Beech Tree Puppets LLC
Beech Tree Puppets brings meaningful stories with sensory-friendly and artful performances to all ages. Puppets and sets are lovingly hand-crafted with natural materials like wool, silk and wood. Simple instruments and beautiful singing are interwoven into the performances, which are usually not amplified. Depending on the age of the audience and situation, we offer a Q and A and/or puppet greeting after the performance.
Beech Tree Puppets was founded by Ingrid and Ole Hass in late 2012. Since then, we have performed hundreds of shows of The Crystal Ball, The Giant Turnip, The Hollow Stump, Butterfly Wonder, The Apple Tree and Rainbow Crow Brings Daylight in schools, libraries and public spaces all over the greater DC region. We premiered our 7th show, Jack and the Beanstalk, on June 1st, 2019 at the New Deal Cafe.
Beech Tree Puppets has performed twice in 2018 at The National Theater in DC in their Saturday morning children’s series, has been holding annual residencies at the Atlas Performing Arts Center since 2017 with the Theatre for the Very Young, and has been highlighted at the Durant Arts Center in Alexandria with the National Puppet Guild in 2018 and 2019.
Over the years, special projects with local schools like Greenbelt, Spring Hill Lake and Magnolia Elementary Schools were funded with the help of grants from the Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council (PGAHC), Jim Cassel Award, Greenbelt Community Foundation and Greenbelt Advisory Committee on Education (ACE).
Ole Hass and Ingrid Cowan Hass are critically acclaimed classical singers and actors. They have performed as soloists in opera and concert in many of the DC area’s music venues, including the Kennedy Center, the National Cathedral, and Strathmore Hall.  Seasoned performers, they have given many outreach performances for schools starting in their graduate school days. They have served as Artists in Residence at Greenbelt Elementary School since 2014 until the present, doing puppets shows for all grades linked with workshops that use puppetry to enhance the regular curriculum.
