This document summarizes the four main types of puppets - rod puppets, shadow puppets, string puppets, and hand puppets - represented in the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. It provides details on the construction and manipulation of each type, including insights from graduate student Anna Fitzgerald who is studying puppetry. The document concludes by describing an 8-foot tall bear puppet that was built by Fitzgerald and other students for a winter show at UConn.

1. Puppet Master’s:
A look at what‟s pulling the strings in UConn‟s puppetry program
By Molly Callahan

2. In general, there are four different types of puppets, all represented in the
Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. The one pictured here is a rod
puppet, by Dick Meyer. Rod puppets are manipulated from below, so in this
case, the audience would see everything from the black platform up. Meyer,
who worked in the construction of airplanes, is known for his distinctive design
and efficient, sophisticated mechanics.

3. The second type of puppet is shadow puppets. This one, a late 19th century
Chinese shadow puppet, is made from donkey hide. The hide was stretched,
scraped, and dried until it reached this firm, flexible, translucent phase, at
which point it would be cut and colored with the most painstaking detail. The
heads of these puppets are detachable to make repairs easier, and because
“the belief was that if they would come alive at night if the heads were
attached,” said Anna Fitzgerald, a graduate student in the puppetry program.

4. Here, Fitzgerald stands with the third type of puppet, a string puppet. “A lot of
people call them marionettes, but „marionette‟ means „puppet‟ in French, so we
try to be a little more specific,” she explained. Fitzgerald made her puppet out
of bass and cherry woods for their lightness and durability. She pointed out that
the weight of the puppet can make a big difference, especially during a long
performance.

5. The final puppet classification, and the type popularized by a certain Mr. Jim
Henson, is hand puppets. Pictured here behind a bust of Henson is Scooter, of
The Muppets. Henson took his work to the next level when he implemented a
new way of stitching the puppet together. This “baseball stitch” hides itself from
the outside, making it nearly invisible, an important feature for a puppet under
the unforgiving lens of a television camera!

6. This huge bear, standing about 8 feet tall, was a character in last winter‟s show
here at UConn. It consists of a pair of bear claw shoes, „furry‟ pants, and this
shirt/backpack combination, giving the puppeteer control over everything from
the head to the toes. “It was a lot of hot-glueing. A lot of hot-glueing and a lot of
tearing,” Fitzgerald said of helping to make the plastic bag fur. The whole
puppetry program, comprised of 10 graduate students and six undergraduate
students, helped build the show.