The Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Company celebrated its 50th birthday on Saturday, Jan 20. They have plans to keep the party going throughout the year with performances, happy hours, and general puppetry shenanigans.
Eulenspiegel puppets began performing in 1974, when Monica Leo and friends decided to get out and have fun with the life-sized puppets they had been making and selling at art fairs.
“If I had known it was going to last this long,” Leo said, “I would have named it something that people could pronounce.”
To celebrate 50 years of garbled pronunciation and puppet fun, friends and fans gathered from far and wide at the Owl Glass Puppetry Center on Saturday.
Calhoun Street was busy with traffic all afternoon as visitors dropped by for cake, sparkling wine and sparkling conversation.
The festivities opened with a speech by longtime friend of puppets and West Liberty notable, Bill Koellner:
“I got to thinking that as we grow up, as children in the home, what are the opportunities that we have to be involved in something? If you want to be in athletics, there’s only five people that play on the basketball team and a few on the bench. In football, not everybody can play.”
“But in the arts, everybody can play. You can sing, you can dance, you can enjoy life. And as you get older, you can still do that. You can’t play football, but you certainly can be involved in the arts.”
“As I think about the impact on people’s lives, what makes older people happy and younger people happy all at the same time, they smile and they laugh at the good things that go on from the arts…Monica is able to bring people here from all different parts of the world, different cultures, all for the same reason.”
The party continued with a toast and cutting the first cake, a carrot cake, Monica’s favorite. Beverages, fruit, and cheese were also available for afternoon snacking.
And it wouldn’t be an Eulenspiegel party without puppetry and music. The first performance was a brief puppet show in which Alfred Schulz, the head puppet, puts puppet rods on Stephanie Vallez and then stuffs her into a trunk.
After Vallez was released from the trunk, it was time for some music and dancing from Ron Hillis, longtime partner musician from many puppet shows, and his partner Janet, a dancer.
The dynamic duo performed a tap-dance called “The Funeral March of the Marionettes,” which many people will recognize from the old Alfred Hitchcock show. Then Hillis played a song with Monica Leo, a selection from a bygone puppet show.
Afterwards, Monica read a chapter from her recently published memoir, ‘Hand, Shadow, Rod.’
She indulged friends and fans with a chapter called ‘Evangelism,’ which included memories of how Leo got to know local Pastor Terry Mahnke. Together with Teri Jean Breitbach, they built a huge Goliath to fight a tiny David in the fall of 2001.
“On September 11th, 2001, another Goliath crumpled to the ground as planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center,” Leo read from her book.
She then continued to describe how mourning brought the town together, healing broken hearts, for yet another collaborative community project.
The three cakes, provided by talented baker Bethany Brooks, continued to be cut. After the carrot cake was raspberry almond and a delicious chocolate cake came last.
Throughout the afternoon, friends delivered and devoured even more baked goods. Bubbly flowed from bottles, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
Visitors came in from all over Iowa with reports of road conditions in every direction. The event ended with a short performance of ‘The End of the World,’ a slam piece performed by Stephanie Vallez, puppeteer and Christopher Eck, world class musician and Eulenspiegel Outreach Director.
The next big event to be held at the Owl Glass Puppetry Center will be Puppets and Pastries: Dessert Theatre.
There will be two opportunities to attend on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 25 at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. Expect to see performances from Monica Leo, Pam Corcoran of Corcoran Puppets in Wisconsin, and various Owl Glass musicians.
Contact Eulenspiegel Puppets for more information.