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Kids have shadow puppet fun
Performance part of library summer series
Friday, July 10, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Children work with Silver Spring puppeteer Daniel Barash to perform a shadow puppet show Wednesday at the Calvert Library in Prince Frederick during the Shadow Puppet Workshop he put on at the library's Summer Fun program.
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Several Calvert County youngsters took a break from the sun to look at shadows at Wednesday's "Be Creative, Get Shadowed! Shadow Puppet Workshop" at the Calvert Library Prince Frederick.
The program, featuring Daniel Barash of the Shadow Puppet Workshop in Silver Spring, is part of the seven-week Calvert Library Summer Fun Program which offers free activities for children on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
According to the library's children's coordinator Beverly Izzi, the programs, which will run through the first week of August, are held in her library, as well as the Northeast Community Center in Chesapeake Beach, the Dunkirk Volunteer Fire Department and Patuxent Elementary School in Lusby.
"It's very interactive and the kids get to be a part of it," Izzi said of the puppet show, in which children were invited to perform.
"It's cool," said 9-year-old Tyler Middledorf who came with the Barstow Acres Children's Center. He said that his favorite part was "where [the puppets] sneak over to him and he drops his bag and they get to come back."
Tyler also was part of the show when he guessed that a puppet was made of plastic. The puppet, incidentally, was made of leather, but Tyler seemed OK with that.
Angel-Leigh Sewell, 11, also came with Tyler's group and said she thought the show was "really funny."
She said that her camp group has been to four shows at the library so far and that her favorite was the program "Be Creative and Catch the Beat … and do it with Uncle Pete!" held on June 30 and July 1.
"It was fun and we got up and danced and ran around the room," she said, adding that her favorite part of the puppet show was "when they kept confusing the farmer."
Barash said that this is his first round of performances in Calvert County, though he regularly does similar shows and workshops in Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County schools and libraries.
"There's something about the contrast of light and dark on the screen that's magical [to children] and it transports them to a place of creativity," he said, continuing that many of his workshops in schools include using shadow puppetry to teach school curriculum.
Upcoming summer fun events at the library include interactive story-telling, "music-in-motion" and shows involving magic and reptiles.
"We usually get from 100 to 300 kids every time. It's great for families to have a free event they can come to," Izzi said.
She said that that the library has been having the program for as long as she can remember.
"We've had [the summer fun program] long before my time … and I've been in the county since the '80s," Izzi said. " … Summer's been busy here. We have something going on all the time."
