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All Of A Feather: Big Bird’s Caroll Spinney Among Friends At Puppetry Festival

  • Meghan Williams plays Ichabod Crane in a shadow puppet performance...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Meghan Williams plays Ichabod Crane in a shadow puppet performance of Sleepy Hollow at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Sarah Nolen presents her piece "Chestnuts" at the Puppet Slam...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Sarah Nolen presents her piece "Chestnuts" at the Puppet Slam at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • The Silk City Chorus of Manchester sings a mash-up of...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    The Silk City Chorus of Manchester sings a mash-up of Sesame Street songs to honor Jim Henson prior to a presentation by Cheryl Henson, Jim Henson's daughter, at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Kade Conklin of Columbus, Ohio, (left) and Adelka Polak of...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Kade Conklin of Columbus, Ohio, (left) and Adelka Polak of Newington watch as Amy Trompetter and Not4Prophet present "Bitter Fruits and Combat Boots" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn on Monday.

  • Laurenzo Ruiz presents "The Virgin of the Milk" at the...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Laurenzo Ruiz presents "The Virgin of the Milk" at the Puppet Slam held at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National Puppetry Slam with "Milo the Magnificent and His Amazing Science Fair" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Amy Trompetter presents her play "Bitter Fruits and Combat Boots"...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Amy Trompetter presents her play "Bitter Fruits and Combat Boots" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National Puppetry Slam with "Milo the Magnificent and His Amazing Science Fair" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Puppet Slam at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Puppet Slam at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Jacob Graham performs his piece "Advocacy" at the Puppet Slam...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Jacob Graham performs his piece "Advocacy" at the Puppet Slam held at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • The Puppet Slam at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    The Puppet Slam at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National Puppetry Slam with "Milo the Magnificent and His Amazing Science Fair" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas close out the National Puppetry Slam with "Milo the Magnificent and His Amazing Science Fair" at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Cheryl Henson, Jim Henson's daughter, presents her father's legacy at...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Cheryl Henson, Jim Henson's daughter, presents her father's legacy at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

  • Roxanne Myhrum of Brookline, Mass., (left) and Paris Stone (middle),...

    Lauren Schneiderman / Hartford Courant

    Roxanne Myhrum of Brookline, Mass., (left) and Paris Stone (middle), 12, of Bedford, Mass., laugh at Amy Trompetter and Not4Prophet's play "Bitter Fruits and Combat Boots," combining puppetry, politics and hip hop, at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

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STORRS — Caroll Spinney, the heart, soul and voice of Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for more than 40 years, was among friends — and fans — at this week’s National Puppetry Festival at UConn.

Tuesday night, one of them walked up to an aisle mic at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts to give her best impersonation of Oscar the Grouch’s theme song, “I Love Trash,” as Spinney watched from the stage with the disagreeable Muppet cloaking his right hand.

“Oh, I love trash. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. … Yes, I love trash,” she sang, doing her best to imitate the cantankerous character.

When she finished, Spinney responded in the voice of the original trash talker.

“You sang my song, thank you,” he said — and then thought again.

“Can I say thank you?” he asked, drawing laughter from the audience of puppeteers. “What’s wrong with me?”

Spinney, his wife, Debbie, and puppeteers from a dozen nations are at the puppetry festival, presented by Puppeteers of America, for a week of professional workshops, master classes and performances from local, national and international puppeteers.

Spinney, 81, a longtime resident of Woodstock, Conn., has been Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since “Sesame Street” launched in 1969.

In August of that year, Jim Henson, known for creating Kermit the Frog, found the star when he went to a puppet show failure — the lighting in the space threw off the performance, Spinney recalls.

After the show, Henson said to Spinney, “I like what you were trying to do. Why don’t you come down to New York to talk about the Muppets?”

That history was recounted in the documentary “I Am Big Bird,” which had a screening at Jorgensen Tuesday. Kermit might have sung “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” but try inhabiting an 8-foot-tall yellow bird. It’s a workout. Spinney’s right arm remains extended in the air to hold up his 41/2- pound head and to control the eyes and mouth of the bird; his left arm moves the left wing.

Spinney’s only window to the world is a small monitor inside the costume that shows what viewers would see on their screen at home. The bird body — which weighs less than 10 pounds — straps on like a backpack. Under the 4,000 yellow feathers, he needs to focus on the paper script in front of him.

Big Bird became a big kid who spoke directly to the hearts of children and adults worldwide. Through his character, Spinney helped kids through the fears and questions that come with serious subject matters, such as death.

“We are here to appreciate Caroll Spinney,” Cheryl Henson, the daughter of Jim Henson, who died at age 53 in 1990. She is now president of the Jim Henson Foundation. Spinney, she told the crowd Tuesday, is “like a father to us; thank you for being there for all of us.”

Oscar the Grouch is negative, grumpy and what every child was told not to be by their parents, Spinney said. But in an interview after he left the stage, Spinney talked about how Oscar connects with the kids.

He said a young woman once told him that Oscar helped her when she grew up with strict parents who did not allow her to choose how she would live her life. When she watched TV for the first time, she saw Oscar say “no” to an adult and realized that she could do the same thing. “She said, ‘That day I became myself,'” Spinney said.

“I spoke to their hearts when they were children,” he said. “It’s nice to hear when something you’ve done has helped someone through life.”

In 1996, Sesame Street looked for someone to double for Big Bird and take over when Spinney was too old to be in the suit. Since then, Spinney has mentored Matt Vogul, his understudy, over the years on how to be the bird.

The last time UConn hosted the festival was in 1970. Frank W. Ballard, who co-chaired the previous puppetry gathering at UConn with Spinney, founded UConn’s Puppet Arts Program in 1965 after eight years with the theater department as a set designer and technical director. In 1990, Bart P. Roccoberton Jr. became the new director of the program, which offers degrees in the art of puppetry. This year marks the program’s 50th year.

The week’s schedule also included appearances by master puppeteers Peter Schumann of Bread & Puppet Theater and actor Chuck McCann. On Friday, Spinney’s “Sesame Street” colleague Sonia Manzano, who just announced her retirement from the show, will appear.

The festival ends Saturday morning with an 11 a.m. parade of puppets and, from 1 to 4 p.m., performances at the Mansfield Town Square.

More information on the festival is available at nationalpuppetryfestival2015.com

An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the site of Saturday’s performances.