From Straw to Stage^

From Straw to Screen: Re-imagining the Three Little Pigs is a hands-on workshop that shows you how to mix old-school puppetry with new AI technology. Participants will look at the classic story alongside Jon Scieszka’s famous book, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! You will learn how to teach reading literacy, theatre, music, and visual art all at the same time.

Puppets in the classroom hands on workshop by Edna Bland, President of Puppeteers of America, on Saturday, October 3 at 10:00 AM and again at 2:30 PM.

Edna M. Bland is a certified theatre arts educator, arts integration specialist, teaching artist and puppeteer. She was mentored by Caroll Spinney “Big Bird” from Sesame Street and has done work with the Jim Henson Company.

As an advocate for arts education, she served as President for the Puppeteers of America and sits on the executive board for Florida Alliance for Arts Education and the Florida Association for Theatre Education. She has honed her skills at the Kennedy Center’s Arts Integration CETA and VSA programs and Lincoln Center Education’s teaching artist program at The Juilliard School. She is the founder of Lovely Day Creative Arts and is a public-school theatre arts director establishing performing arts magnet programs. She is also credited with creating the only puppetry arts elective class in a public school in the nation.

She is the recipient of the 400 Distinguished Award by the U.S. Congress, Florida Theatre Arts Teacher of the Year and the Marjorie Batchelder McFarland Award for her contributions in Puppetry Education and Therapy.

Edna has an M.F.A. in Entertainment Creative Writing, M.S. in Entertainment Business, B.S. in Organizational Management and A.A.S. in Music Business.