The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry Hosts Free Puppet-Building Workshops for the Celebrate Mansfield Festival

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will once again offer fall community puppet-building workshops to design and build life-size and over-life-size puppets for a new Reading the Book of Mansfield pageant to be performed at the Celebrate Mansfield Festival in Downtown Storrs. These free workshops will be led by internationally acclaimed puppeteer and pageant director Sara Peattie of Boston’s Puppeteers Cooperative, and will take place Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 23 and 24, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.

Reading the Book of Mansfield will explore places, people, and things that make Mansfield unique! Workshop participants will collaborate to create puppets and masks representing what they love most about Mansfield, and will be invited to perform their creations in the community pageant as part of the 20th-annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 30.

No experience is necessary to participate in these free community puppet-building workshops. Space is limited, so advance registration is strongly encouraged. Participants can come for one or both days but should register for the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. or/and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. time slot(s). Minors must be accompanied by an adult. To register for the workshop, visit bimp.ticketleap.com/2023-cmf. If you require accommodation to participate, contact the Ballard Institute at bimp@uconn.edu or 860-486-8580.

This community puppet project is sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. For more information about the 20th-annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival, visit downtownstorrsfestival.org.

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