{"id":119,"date":"2008-12-12T14:57:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T19:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/specialcollections.wordpress.com\/?p=119"},"modified":"2008-12-12T14:57:01","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T19:57:01","slug":"strings-attached-the-marionettes-of-molka-reich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=119","title":{"rendered":"Strings Attached – The Marionettes of Molka Reich"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"molka_reich_puppets\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SC&A’s Federal Theatre Project Collection is home to a lot of unsual and fascinating pieces. At the request of a patron, I recently went through the Molka Reich Collection and found several interesting photographs.\u00c2\u00a0 Molka Reich led a most unusual life. After studying puppetry under Remo Bufano in New York, she and her husband found themselves in Miami in 1930. While there, she joined the Federal Writers Project, and then the Federal Theatre Project. She soon formed a marionette unit with several others. They made the marionettes themselves, and traveled around the state performing for children and adults in school.<\/p>\n

\"Marionette<\/a><\/p>\n

We went to places where no one had ever seen anything like this, had absolutely never seen anything…but they were so enthralled and it was marvelous for the children. And the adults loved it just as much…We’d go into these schools, particularly the underprivileged schools. At first everything was free but after a while a charge was made. We would divide the money on a 60\/40 basis…The underpriviledged schools paid nothing. The money was used by the P.T.A. for the children’s luncheon program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above quote, taken from the oral history interview conducted with Molka by George Mason University’s Oral History Program in 1977, really demonstrates the community-oriented spirit of the Federal Theatre Project and those involved. Aside from being a master puppeteer, Molka also acted in several plays, such as Engaged<\/em>, to positive reviews from the critics. But her prime love was clearly puppetry, and she remained active in it for much of her life.<\/p>\n

The puppets below have the remarkable names of “Gas House Gertie and Barnacle Bill.”<\/p>\n

\"marionette3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This last photograph is from a production that mixed live actors with puppets, but is unfortunately unlabeled. Can anyone help identify this production?<\/p>\n

\"marionette2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SC&A’s Federal Theatre Project Collection is home to a lot of unsual and fascinating pieces. At the request of a patron, I recently went through the Molka Reich Collection and found several interesting photographs.\u00c2\u00a0 Molka Reich led a most unusual life. After studying puppetry under Remo Bufano in New York, she and her husband found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25,46],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scrc-interest","tag-federal-theatre-project","tag-marionettes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-1V","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3841,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=3841","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":0},"title":"Voices from the FTP – a new exhibit from SC&A","author":"admin","date":"January 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We have recently installed an exhibit outside of SC&A in Fenwick Library focusing on the Federal Theatre Project titled \"Voices from the FTP\". This exhibit takes the individual personal papers we have from FTP participants and integrates their story into the larger context of this government sponsored program. These may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "exhibits"","block_context":{"text":"exhibits","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FTP.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3685,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=3685","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":1},"title":"Happy Halloween!","author":"admin","date":"October 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Halloween! There is something inherently creepy about marionettes to me and after looking through photographs of marionettes used by the Federal Theatre Project, I thought a Halloween blog post might be the perfect way to highlight some of the photographs from the newly processed Ralph Chess\u00e9 papers. All of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Federal Theatre Project"","block_context":{"text":"Federal Theatre Project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=25"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/C0224B01F19_04detail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3272,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=3272","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":2},"title":"Reprocessing the Federal Theatre Project – Playscripts","author":"admin","date":"March 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first in a new series of blog posts focusing on the reprocessing of The Federal Theatre Project collection. The Federal Theatre Project was a government sponsored large scale arts endeavor that created jobs for thousands of unemployed theatre professionals during the years 1935 to 1939. George Mason\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Federal Theatre Project"","block_context":{"text":"Federal Theatre Project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=25"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/swing_socko_vagabond.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4668,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=4668","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":3},"title":"Set models in the Federal Theatre Project personal papers","author":"admin","date":"November 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a number of recent additions to the FTP personal papers collection. The number of boxes in the collection has gone from 9 to 29 since the finding aid was originally created in October 2012. This is mainly due to a processing decision that instead of processing each collection\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Federal Theatre Project"","block_context":{"text":"Federal Theatre Project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=25"},"img":{"alt_text":"Leve_CherokeeNights","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Leve_CherokeeNights.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3461,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=3461","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":4},"title":"Reprocessing the Federal Theatre Project – Viewshare","author":"admin","date":"June 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Digital projects are a great way to promote collections. At SC&A we having been adding new ways to interact with materials from our collections online. One online tool we are using to highlight the Federal Theatre Project collection is the Library of Congress endorsed Viewshare. Viewshare is a dynamic tool\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Federal Theatre Project"","block_context":{"text":"Federal Theatre Project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=25"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Screen-Shot-2012-06-01-at-12.05.26-PM-300x258.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3577,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=3577","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":5},"title":"New FTP finding aid available!","author":"admin","date":"August 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I am happy to announce that a new finding aid for the Federal Theatre Project collection is available! In total the collection numbers 363 boxes of material created by the Federal Theatre Project and donated to George Mason University from the Library of Congress. Originally the collection was much larger\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Federal Theatre Project"","block_context":{"text":"Federal Theatre Project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=25"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/ftp_gifts1-169x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}