opportunity for the Ballard Institute to thrive in the middle of a busy community environment,\u201d says John Bell, director of the museum and a theater historian at a news conference at the museum this morning. \u201cWe are looking forward to expanding our hours of operation, presenting more puppet performances, forums, film showings, and symposia, and collaborating with other parts of the UConn and Mansfield community.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its new home, the Ballard Institute and Museum will occupy 4,332 square feet of museum, performance, and support space on the first floor of the building, providing for an expanded space for one large exhibition or two smaller simultaneous exhibitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very excited about the move,\u201d says Cynthia van Zelm, executive director of the Mansfield Downtown Partnership Inc. \u201cWe feel it will be a destination for visitors, with a key location inside the UConn Co-op and near restaurants and other businesses in the downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Museum\u2019s permanent collection includes 2,500 puppets consisting of a wide variety of marionettes, hand puppets, shadow fingers, rod puppets, toy theaters, and other figures, as well as hundreds of traditional puppets from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. It also includes hundreds of books and more than 1,000 videos and other audiovisual resources.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>
William Simpson, president and CEO of the UConn Co-op. The Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry will be relocated inside the UConn Co-op’s new branch in Storrs Center. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

William Simpson, president and chief operating officer of the UConn Co-op, says working with the Museum in its new Storrs Center location will create a novel experience for the UConn Co-op and its patrons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will offer the bookstore customer\/museum patron a unique environment that they will want to experience again and again. We can\u2019t wait,\u201d says Simpson.<\/p>\n

Current exhibitions at the Museum at the Depot Campus include \u201cExceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers,\u201d the first exhibition devoted to the puppetry of Dick Myers, whose one-man shows excited audiences around the world in the mid-20th century; and \u201cStrings, Rods, and Robots: Recent Acquisitions,\u201d which showcases the exhilarating diversity of puppets from around the world recently acquired by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.<\/p>\n

\"Puppets<\/a>
Puppets of ‘Simple Simon’ by Dick Myers, currently on display at the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn is one of only two universities in the country offering a bachelor of fine arts in puppet arts, and the only one offering master\u2019s degrees in puppet arts. Graduates of the program perform and design for many theaters around the world. Shortly before her death earlier this month, Jane Henson, a puppeteer and original collaborator with Muppets creator Jim Henson, donated $100,000 to establish a scholarship fund for students majoring in puppet arts.<\/p>\n

Storrs Center is a new mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented downtown in Mansfield, Conn. The downtown features shops, restaurants, services, and apartment homes that are interspersed with a town square and public areas in a new neighborhood located at the intersection of Storrs Road and the University of Connecticut campus.<\/p>\n

For more information about Storrs Center, visit www.storrscenter.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University’s puppetry institute and museum will relocate in the fall to the new downtown, inside a new branch of the UConn Co-op.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":76748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-76676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:29:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76903,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76676\/revisions\/76903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/76748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76676"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=76676"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=76676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}