The puppets are here and they speak German.
Puppentheater Böhmel, a Germany-based puppet company, will be performing two different stories during its stay in Columbus: “Das tapfere Schneiderlein” (The brave little tailor) in German and “The Fisherman and his Wife” in English.
Both stories are adapted from fairy tales by the German Brothers Grimm.
The puppet company will be in Columbus until Feb. 10 and its next showing of “Das tapfere Schneiderlein” will be tonight in room 180 of Hagerty Hall at 7:00 p.m.
“The first moment is the important moment,” said Susanne Böhmel, the company’s director and puppeteer. “If you break them, they will follow you wherever you go.”
Böhmel and her colleague, Rosi Lampe, performed “Das tapfere Schneiderlein” Thursday morning in room 210 of the Main Library on campus. In attendance were German students from OSU and Hilliard-Davidson High School.
“It’s a cultural experience,” said Janet Chapman, an OSU alumna and German teacher at Hilliard-Davidson, “as long as (the students) were awake, they got something out of (the show).”
Dresden Sister City Inc., a non-profit organization that promotes cultural exchange between Columbus and Dresden, Germany, brought Puppentheater Böhmel to Ohio State for an exhibition of this traditional European form of art and entertainment.
Puppentheater Böhmel is a professional puppet company established in 1979 from Dresden, Germany that offers a variety of shows to many different audiences in Europe. This is the first time the puppets have come to the United States, said Dorit Fratzscher, a member of Dresden Sister City Inc. and a newly hired lecturer for the Germanic languages and literature department at OSU.
“The initiative came from the puppeteers of Dresden,” Fratzscher said.
Puppentheater Böhmel recently began performing shows in English as educational entertainment to high school students in Germany. Böhmel decided to broaden the horizons of her show and, in cooperation with Dresden City Sister Inc., started working on a plan to come to America, Fratzscher said.
Initially, Puppentheater Böhmel was scheduled to come in Oct., 2004, but the performers encountered problems obtaining their Visa passes into the United States, said Kathryn Corl, an associate professor for the Germanic languages and literature department and board member of Dresden Sister City Inc.
“For us, it’s and outreach program for OSU,” Corl said.
Another purpose that the program serves is to raise money for the reconstruction of a church in Dresden, named Frauenkirche, that was damaged during World War II and remains damaged to this day.
Dresden Sister City Inc. was founded by Dresden native and former Huntington Bank CEO, Frank Wobst, in 1992. The goal was for Columbus and Dresden to share as many aspects about themselves as possible to further their growth. Anyone can joing the organization; membership is $20 per year.
