Young Puppeteer's Festival Gets a New Home

After eleven years of creativity, chaos, comedy, community, and sometimes calamity, THE YOUNG PUPPETEERS FESTIVAL has grown up and left home! Much to our delight, Cindy Cochran and her drama students at Kirkwood
Community College, Iowa City campus, have agreed to adopt the festival and
give it the time, attention, and publicity it needs to grow and thrive! To
ease our separation anxiety, Cindy has agreed to let us act as favorite
aunts and keep our meddling fingers in the pie. We promise to behave and
relinquish control to Cindy and her students.

THE YOUNG PUPPETEERS FESTIVAL, an opportunity for amateur puppeteers to
develop their own shows and perform them in a festival setting, is the only
one of its kind in the united States. As such, it has been featured twice
in a The Puppetry Journal, a national magazine. In its eleven years, the
festival has been instrumental in helping build the skills of numerous
groups of puppeteers. Festival regulars include Willowwind School, Diana
Lane’s ELP students at Lincoln and Lemme Elementary Schools, and Liz
Schacterle, a senior in high school who has twice been awarded scholarships
to Puppeteers of America Festivals and has received regional attention for a
show she developed for the Young Puppeteers Festival.

This year’s YOUNG PUPPETEERS FESTIVAL will be held Friday, May 2, at
Kirkwood Community College, Iowa City. For further information or to
register, contact Cindy Cochran at <CCOCHRA@kirkwood.cc.ia.us>

childrens' festival

young puppeteers' festival