IF YOU GOWhat: “Beastie’s Birthday Party.”When: 7 p.m. today, 2 p.m. Saturday, Sunday.Where: Mountain Arts Community Center, 809 Kentucky Ave., Signal Mountain.Admission: $5; additional $3 for backstage tour and puppet-making session after the show.Phone: 886-1959.
Fred Arnold, who toiled for more than 50 years to keep the art of puppetry alive and thriving in Chattanooga, has come out of retirement to work with Signal Mountain artist Colleen Laliberte in staging a new puppet theater production, “Beastie’s Birthday Party.”
The small-scale show will be offered at the Mountain Arts Community Center on Signal Mountain today through Sunday. Other, larger productions will follow.
“Beastie’s Birthday Party” was expanded from a script Arnold wrote for the shows he staged annually between 1959 and 1973 at the Plum Nelly Art Show on Lookout Mountain.
“It’s so charming and sweet,” Laliberte said of the 35-minute production, which includes about a dozen puppets and is staged by eight young puppeteers and one adult.