Birthday Bash : Local students get involved in puppet show to celebrate Missouri s bicentennial
By Mike Genet
The Examiner
Kraig Kensinger, artistic director at Puppetry Arts Institute, took some of the time afforded by pandemic closures and wrote a puppet show for Missouri’s upcoming bicentennial, celebrating the spirit of the state.
Usually, Kensinger is a solo performer for the Puppetry Arts shows. For the upcoming “Missouri Birthday Bash” show though, he’ll have some help from a couple Independence students who proved to be quick studies.
Ava Brown, who will be a seventh grader at Bingham Middle School, and Danyell Rucker, a junior-to-be at William Chrisman High School, join Kensinger and Puppetry Arts board president Kathy Vest for the roughly 20-minute show, which technically debuted at the most recent Englewood Third Friday Art Walk but will be presented in earnest next month at the National Frontier Trails Museum.