Birthday Party at PST: Help Us Celebrate 39 Years this June!

Celebrate our 39th Birthday with us!

Sunday, June 2nd

1:00-4:00 PM

MAKE A RESERVATION

Join us to celebrate Puppet Showplace Theatre's 39th Birthday with cake and more! Puppet fans can drop-in any time between 1pm and 4pm and enjoy rotating puppet performances, craft activities, and a community giant puppet parade. Participants will be able to bring home balloon animals and goody bags, or make their own puppet at fun craft stations. Tickets: $10 individual, $25 family ($8/$20 members).

Your contributions and "birthday gifts" to the theatre will help us share the magic of puppetry with children from across the Greater Boston Area this summer season. Thank you for helping to make our first family-friendly fundraiser a success!  If you cannot attend, consider making a birthday donation.

RAFFLE PRIZES!

Another way to show your support and help us celebrate 39 years as New England's puppet theater is by purchasing raffle tickets! Tickets are $5 each, and can be purchased on line or at our event on June 2nd.

PURCHASE RAFFLE TICKETS

Thank you to Sesame Workshop, our very good friend Leslie Carrara-Rudolph a.k.a. Abby Cadabby and Henry Bear's Park in Brookline for their generous donations!

PST V.I.P. Summer Pass

4 complementary tickets to each puppet show through 

the summer 2013 season at PST

Elmo Pack

Includes: Elmo Themed Kid’s T-shirt, DVD, baseball cap, 

iphone case, and hand puppet

Abby Pack

Includes: Abby Cadabby doll, photo album, 

phone call from Abby, and a signed photo

Sesame Street Pack

Includes: Autographed cast photo, Cookie Monster doll, Sesame Street book, 

and Big Bird finger puppet.

$100 Shopping Spree!

Enjoy a $100 Shopping spree at Henry Bear’s Park in Brookline Village

Thank you for helping us celebrate 39 years as New England's puppet theater!

Support Puppetry This Spring at PST!

Just as a garden needs care and attention to thrive, a small theater depends on the generous support of members and donors in order to survive!  Please help us reach our fundraising goal this spring, so we can continue to bring the magic of puppetry to audiences of all ages! MAKE A DONATION

GUEST BLOGGER: Maria Finison, PST Board Member

Maria and her daughter, Stella!

As a local Brookline resident, fan of the Puppet Showplace Theatre, and current board member, I was happy to be asked to write about our upcoming birthday party celebrations on the puppet blog!

We are very excited this year to be hosting two events for families, friends and supporters.  This is a great opportunity to learn more about the Theatre and all it does for the Brookline and Greater Boston community - all while eating cupcakes! 

On June 2^nd from 1:00 to 4:00pm- we will be hosting a family-friendly Birthday Party to celebrate PST’s 39^th Birthday.  The event will include fun games, puppet shows, and a Giant Puppet Parade down Station Street to the John Murphy Playground.  During the event there will be cupcakes and a raffle to help support the Theatre. MAKE RESERVATION

On June 4^th from 7:00 to 9:00pm- we will be hosting our annual fundraising party with our Garden Party Gala.  For this event, we will be transforming the Theatre into an enchanted garden.  The evening will include performances by emerging artists including our very own Artist in Residence Brad Shur who will be presenting a piece of digital puppetry.  In addition, the Showplace is giving two awards to two outstanding individuals and artists.  The first is the Paul Vincent Davis Award for Puppetry that will be given to Andrew and Bonnie Periale of Perry Alley Puppet Theatre.  The second, our Creative Leadership Award, will be given to Norah Dooley who is the Founder of massmouth, inc.  an organization devoted to the art of storytelling. MAKE RESERVATION

I hope to see many of you at the Theatre for these events.  We are very excited to celebrate with our community of supporters all that we have accomplished this year!

-Maria

Puppet Playtime is BAAAACCK!

PUPPET PLAYTIME

(For ages 3 and under)

Wednesdays at 10:30am through June 5, 2013

MAKE A RESERVATION

Revenge of the Furs! Puppet Playtime Returns to PST!

by Guest Blogger: Phil Berman

March went out like a crocheted lion, April showers brought May flowers to blossom, and the shining sun over the city can only mean one thing: Puppet Playtime is back at PST for four more shows this spring!

Last week Brenda, Bella Monster and I traveled back to the garden where we met a potpourri of friendly (and hungry) bugs. We even got the chance to take our show on the road last Sunday as we performed for the annual Duckling Day Parade at the Boston Common.

On Wednesday, the three of us will embark on a new camping adventure to explore the night sky with our intrepid audience members. Come for the canoeing and stay for the stargazing as we spend a night in an imaginary forest together with all of our puppet friends.

See you at the theater!

Phil Berman

Performer/Co-Creator Puppet Playtime

Magical May Continues with Cinderella!

"A Woodland Cinderella"
by Deborah Costine, Puppeter!

Mother's Day Weekend at Puppet Showplace Theatre!

Showtimes:
Thurs & Fri, May 9-10 at 10:30am
Sat & Sun, May 11-12 at 1 & 3pm

Buy Tickets!

ABOUT THE SHOW

In this original UNIMA award-winning version of Cinderella, the King of all Woodland Fairies wants his son to marry a fairy princess, but he knows that they are very hard to find. So the King hosts a great ball and commands all the young fairy maidens to attend. He hopes that the missing fern fairy princess will come. Will he find her?. 

This show is very popular for children aged four and up and their grownups.  It is also enjoyed equally by both boys and girls.

Deborah Costine, Puppeteer in Action!

ABOUT THE PERFORMER

Debbie grew up in Lancaster NH in a region known as “The Great North Woods.”  There were no visiting school assembly programs and the only puppet Debbie had ever seen was “Bunny-Rabbit” on “Captain Kangaroo” (TV reception was very limited there in the 50s!) When she was ten she made a puppet! She had no idea how to go about it but made a papier mache clown that still sits in her studio today.

Since 1974, Debbie has been one half of the well-known “Gerwick Puppets” touring throughout New England at schools, libraries, museums and events such as First Night Boston.  She writes the scripts with partner Lenny Gerwick, and makes all the puppets.  She estimates that over the past thirty years she has made over two hundred puppets! The Gerwick Puppets have presented over 5,000 performances to over a million children! Productions include “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,” “Pilgrim Adventure to America,” “Inside the Haunted House” "Adventures From Thornton W. Burgess"  and "Midwinter Magic" to name a few. 

Beside her work with “Gerwick,” Debbie designs, constructs and performs her own solo shows called “Small Shows for Small Groups of Small Children.” Titles include “The Three Pigs and Other Tales,” “A Woodland Cinderella” and “The Twig Family in the Oak Tree.”  These are especially popular in pre-schools, libraries and birthday parties.

For lower elementary grades is "Turtle's New Home" that reflects Debbie's growing interest in the environment and the value of being connected to the outdoors.

She has taught puppetry classes at Plymouth State University in NH and Northeastern University in Boston, and Worcester State College.  She created a set of eight puppets for the National Park Service to teach about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railway. She has does professional voice work, such as playing numerous characters on the Verizon web-site: Superthinkers.com. 

Debbie's environmental interests have continued to grow - taking her outside on trails more and more, downstream in her kayak and a growing interest in bird identification.  Her own experience of growing up in a rural setting , playing outdoors, building "forts" in the woods with her brothers, wading in brooks, gave her an ongoing sense of the unlimited joys of the outdoors.  Now, Debbie's mission is to try to do what she can to promote a love of nature in children.  It is something that can give great pleasure to everyone.  Nature is everywhere! (from: http://www.deborahcostinenaturepuppets.com/about.html)