Puppetkabob returns with timely 'Snowflake Man'

By JESSIE FORAND | St. Albans Messenger

On November 29, Sarah Frechette, artistic director of Puppetkabob, became Florence, storyteller for “The Snowflake Man,” a marionette show about Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, which she performed for students at Georgia Elementary and Middle School (GEMS).

Bentley was a Jericho native, farmer and scientist best known for his micrograph images of snowflakes. Grades pre-K through four watched the show in the school’s library, as the puppets frolicked before a pop-up book style backdrop, and music, which sounded as if straight from a phonograph, played softly.

Like Bentley, Frechette, 32, is a Vermont-born artist. She currently splits her time between tiny Georgia and Portland, Ore. but travels all around with her puppet show. Her next performance of “The Snowflake Man” will take place in Long Island, N.Y.

“To go back there it feels like home,” Frechette said of GEMS, where she attended grades one through eight. The school even gave her a start in puppeteering, she said, and allowed her to come back after studying the art and hold workshops in the school’s classrooms.

GEMS K-4 principal Stephen Emery said one of the neatest aspects of the show is that Frechette is a local.

Emery said “The Snowflake Man” teaches children about science, problem-solving, and follow-through: “a lot of characteristics and things we like to get all individuals to do,” he said.