Madcap Puppets immerse audiences in artmaking

Entertaining audiences and making children laugh is not the only goal of Madcap Puppets. It aims to educate, share cultural experiences from around the world and engage children in artmaking while fostering growth and an appreciation of the various genres of art that merge together through puppeteering.  

The primary ways troupes interact with children are through their performances of “fractured fairytales,” which reach audiences in about 500 elementary schools per year, says John Lewandowski, Madcap’s artistic executive director. 

“It connects well to literature, the study of geography and regions and countries because they do come from all over the world,” Lewandowski says. “This is something that we have as a human culture. We have this fairy tale interest in our literature, and that’s in every culture—just like puppets. It's in every culture, in every country.” 

One piece the troupe performs extends beyond the reach of elementary schools. It takes the stage across the country as puppeteers pair up with symphony orchestras to present “The Firebird,” which tells the story of a magical bird that brings both good and evil to its captor. The story is based on a Russian fairy tale.

“We perform it during youth concerts that have been organized to try and develop younger audiences,” Lewandowski says. “This is a major problem with large orchestras—that their audiences are 75 and 80 [years old] and getting smaller and smaller—and they use us to try to pull in family audiences.”

According to Lewandowski, it’s vital that children are exposed to and have the opportunity to engage with musical, visual and performing arts because the benefits to other areas of their development as a result of doing so are too great to be ignored. 

“It builds those key elements in their growth and formation, self-confidence, teamwork, the ability to express themselves and to think in a divergent, problem solving way,” Lewandowski says. “These are all essential elements in growing up, and these are what the arts bring.” 

Do Good: 

• Book a show.

• Contact Madcap Puppets to volunteer and help the organization set up its new facility in Westwood.

• Donate to Madcap and help the organization in its efforts to build an education center and 200-seat theater in its new facility.

By Brittany York 

Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.