Amalgamated Puppet Libraries
Open Tuesdays 2- 7 PM, otherwise by appointment
For more information, call Sara Peattie at (617) 378-5715, or (617) 536-3355 ext.26.
or email Sara Peattie
Nice article in the Boston Globe
The Puppet Lending Libraries are stocked with parade puppets and
banners, twenty-foot tall Big City and Mother Earth puppets, twelve-foot dancing cats, enormous flowers,
puppet horses for children to ride, and a wide variety of dragons. All these elements are loaned out to enliven
school and community events, neighborhood parades, celebrations, and demonstrations in the cities of New York
and Boston.
The Puppet Libraries began in Boston, as the Back Alley Puppet Theater, and, later, the Puppeteers' Cooperative created numerous parades for the First Night Grand Procession over the years, starting with First Night's inception in 1976. These puppets were loaned to the public in an informal custom which was gradually formalized as the Puppet Library in around 1995. In 2003, the Puppeteers Cooperative, in collaboration with Flying Bridge Arts, opened the New York Puppet Library in Red Hook, Brooklyn, using the overflow of puppets from the Boston library. In 2004, Prospect Park, in return for a yearly series of free outdoor performances in the park, allowed the library to move into the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch at Prospect Park, where the original puppets were joined by puppets created for a yearly pageant commissioned by the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival and other New York events, as well as more puppets from Boston.
For a happy period, see: Life in the Arch
The Puppet Libraries began in Boston, as the Back Alley Puppet Theater, and, later, the Puppeteers' Cooperative created numerous parades for the First Night Grand Procession over the years, starting with First Night's inception in 1976. These puppets were loaned to the public in an informal custom which was gradually formalized as the Puppet Library in around 1995. In 2003, the Puppeteers Cooperative, in collaboration with Flying Bridge Arts, opened the New York Puppet Library in Red Hook, Brooklyn, using the overflow of puppets from the Boston library. In 2004, Prospect Park, in return for a yearly series of free outdoor performances in the park, allowed the library to move into the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch at Prospect Park, where the original puppets were joined by puppets created for a yearly pageant commissioned by the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival and other New York events, as well as more puppets from Boston.
For a happy period, see: Life in the Arch
Dragon section, Boston Puppet Free Library
The Puppet Free Library is located, by the kindness of Emmanuel Church, in the basement of
15 Newbury Street but is entered
by the back door. This is in public alley 437, between Newbury and Commonwealth streets, in the block
between Arlington and Berkely,
It lends puppets and banners in the Greater Boston area.
It lends puppets and banners in the Greater Boston area.
The New York Puppet Library
We have a new space, in conjuction with Puppetry in Practice , in the Arts Lab at Roosevelt House at Brooklyn College.
If you have accumulated enough giant puppets that you find yourself lending them out, join
The Amalgamated Puppet Libraries! Send information and a photo to: puppetco@puppetco-op.org
Puppets by appointment only!
Contact :
jason Hicks
or:
Jenny Romaine
If you have an unused empty space, even a temporary one, in the New York area, and
think that you might like a puppet library, contact
Sara Peattie at