NPL’s Resident Puppet Troupe Launches New Online Variety Show Tuesday, March 2

• New half-hour show features puppets, songs, stories, and more.

• Streams every Tuesday at 10:30 AM CST beginning March 2.

• Watch on Facebook: facebook.com/WishingChairProductions/live.

Fun songs that you can sing along with. Adorable puppets that leave you laughing with delight. Fantastic stories that entertain and educate.

These are all things that you’ve come to expect from a show by Wishing Chair Productions, Nashville Public Library’s (NPL) resident puppet troupe. For more than 70 years, our library has entertained families with puppet shows that adapt classic stories with original scripts and music.

Now, Wishing Chair has something new to share, and you’re invited to join.

Beginning Tuesday, March 2, at 10:30 AM CST, Wishing Chair is launching The Whimsical World of Wishing Chair. This brand new, half-hour variety show features everything you know and love about our puppet shows in a way you’ve never seen before.

Each session features characters like The Professor, Mary Mary, Library Pete, and Mr. B. having fun and singing along with puppet friends like Tommy Dog, Cedric the Dragon, J.J. the Lamb, and others. While some segments recur in each episode, others are completely new. And everything — from the scripts to the puppets to the songs — is original and created by the Wishing Chair team.

“We were inspired by what I call the ‘golden age of children’s television,’ when you had shows like Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, and The Wonderful World of Disney all airing at the same time,” said Brian Hull, Wishing Chair’s manager, whom you probably recognize as The Professor. “We wanted a show that features a rich variety of fun segments using our puppets, our stories, and our songs.”

New episodes stream every Tuesday on Wishing Chair’s Facebook page.

To give you an idea of what to expect, below are a few example segments.

• The Professor welcomes everyone with the fan favorite song, “Great Day.”
• Mary Mary recommends books and introduces the Enchanted Alphabet Tree, teaching kids a new letter each week.
• Library Pete streams a video with a variety of characters, including penguins, Mr. Britches, and more.
• The Professor and Tommy Dog share a chat about something that interests them.
• Mary Mary and Cedric the Dragon sing the beloved “The Rainbow Song.”

Mary Tanner, a Wishing Chair artist who you know and love as Mary Mary, says she hopes that audiences will love the diversity of segments, as well as the chance to see the whole Wishing Chair crew — including the iconic Puppet Truck team — together again.

“One of the things we wanted to do with this show was bring Wishing Chair Productions back together. We’ve all been doing our own shows during COVID-19, but we didn’t really see each other much,” Tanner said. “We’ve missed that sense of community, and we know our viewers have, too.”

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