John Bell

John Bell, a puppeteer and theater historian, is Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, and a Fellow at the Program in Art, Culture, and Technology at MIT. He is a founding member of Great Small Works theater company in Brooklyn, NY. His books about puppet and object theater include Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History; Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects; and American Puppet Modernism.  He is a contributing editor to TDR and Puppetry International. A trombone player with the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band of Somerville, MA, he is also an organizer of the Honk! Festival of Activist Street Bands, and director of the Honk! Parade, which "Reclaim[s] the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet."