{"id":2210243,"date":"2025-12-23T20:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2210243"},"modified":"2025-12-23T20:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:14:22","slug":"how-brooklyns-puppetworks-theater-brings-stories-to-life-the-picture-show-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/how-brooklyns-puppetworks-theater-brings-stories-to-life-the-picture-show-npr\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brooklyn’s Puppetworks theater brings stories to life : The Picture Show : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n The Tin Soldier, one of Nicolas Coppola’s marionette puppets, is the main character in The Steadfast Tin Soldier<\/em> show at Coppola’s Puppetworks theater in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood.
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Every weekend, at 12:30 or 2:30 p.m., children gather on foam mats and colored blocks to watch wooden renditions of The Tortoise and the Hare,<\/em> Pinocchio<\/em> and Aladdin<\/em> for exactly 45 minutes \u2014 the length of one side of a cassette tape. “This isn’t a screen! It’s for reals happenin’ back there!” Alyssa Parkhurst, a 24-year-old puppeteer, says before each show. For most of the theater’s patrons, this is their first experience with live entertainment.<\/p>\n

Puppetworks has served Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood for over 30 years. Many of its current regulars are the grandchildren of early patrons of the theater. Its founder and artistic director, 90-year-old Nicolas Coppola, has been a professional puppeteer since 1954.<\/p>\n

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\n The Puppetworks theater in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood.
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\n A workshop station behind the stage at Puppetworks, where puppets are stored and repaired.
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\n A picture of Nicolas Coppola, Puppetworks’ founder and artistic director, from 1970, in which he’s demonstrating an ice skater marionette puppet.
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For just $11 a seat\u00a0($12 for adults), puppets of all types \u2014 marionette, swing, hand and rod \u2014 take turns transporting patrons back to the ’80s, when most of Puppetworks’ puppets were made and the audio tracks were taped. Century-old stories are brought back to life. Some even with a modern twist.<\/p>\n