About the festival
Puppets in the Green Mountains is a bienniel international festival of puppetry and unusual theater held in Southern Vermont. It began in 1997 as a collaboration with The Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center with Mara Williams as its executive producer. In its seven previous years, the festival has presented over 60 companies from Europe, Asia, North and South America. A truly unique festival, Puppets in the Green Mountains brings world-class puppetry to Southern Vermont, often presentaing shows in very non-traditional settings. One of the missions of this festival is to bring artist and community together, which is what we think makesPuppets in the Green Mountains so special. For the time the puppeteers are here, they stay in the homes of members of our little community of Putney,VT. They're also given ample opportunity to enjoy each others work and spend time together at the group dinners every night, generously hosted by members of the community. The Puppets in the Green Mountains festival is one of the few remaining opportunities in this country to experience the ingenious and varied art of puppet theater! We are already looking forward to the next edition in Fall 2012 and hope you will join us then.
Read a beautiful article by Jon Potter about the 2010 festival here.
and here is another great article by Chris Rohman at The Valley Advocate
About Sandglass Theater
Sandglass Theater was founded in Munich, Germany in 1982, by Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass. Sandglass has been, since its beginnings, a theater company dedicated to the use of the puppet as a primary theatrical medium, often using the puppet in combination with actors and collaborating with artists and composers. Sandglass moved to Putney, Vermont in 1986. 10 Years later they opened their intimate sixty seat barn theater. Sandglass Theater is now host to several guest artists series throughout the year. Among them, Voices of Community (a series devoted to social activist theater) and the Winter Sunshine series (a series of puppet shows for family audiences, produced in collaboration with Crabgrass Puppets). The theater also hosts the Sandglass Repertoire, and many other special events. The company’s extensive repertoire for both adults and young audiences has toured worldwide and earned several Citations of Excellence from UNIMA, and many other awards in Europe, Australia and the US. At a ceremony earlier this year, Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass received Vermont’s Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Sandglass Theater has just returned from festivals in Hungary (where Eric Bass performed Autumn Portraits) and Quebec (where Sandglass performed All Weather Ballads — a love story). The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded Sandglass a touring grant to bring All Weather Ballads to rural areas in the Northeast, Southeast and Mid-west in the coming year. Sandglass continues to develop its newest piece, D-generation, on the creative capacity of people living with dementia and to tour Richard 3.5 (Light Ruminations on Murder), a collaboration between Bob Berky and Eric Bass.
Sandglass Theater is associated with the Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater Research, a not-for-profit organization. Sandglass Theater is a member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and the National Performance Network.