Monday, November 21, 2011

We've got puppets!

We've been loving our Steampunk Bizzare: The Unknown exhibit, but our latest exhibit just adds to the thrills of visiting our museum center. We recently installed throughout our beautiful marble building a number of puppets from the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. Guess which Twain work they refer to?


That's right-- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In 1996, the Connecticut Repertory Theatre mounted a large-scale puppet production of this Twain classic. We're lucky enough to host these fellows in our museum all the way until March 5th, 2012. The puppets range from royals to ordinary folks, like pig boy and his pigs.


If you haven't read Connecticut Yankee (and don't feel bad, lots of people haven't-- put it on your bucket list), you might not know that it's rife with familiar characters from King Arthur's Court. Grinning knights and sassy Morgana; and once in a while, Merlin pops up. 



Last Saturday was our "Free Hartford Day," and so we invited the fine folks from Ballard to come and give a live presentation of how the puppets work. They also spoke a bit about the design.


Thank you so much to the fine folks of the Ballard institute paying us a visit. Now we hope you will-- there are way too many amazing puppets to describe here! For more information on the exhibit and the museum, please visit our website.



-- The Mark Twain House

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