Puppet Holiday Sing-Along

Puppet Showplace Theater
The Holiday Sing-Along!
with Sarah Nolen & Phil Berman

Saturday December 5, 2026
Two Shows: 11:00am and 3:00pm

For ALL ages – especially enjoyed by ages 2-9
Mixed puppetry styles and live music

Tickets, all ages: $20 MAC members | $25 nonmembers
General admission
Card to Culture Tickets available upon request – see below

Want discounts on tickets? Join as a member here!

About the Show
Celebrate the season with a Puppet Showplace Theater tradition — a family-friendly variety show, with live music you can sing along to and plenty of puppets! This annual favorite with Boston-based performers Sarah Nolen and Phil Berman features dancing snowmen, jingle bells, spinning dreidels, Christmas hippopotamuses, and lots of snowy fun. Watch while a comedic grandma finally succeeds at making a pecan pie, anticipate with a child who catches a star while waiting for Christmas, and feel your heart lift while a puppet goes ice skating for the very first time. The audience will sing along to familiar holiday songs from the Great American Songbook, like “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire” and “Deck The Halls,” as well as “Feliz Navidad,” “I Have A Little Dreidel,” a Russian folk song about winter boots, and more, accompanied by multi-instrumental wonder Phil Berman on guitar, toy piano, harp, and more.

Performers Sarah Nolen of Puppet Motion, talented puppet creator and our Resident Artist at Puppet Showplace Theater, and Phil Berman, singer-songwriter and early childhood music educator, will lead the way through this interactive puppet cabaret. The show is specially designed to delight all ages, from young audiences and their big siblings, to grown-ups who are young at heart!

After the Show: Meet the Puppets & More! Stay after the show for a brief Q&A, meet the artists, and see the puppets up close!

Sarah Nolen is a puppeteer and filmmaker originally from Austin, Texas. As Puppet Showplace Theater’s Resident Artist, she performs regularly for youth and family audiences and teaches puppetry in camps, workshops, residencies, and evening adult classes. Her four original productions, Party Animals, The Fairy Tailor, Judy Saves the Day, and Lisa the Wise, are all available to tour. Sarah also designed puppets for Little Uprisings’s My Night in the Planetarium, Metropolitan Chorale’s The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore, and for Suffolk University’s Loss of Breath: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe. In addition to her work in puppetry, Sarah is an experienced filmmaker. In 2015, she received the Mister Rogers Memorial Scholarship in support of her television pilot Treeples, a show geared towards empowering girls, which screened at film festivals across the U.S. Sarah earned her BFA in film from Southern Methodist University, and an MFA in Puppet Arts from the University of Connecticut.

Phil Berman is a singer-songwriter, actor, and puppeteer with a BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University. He has performed in shows across the Boston area and the Northeast. He was a co-creator of Puppet Playtime at Puppet Showplace Theater and returns to the showplace with the Holiday Sing-Along every December. Phil has also played music for touring puppetry productions like The Bella Show, The Joshua Show, and What the Moon Saw. When not performing, Phil is a freelance music teacher and founder of Zibi Consulting Group, creating early childhood arts and culture curriculum for schools and daycare centers across New England.

Additional Information
Accessibility: There are three small steps plus a raised threshold to enter the Marion Art Center. This event is located in the MAC’s Anne Braitmayer Webb Theater.

Audience: All ages welcome, especially enjoyed by ages 2-9. Tickets are required for all guests, regardless of age.
Show Length: 45 minutes, followed by Q&A

The MAC is a participant in Mass Cultural Council’s Card to Culture program, in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, and the Massachusetts Health Connector, by broadening accessibility to cultural programming. EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders receive up to two free tickets to one performance, and 50% off up to two additional tickets. Ticket reservations depend on availability and can be made by phone or in person at the MAC. Learn more about the MAC’s free or low cost ticket offerings here.

Theater programs for youth are sponsored in part by grants from the Marion Cultural Council, the Mattapoisett Cultural Council, and the Rochester Cultural Council. Other educational MAC Theater programs for children are offered throughout the year and encourage participants to learn and explore through acting, character development, and storytelling.