Director
Paul Spirito
UConn's Puppet Arts Program's Technical Supervisor, Paul guides students through the process of designing, creating, and performing puppets for their projects and for the Connecticut Repertory Theater. His profound love of machines and the parts that make them go, along with his obsession with the people of the industrial age, are the driving forces behind much of his work. Paul's goal is to push puppetry forward by infusing traditional forms and techniques with 21st century materials and processes. Says Paul:
"Most of our online students can't interrupt their lives for two years to come to campus to study puppetry. The online graduate certificate program offers the perfect solution. You can try out one course or take the entire four-course program. Plus credits are directly transferrable to the MA or MFA in Puppet Arts at UConn. Some students use the program as a stepping stone to getting a Master's degree. Whether you choose the traditional route or go online, you'll get the benefit of our program’s 50 years of teaching puppetry, along with all the resources and networking opportunities that a large university like ours provides."
Email: paul.spirito@uconn.edu
Core Faculty
Sarah Nolen
Sarah is a puppeteer and filmmaker known for her versatile and witty work across multiple puppetry styles. Originally from Texas, Sarah now resides in Massachusetts, where she works as a freelance puppeteer, director, and puppet builder for both stage and screen through her company Puppet Motion.
In 2009, Sarah earned her BFA in Cinema-Television from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, alongside an interdisciplinary major in Children’s Media. She received her MFA in Puppet Arts at the University of Connecticut in 2016. While at UConn, Sarah was awarded the 2015 Mister Rogers Memorial Scholarship in support of her MFA film project, TREEPLES, which premiered at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival. Sarah has trained at Sesame Workshop, the O’Neill Puppetry Conference, Sandglass Theater, the Brooklyn Puppet Conspiracy, and completed a yearlong improvisational comedy program at the Dallas Comedy House. Currently, she is the 3rd-ever resident artist at Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, where she tours her own solo puppet shows around New England.
As a builder, Sarah earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for “Outstanding Puppet Design” for her work with Sinking Ship Productions’ A Hunger Artist. She has interned with Puppet Heap in Hoboken, built with AchesonWalsh Studios, and most recently, built and performed puppets for Netflix’s DON’T LOOK UP (2021) and another upcoming release, MOTHERSHIP (2023).
As far as projects go, she is currently directing Feral, a new puppet show created by Sandglass Theater’s Shoshana Bass. In April of 2023, Sarah will premiere Party Animals at Puppet Showplace Theater in Boston, a new family puppet show being created with support from the Jim Henson Foundation and Puppet Showplace Theater. You can learn more about her work at her website:
Email: sarah.nolen@uconn.edu
Paulette Richards
Paulette Richards is a puppet artist and independent researcher. She holds a PhD in French Civilization from the University of Virginia and has taught at Georgetown University and Georgia Tech. She survived a ten-month stint in Senegal as a 2013/ 2014 Fulbright Scholar without contracting any tropical diseases, but sometime during her service as an artist in residence at the Institute Français de Saint Louis, the puppet bug bit her hard. After returning to Atlanta, she became a docent in the Worlds of Puppetry Museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She co-curated the Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibit that ran at the University of Connecticut’s Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry from October 2018 to April 2019 with Dr. John Bell and co-edited the anthology of essays from the Living Objects Symposium. Her book, Object Performance in the Black Atlantic is forthcoming from Routledge.
Email: paulette.richards@uconn.edu
Annie Rollins
Annie Katsura Rollins is a researcher, theatre and puppetry artist, and practitioner of Chinese shadow puppetry, studying as a traditional apprentice since 2008. Rollins has received a Fulbright Fellowship, the Confucius Institute Joint PhD Research Fellowship and a Canadian SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship for her research. She was named valedictorian for her dissertation at Concordia University’s Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD program on the precarity of safeguarding traditional puppet forms. Selected venues for exhibitions, lectures and performances include The Art Institute of Chicago, The Montreal Botanical Gardens, The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Bucknell University, Luther College, the Linden Center in Yunnan China, and the Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands. Annie has published articles in Puppetry International, Asian Theatre Journal, Manip, and Anthropology Now and created the first comprehensive Chinese shadow puppetry site in English at www.chineseshadowpuppetry.com.
Email: annie.rollins@uconn.edu
Portfolio: www.anniekatsurarollins.com
newcomer engagement lead www.mabellearts.ca
co-founder and curator www.concretecabaret.com
professor at Centennial College and University of Connecticut
Matthew Sorensen
Matthew Sorensen is a puppeteer, theater artist, filmmaker, educator, and museum exhibition designer based in Connecticut and New York. He is also adjunct faculty for the Dramatic Arts program at the University of Connecticut and for the University of Utah. When he’s not in the classroom, Matt can be found preparing exhibitions, hosting events, and leading tours and workshops at the Ballard Institute in Museum of Puppetry. He received his MFA in Puppet Arts from UConn in 2022. While finishing his studies, Matt formed a puppet production company, Puppet Bucket Productions, and has designed and built puppets for theater and film around the world.
Email: matthew.sorensen@uconn.edu
Susan Tolis
Susan Tolis has worked extensively in the areas of costumes, puppetry, specialty props and masks for many theatre, dance and opera companies, such as Jim Henson Productions, Lincoln Center Theatre, Boston Ballet, Hartford Stage, NetWorks, Disney and more. She currently serves as the Costume Shop Manager for the University of Connecticut’s Department of Dramatic Arts and The Connecticut Repertory Theatre where she teaches costume technology courses and mentors undergraduate and graduate students in theatrical costuming. She also has a love of art dolls, and designs and creates one of a kind faerie and fantasy sculptures for commission and sale through her website www.fernwoodfaeries.com.
Email: susan.tolis@uconn.edu
Fergus Walsh
Adjunct faculty member in UConn’s School of Fine Arts, Dramatic Arts Department, Fergus is a puppeteer currently working in New York City. In 2014 he co-founded Acheson Walsh Studios (AWS), a kinetic creation studio providing design, fabrication, direction, and performance services. Recent clients include Cirque Du Soleil (Toruk), Lincoln Center (The King and I), Radio City Music Hall (The New York Spectacular), and The Lyric Theater on Broadway (On The Town). Says Fergus:
"The entire film industry is going back to the original ways of using actual puppets instead of computer animated graphics. Puppets are far more realistic – the human eye can spot if something is fake. No matter how advanced computer generation is, it will never live up to the actual physical thing of being there."
Email: Fergus.Walsh@UConn.edu
Affiliated Faculty
John Bell
One of the preeminent historians and theorists of Puppet Theater in the U.S., Dr. Bell is the Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and an Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts at UConn. He is a founding member of the Great Small Works Theater Collective; was a member of the Bread and Puppet Theater Company from 1976 to 1986; and received his doctoral degree in theater history from Columbia University in 1993. He is the author and editor of many books and articles about puppet theater, including American Puppet Modernism, Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History and The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance. Says Dr. Bell:
"One of the basic challenges we face is how to communicate, not with our faces, but with our hands. In both the hand puppet and shadow puppet courses, you'll learn types of manipulation that help you develop hand dexterity. We teach students how to figure out the different positions and movements of the hand to enable the puppet to communicate thoughts and feelings. And we always look at traditional forms of puppetry from other countries to help students understand what makes a good performance, what kinds of stories can be told, and what contexts are useful for them to take advantage of in their own performances."
Email: john.bell@uconn.edu
Bart Roccoberton, Jr.
Director of the Puppet Arts Program, Bart is recognized worldwide as a leading advocate for Puppet Arts in the United States and abroad. Inspired by his knowledge and enthusiasm, UConn’s Puppet Arts alumni have worked on Broadway shows, including The Lion King, Little Shop of Horrors, and Avenue Q; in major motion film, including Spiderman 2; and on PBS’s Between the Lions and Sesame Street, as well as forming their own touring companies. Says Bart:
"In our program, we open our students' eyes and ears to the myriad of possibilities. Nothing is impossible. In fact, our graduates are renowned around the world for being exceptionally well qualified to do any type of work in puppetry – one of the key reasons so many of our students have gotten puppeteer positions in major motion films and Broadway productions."
Article of Interest: UNIMA Cites Roccoberton as ‘Chancellor of Puppetry Education’ for Global Influence
Email: BP.Roccoberton@UConn.edu