ATLANTA CENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTS SERIES

The CenterвЂ™s signature Education initiative for student and family audiences is the Create-A-Puppet Workshopв„ў, which offers more than 1,000 hours of fun, hands-on programming each year. For student audiences, the Center uses the art form of puppetry to provide educational experiences that encourage creativity, support school-day learning, fuel holistic development, and provide accessible, hands-on opportunities to participate in arts activities. The Center has spent four decades improving enrichment opportunities that support educational standards across the curriculum for students and provide continuing education opportunities for adult audiences.

ATLANTA CENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTS SERIES

Events such as The Dark Crystal Ball and the Puppet Party Series allow adults to engage more deeply with the CenterвЂ™s museum collection. Through storytelling and puppet building exercises, the curriculum-based programs of World Wednesdays, Discovery Days, and Wow Weekends celebrate the rich cultural history of puppetry and highlight the intersection of social studies and the arts. The CenterвЂ™s Education and Museum departments collaborated to provide additional enriching programs for school groups, homeschooled children, and families. Toddler Tuesdays include special puppet-led storytelling, songs, movement, age-appropriate crafts, and a hands-on tour of the Museum. The Museum attracts and educates visitors of all ages and offers events and programs for a wide range of ages in order to expand upon the learning that happens within its exhibitions. Serving scholars and the general public alike, the Nancy Staub Puppetry Research Library houses over 1,100 books, 1,900 videos, 1,300 periodicals, and 1,000 posters and includes a substantial number of Center-related videos, ephemera, photos, articles, and posters from the founding of the Center to present day. The CenterвЂ™s Museum program also maintains the largest puppetry library in the country.

The CenterвЂ™s Museum collection includes nearly 4,000 puppets, costumes, and props from around the world. Rotating exhibits in the Dean DuBose Smith Special Exhibits Gallery delve even more deeply into a wide variety of puppetry topics. Since the MuseumвЂ™s opening, visitors from all fifty states and around the globe have visited. Visitors are encouraged to peruse the galleries at their leisure, and the Center offers guided tours several times a day for guests who want to learn even more about either of the permanent exhibits. The Jim Henson Collection Gallery teaches visitors about HensonвЂ™s influence displays his incredible body of work the Global Collection Gallery shares the history and traditions of puppetry from around the world. The Center built and opened a Silver-LEED Certified expansion in 2015 to house the collection as one of two permanent installations in the Worlds of Puppetry Museum. In 2007, the Center was selected as the destination for the definitive collection of more than 500 puppets, props, and costumes honoring Jim HensonвЂ™s legacy-the largest collection of such items in existence. As such, the Center often serves as the first live theater experience for many children. This accessibility, in combination with the familiarity of puppetry, helps to make the Center one of Atlanta's most approachable arts institutions for children. Presenting diverse artistic talent and points of view helps to make the Center accessible to audiences of all backgrounds.

The Center also presents noteworthy guest artists from around the nation and the world each year, which not only enriches AtlantaвЂ™s artistic landscape with diverse talent and points of view, but it also provides opportunities for local artists to learn from and be inspired by other performers. These productions are performed by the Center Company, with all singing and speaking parts performed live. Both series include original performances written or adapted by the Center and created in-house by Center staff and/or by talented craftspeople and composers from the metro Atlanta area.

The CenterвЂ™s Performance program annually produces and presents more than 500 fully-staged puppetry performances through the CenterвЂ™s Family Series and New Directions Series for Adults and Teens.

Atlanta center for puppetry arts