The kindergartners ran to the giant puppets. They hugged them. They played patty-cake with them. They joined hands with them and danced in a circle to songs from Capezzuti\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n
After 15 minutes, the puppets returned to the art room of this K-8 school and helped each other out of the costumes. Some of the school\u2019s older students emerged.<\/p>\n
One of them (Falk withholds students\u2019 names) said she loves performing for younger schoolmates. \u201cIt\u2019s really nice to see their faces turn into smiles when you walk out the door. \u2018Yay, you\u2019re here!\u2019 The excitement is so happy and fun and teary at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capezzuti is a leading artist in two rare genres: giant puppets and lint sculptures. She makes both with repurposed materials such as tablecloths, homework sheets and fuzz from dryer filters. She says she likes \u201cusing things people don\u2019t see as valuable.\u201d She seeks to publicize waste, repurpose it and connect its past to its future. \u201cI try not to just make work but make stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capezzuti teaches giant puppetry in her Falk classes and a school club, plus youth and adult workshops at her Brighton Heights home. She also runs a summer camp there. She stocks a free Puppets to Go<\/a> loan program at the Carnegie One Braddock<\/a> library.<\/p>\n The latest of her many shows will open at 11 a.m. on March 21 at Art & Education at the Hoyt<\/a>, 124 E. Leasure Ave., New Castle. A reception will take place from noon to 2 p.m.<\/p>\n Her puppets range from 4 to 12 feet tall. Construction begins with a cardboard box for the head, a few dowels for the torso, and other dowels for the moveable arms and hands. Then the puppet is covered with lots of materials, such as paint, pipe cleaners, crumpled paper, cloth and lint.<\/p>\n Some of the students\u2019 creations are pure fantasy. Others resemble animals \u2026 sort of. One Falk puppeteer calls her puppet \u201chalf woodpecker, half fox.\u201d Another calls hers \u201ca unicorn with a pink hockey stick.\u201d<\/p>\n The costumes cover the performers\u2019 bodies and heads but let them see, hear, breathe, and move. Most performers don\u2019t reveal their identities. They either keep silent or disguise their voices.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cYou can be like a secret part of yourself,\u201d a performer said after the show. Another said, \u201cI have to bite my lip not to talk. I want to be like \u2018Hi\u2019 and \u2018Can we be friends?\u2019 and \u2018I love you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Capezzuti grew up in Allison Park and went to Penn State, where she learned puppetry. She\u2019s gone on to win many grants and stage many exhibits and shows at venues such as the Byham Theater, Lincoln Center, the National Puppetry Festival, be Galleries, Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, and, during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, local front lawns. She\u2019s been an artist in residence at Pittsburgh International Airport, Duds \u2018N Suds laundromat and many other places.\u00a0<\/p>\n She runs what she calls The National Lint Project<\/a>. More than 1,000 people have mailed her material from their dryer filters: lint with bits of receipts, tickets, paper clips and whatnot. They\u2019ve also sent reminiscences about their washed clothes. If they supply a year\u2019s worth of filtered stuff, she\u2019ll use most of it in big sculptures and send them a tiny one with a QR code linked to their notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Capezzuti often stages puppet parades and shows during local events, such as the Pittsburgh parks\u2019 Roving Art Cart stops, Bloomfield\u2019s yearly Halloween festival and Downtown\u2019s First Night<\/a>. Several of these shows have been directed by Kellee VanAken<\/a>, Seton Hill University\u2019s arts dean.<\/p>\n At many events, Capezzuti brings empty costumes and invites participants to try them on. During last October\u2019s Riverview Park Day, several youths donned puppets and staged an impromptu parade.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t know each other,\u201d Capezzuti said that day. \u201cThey jump in and make their own parade and act silly together. The way we build community is through shared experiences and joy and celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n The youths\u2019 audience included former Mayor Ed Gainey. \u201cI love them,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing outside of who they are normally, that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite slashed federal arts funding, Capezzuti thinks puppets will remain staples both of celebrations and protests at this moment in time. \u201cThere\u2019s a magic to it, being bigger than life, with power almost like a superhero, giving that joy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The kindergartners were frolicking on their playground one Friday morning at Falk Laboratory School when long shadows fell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[60143,73,13091,75,74,60144],"class_list":["post-129333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cheryl-capezzuti","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-artists","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-things-to-do-with-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Kindergarteners-hug-giant-puppets-at-Falk-Laboratory-School.-Photo-by-Grant-Segall.jpg\")
Kindergartners hug giant puppets at Falk Laboratory School. Photo by Grant Segall.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Puppets-make-a-conga-line-at-Riverview-Park.-Photo-by-Grant-Segall.jpg\")
Puppets make a conga line at Riverview Park. Photo by Grant Segall.<\/p>\n