Greenbelt Hyattsville Kensington Landover Lanham Largo Mont. Vlge. New Car'ton Olney Port Towns Poolesville Potomac Riverdale Rockville Silver Spr. The students and teachers in the audience bubbled with laughter as six students stood at the front of the Monocacy Elementary School auditorium Monday and learned first-hand how difficult it can be to make a puppet wipe its mouth or sneeze. Shirley Johannesen Levine, who founded the Columbia, Md.-based production company, presented three programs that used puppets to bring poetry and puppetry to life for Monocacy students as part of the school's cultural arts programming. The presentations sprang from Levine's career of using puppets as educational tools.
Poetry really needs to be heard.
While Levine stressed poetry in all three programs, her presentations are age-specific. Levine will grab the audience's attention by using a puppet to introduce a poem, but then will often put the puppet down and perform a dramatic reading of a famous poem while working solo. It's not something for younger children who are still afraid of what's under the bed, but the older ones really like monsters. Much of the program incorporated audience participation and demonstrated how to make Levine's puppet creations come to life, from their construction materials to their mannerisms. Levine, who has done as many as 340 performances and workshops a year, has appeared on the roster for the Maryland State Arts Council since 1981.