There is now an online “sonic census” of puppetry in the greater Boston area.

by Debra Cash

Devi K. Lockwood –Mapper of Puppets

Devi K. Lockwood’s Boston Puppet Map is not what Pinocchio needs when he gets lost.

The recent Harvard graduate concentrating in Folklore and Mythology who, according to her profile is now an Arabic Language Instructor and Rowing Coach at the Advanced Studies Program at St. Paul’s School, has created an online “sonic census” of puppetry in the greater Boston area.

Based on an ordinary Google map complete with the classic red pins (this element, I think, should be redesigned into something more fanciful) visitors to the site can click on the tags to listen to recordings made between February and April 2014. Right now the map has only four sites — someone should schedule a public guided tour of the Dwiggins Marionette Collection at the Boston Public Library — but Lockwood invites people to add to the site.

For starters, Lockwood should certainly be adding the resources of the Harvard Theatre Collection . She should also add identifying labels to the sound cloud clips (I recognize John Bell’s voice describing Hands-On Democracy and Sara Peattie at the Puppet Free library).

It will be especially exciting to see if individuals with extensive private collections of masks and puppet paraphernalia add to the awareness of these resources.

c 2014 Debra Cash