Saint Ann’s Puppet Parade 2023 ushers in spring for Brooklyn Heights

May 9, 2023 Mary Frost

Saint Ann’s School students parade up Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights during the annual Puppet Parade. Eagle photo by Mary Frost

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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — The 36th annual Saint Ann’s Puppet Parade, a rite of spring in Brooklyn Heights, made its merry way down Pierrepont and Montague streets and along the Promenade on Monday.

The parade, a Saint Ann’s School tradition since 1985, features handmade puppet caricatures towering over the crowd, animals on strings, aliens and zombies. The event, skipped only during the peak pandemic years of 2000 and 2021, brings the whole school — and the neighborhood — together for a zany celebration of life.

This year’s celebration took a theatrical turn, as students and faculty honored Nancy Reardon, who is retiring after 50 years teaching theater and leading Shakespeare workshops at Saint Ann’s. (The final performance of her famous “Will and Friends” workshop took place May 6.) Students paraded a giant “Reardon” puppet in full regalia through the streets at the head of the parade.

The Saint Ann’s Puppet Parade had a theatrical motif this year, with signs and puppets featuring Shakespeare’s Macbeth in honor of retiring theater teacher Nancy Reardon. Eagle photo by Mary Frost

When asked about her many achievements as a teacher, author, actor and director on Broadway, in repertory and on TV, Reardon instead praised puppetry and art teacher Olga Okuneva, who “made the whole puppet parade happen,” Reardon said.

“She made puppets with the little babies, up through the high school. She is brilliant; she is gorgeous. and she made this puppet of me,” she said, pointing to her giant doppelganger.

The 36th annual Saint Ann’s Puppet Parade featuring theatrical caricatures, animals on strings, aliens and zombies, wound its way along Montague and Pierrepont streets in Brooklyn Heights on Monday, May 8. Eagle photo by Mary Frost

“I made her puppet because she’s retiring this year. She teaches Shakespeare to the high school and fourth grade students and this is to honor her. We hope she will come back and we can do every year the puppet parade together,” Okuneva said.

Puppetry is an integral part of the theater program at Saint Ann’s. Middle and high school students work on their puppets – marionettes, rod puppets, hand and finger puppets – for months. The younger children build puppets with their classroom teachers.