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Puppet people bring Charles Dickens classic to Salisbury

Puppet people bring Charles Dickens classic to Salisbury

Puppeteer Michelle Smith-Carrigan in costume as the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Patrick L. Sullivan

SALISBURY — The Puppet People of Schenectady, New York, put on an intense and dramatic puppet version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at the Salisbury Congregational Church Saturday afternoon, Dec. 14.

The Puppet People are Mark Carrigan and Michelle Smith-Carrigan, who have been putting on puppet shows for over two decades.

The setup was impressive, with a big puppet stage dominating the stage end of the parish hall.

Backstage were marionettes ready for deployment, plus rod puppets, shadow puppets, and masks and costumes for the two human performers, who occasionally ventured out in front as The Ghost of Christmas Past, for instance.

This was no Punch and Judy show. The sets were elaborate, the puppets vivid, and the pace of the show deliberate.

The show was sponsored by the Salisbury Association and the Scoville Memorial Library.

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.
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