The Highway Puppet Theater (HPT) is a newly forming arts company dedicated to promoting the art of puppet performance in Pittsburgh, PA. Inspired by the work of established puppet companies Calliope Puppets in New Orleans, Basil Twist in Manhattan, In the Heart of the Beast in Minneapolis, and Puppet Uprising in Philadelphia, HPT seeks to engage the Pittsburgh community of children, adults and artists in the consumption and creation of heartfelt puppet theater. HPT wishes to honor puppetry’s innumerable centuries’ old, world-wide traditions by creating original, often interdisciplinary, puppet shows of all styles fit for modern audiences of all ages.
Flora Shepherd, Executive Director, performed her first puppet show at age four, alongside her puppeteer mother, Karen Konnerth, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She spent her childhood performing with her troupe, in places as diverse as Nachitoches, Louisiana and Ainsa, Spain. After receiving a certificate of artistry in Creative Writing from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts High School, she went on to study Physics and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Bryn Mawr College. Before graduating, she received a grant to study with puppeteer Basil Twist in Manhattan and Buenos Aires in the summer of 2007. She moved to Pittsburgh in the summer of 2008 to continue developing her mother’s art form in a whole new, supportive city. Flora spends a lot of time thinking about how to bring more puppetry into the world. The Highway Puppet Theater is her newly chosen approach.
Why the Highway Puppets?
The family legend is that child Flora once decided to change a puppet show during a performance, without asking her mother’s permission first. After the show, her mother told her “It’s my way or the highway.” A company name was born. Adult Flora loves the name because the complex social history and imagery of highways in the 21st century (informational and otherwise) mirrors the subjects of her art.
Flora performing in her first puppet show, "The Nightingale," at age four.
