Kermit the Frog at the Center for Puppetry Arts Photo by Andrea Wright via Flickr, CC by 2.0

It’s not every day that Kermit the Frog attends the opening of a new cultural institution. But on September 23, 1978, Kermit helped cut the ribbon on the newly opened Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

The Center for Puppetry Arts celebrates all things puppetry—string puppets, sock puppets, shadow puppets, stick puppets, and more—with permanent and pop-up shows in the museum, live puppet performances on-site, and educational workshops, as well as through the archives and books at the Nancy Staub Research Library. Puppetry “springs from the human tendency to tell stories, and it is a universal thing that has sprung up all around the globe,” Museum Director Jill Nash Malool told LJ.

Vince Anthony, founder and strategic advisor of the Center, got his start with the Nicolo Marionettes in New York before cofounding the Vagabond Marionettes with fellow Nicolo puppeteer Mitchell Edmonds in 1966. After performing several seasons at Atlanta’s Woodruff Art Center, Anthony had the idea of starting an organization dedicated to puppetry in Atlanta. At the time, nothing like it existed, and given the rich history of puppetry in the United States and worldwide, he felt there was a gap that needed to be filled.

As the Center for Puppetry Arts neared its opening date, Anthony reached out to Jim Henson, who he knew through Puppeteers of America, and asked if Henson would attend the opening. Henson responded, “You know what? Kermit will be there, and maybe he’ll bring me along.” The rest is history.

The Center opened in the former building of the Spring Street Elementary School, which had closed in 1976. The Atlanta City Council then rented the building out to nonprofits, including the Atlanta Ballet, which shared the building with the Center after it opened.

The Center’s museum was created shortly after it opened, thanks to the efforts of Nancy Lohman Staub, for whom the research library would later be named in 2009. Anthony had deputized her to start collecting puppets from all around the world, but Staub quickly realized that the museum also needed background information about them. That was the catalyst for founding the research library. Staub collected articles, rare books, archival materials, and recordings, as well as documentation surrounding the formation of the Center.

Since 1978, the Center and its museum and library have continued to grow. Notably, the Center was able to purchase the Spring Street Elementary building in 1986, thanks to a fundraising campaign and an anonymous foundation grant. Over time, it has received donations from notable puppeteers such as Henson and Bonnie Erickson, who is best known for working with Henson and designing Miss Piggy.

While the Center collected books, ephemera, and other items related to puppetry from its inception, it was not until 1997 that the library became a research facility accessible to the public. The library expanded its space in 2015, thanks to a capital campaign for the entire Center.

JIM HENSON AND BEYOND

The collection’s holdings range from the late 19th century to the present day. One of the oldest items is an English translation of The Old German Puppet Play of Doctor Faust by Wilhelm Hamm. The library partners with the artifact collection at the Center, which includes puppets and other similar materials, and holds a number of items from the 1930s thanks to donations from puppeteers who worked in the early 20th century, such as Marjorie McPharlin (1903–97), who performed with her husband Paul McPharlin. 

Patterns from the collection of Bonnie Erickson, housed at the Nancy Staub Puppetry Research Library Courtesy of the Center for Puppetry Arts

The archive spans 70 liner feet of materials, with 12 major archival collections including Henson’s and Erickson’s collections. There are 400 to 500 films of the Center’s own performances from the 1980s, as well as 1,000–1,500 VHS tapes that the Center is working to digitize, as magnetic tape deteriorates over time.Other materials in the collection include exhibition catalogs, periodicals, books, the Center’s institutional archives, and ephemera related to puppetry. Collections Manager Micah Walsh noted that one of her favorite items is the collection of Erickson’s homemade puppet patterns. As a seamstress, Walsh said, she loves the fact that Erickson kept them because she sewed her own puppets. Walsh also mentioned Marjorie McPharlin’s watercolor character designs, which are “stunning in their own right as artwork.”

Erickson’s collections are Malool’s favorite as well. They include material “that explains all the fonts and colors and things that you need to use in order to create a book that would represent the style of Sesame Street,” she said. Malool also noted the deep catalog of the Center’s performance films. “Many folks [have] worked here 40 years,” she said, and employees “can go back and see [staff members] as young people, and their performances.”

The Center and library contain the largest collection of Henson artifacts, props, costumes and archival material in the world. Malool explained that the Henson family decided that they did not want to create a specific Jim Henson museum, so they donated the bulk of his collection to the Center in 2014—but the museum had been collecting his items and materials since its founding. The Henson Collection includes puppets, costumes, Sesame Street ephemera, training videos, photos, and more.

TREASURES FOR RESEARCHERS AND PUPPETEERS

The research library has been popular with users interested in studying particular types of puppetry styles. Dr. Lorraine Linkhauer, a noted filmmaker and puppeteer, visited the library to study the “structure and support methods of large masks and tabletop puppetry,” Walsh noted. Scholars have also used the library collections in their work. Paulette Richards, an independent researcher and puppet artist, used library holdings—among other resources—to gather information for Object Performance in the Black Atlantic (Routledge). Michael Nitsche, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Pierce McBride, senior virtual reality engineer at ForeVR Games, also used the library for their paper “Manipulating Puppets in VR” for the 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces.

Some people are simply interested at looking at the items. In 2023, Madelyn Rodriguez returned to the library to learn more about the Trash Can Phoenix, which she remembered being afraid of when she visited the Center as a young girl. The Trash Can Phoenix—a puppet that emerged from a flaming trash can with wings outstretched—was created by Michael Curry, an animatronics artist who has worked for Disney and on Broadway productions, for the Center’s Power of Wonder exhibit, which ran from 1995 to 2015. While the exhibit is no longer on display, Rodriguez was able to view videos of the puppet in the library.

Curators and other staff at the center use the materials to inform puppet shows and exhibitions as well. 

Currently, they are working to catalog the library holdings. Since professional library staff were only hired about 15 years ago, much material remains unprocessed. Walsh has been creating finding aids for some of the major collections, such as the Jim Henson and Marjorie McPharlin collections. Many artifacts, especially puppets, were collected without any background information. Walsh and others at the Center for the Performing Arts are trying to learn more about them.

The Center is currently in the process of expanding its small collection to include more women and people of color who have worked in the puppetry world. Walsh hopes that the library will continue highlight the specific puppeteer collections that make it unique, she said, especially those that may not be housed anywhere else. (Some Henson puppets and materials went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY.)

People interested in seeing the puppeteer collections and other materials at the Nancy Straub Research Library should request access through this form at least two weeks before visiting. The library can also help people who are unable to visit in person with some information requests.