ABSTRACT
In 1967, two housewives from the suburbs of Philadelphia performed at the Canadian Centennial Puppeteers of America Festival in Waterloo, Ontario. Alice Swann and Nancy Schmale were neighbors in Concord Park, a subdivision that Civil Rights activist turned housing developer Moris Milgram had designed as an inter-racial community. In the summer of 1961, Schmale saw Bil and Cora Baird’s puppet play, “The Magic Onion” featured in Woman’s Day magazine and persuaded Swann that they should put on the show even though neither of them had any experience performing with puppets. The lifelong interracial friendship they forged in the process is an inspiring example of diversified perspectives speaking up through puppetry arts. The Bairds had provided the title for a theme song – “The Things You Don’t Understand are the Things that You’re Afraid of” – but hadn’t included any lyrics or music with the script. This theme resonated deeply with the Concord Park neighbors who were trying to realize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of “beloved community.” The case of Alice Swann and the Wonderland Puppet Theatre adds an African American experience to John Bell’s study of American Puppet Modernism.
