The Giant Turnip at College Park Arts Exchange, Jan 11, 2015 at 3pm

Beechtree Puppets present
The Giant Turnip, a Ukrainian folk tale
Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 3 pm

Location: College Park Arts Exchange

This whimsical and humorous telling of a Ukrainian folk tale celebrates community and caring for the earth. An old man and his wife who, after lovingly preparing and tending their garden, grow a vegetable that is so large that they can’t pull it up by themselves. The story is told with hand- crafted rod-puppets, and much singing. There is a shadow puppet element that reveals what happens under the ground, including a helpful and jolly root gnome.

Ingrid Cowan Hass and Ole Hass have been performing as singers and actors for a long time, both with Masters degrees in Opera Performance from the North Carolina School of the Arts, and Ole also a Doctor of Musical Arts from UMD in College Park. Their shows are inspired by the magical puppet shows at Acorn Hill Waldorf Kindergarten in Silver Spring, but also by their own performing experience. In crafting the puppets and stage, Ingrid draws on her visual arts expertise (she majored in studio art at Smith College) and her experience with wool and fabric, dyeing, spinning and felting her own wool. The woodwork and mechanical aspects are mostly left to Ole, who likes to dabble in woodworking and construction.