In our series of reminiscences from our jubilant students, this time we hear from Piroska Juharosné Molnár, who received her kindergarten teacher's diploma 75 years ago, making her eligible to receive a platinum certificate this year. This is extraordinary in itself, but Piroska has also left behind an amazing legacy in the field of puppetry as a puppet maker, dramaturge, and puppeteer.

Even as a child, Piroska was not afraid to stand up in front of others. As her desire to perform was matched by her talent, one of her teachers, Dr. Éva Bakkayné, noticed her when she was still in high school. Piroska later became a kindergarten teacher in Budapest. A few years later, when she was teaching at the Nursery Teacher Training College in Kecskemét, Bakkayné took her to a national puppet conference, where a lifelong love affair between puppets and Piroska began. At that time, puppetry was not yet included in the college curriculum. However, practicing kindergarten and school teachers could and had to participate in annual puppet training courses organized by the Institute of Folk Culture. Piroska herself later organized puppet courses for several years, including courses for kindergarten teachers in Kecskemét from 1972 onwards. 

She held interactive kindergarten puppetry workshops for children entitled "Let's Play Together," where she always emphasized the latest methods that were easy for young children to understand. Her puppet camps were also popular. Over the course of a week, they worked on stories using a complex puppetry approach, concluding with performances to which the children's parents were also invited. In addition to her work in kindergarten, she also did a wide range of work as the county puppet specialist at the Kecskemét Cultural Center, preparing puppet groups for puppet meetings. She published her decades of experience on the possibilities of complex pedagogical puppetry in a book entitled "JÁTÉK SÓJA" (The Salt of the Game). 

• At that time, kindergartens used almost exclusively glove puppets when working with children. In the early days, puppets reminiscent of Henrik Kemény's "Vitéz János" were popular. It had to be acknowledged that children's smaller hands were not suitable for moving normal-sized glove puppets properly. Therefore, I and others looked for other solutions. This was when the era of so-called "improvised puppets" began, using bags, boxes, plastic bottles, etc. 
  I based my interactive, complex puppet sessions, which lasted an hour and a half, on the principles of drama education, which were still largely unknown to nursery school teachers at the time. I didn't just tell a story using the methods that were known at the time, but we created a fairy tale together, for example, based on Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka's painting "Lonely Cedar." Of course, we prepared for this with songs, dramatic games, and preliminary groundwork games to approach the main theme. This way, the children could easily come up with the story together based on the picture. Then, we acted out the story with simple puppets made by the children, and with the help of their imagination, we portrayed the figures in the picture as fairies and wizards. This approach is excellent for developing children's creativity, imagination, and social skills. 

As a puppeteer, Piroska participated in numerous puppet festivals abroad from 1971 as a member of the Ciróka puppet troupe (for example, in Czechoslovakia and France), and after the troupe split up, she took over as head of the PIRÓKA BÁBSZÍNHÁZ (PIRÓKA PUPPET THEATER), which continued under a new name, and led it from 1986 to 2000. During this time, she staged 24 puppet shows, for which she made the puppets herself from a wide variety of materials and in various sizes. 

Her name became well known among Japanese educators after he gave demonstration performances on complex puppetry for educational purposes to several Japanese delegations. This led to such a good relationship with her Far Eastern colleagues that she staged several Japanese fairy tales with her unique puppets. (Several exhibitions of her puppets have been organized, and most of them can still be seen at the Kindergarten History Museum in Martonvásár.)

• Without exception, I designed and made all the puppets for the performances myself, and during the adaptation of the stories for the stage, I was forced to participate in the work several times as a writer, dramaturg, puppeteer, and puppet maker. In the beginning, we held performances for small groups of kindergarten and school children. Here, the children were still interactively involved before the performance. As interest in our performances grew, we moved to a larger stage, where larger puppets were needed due to the distance of the audience. 
  Methodologically, interactive puppet shows with kindergarteners and elementary school students differ from those performed on stage behind a screen. This, of course, meant that even within a single performance, we could or had to use a variety of techniques to create them. Indeed, if the play required it, holding a large giant puppet for a long time was physically demanding, such as the giant puppet in Hüvelyk Matyi (Tom Thumb)... - reports Piroska. 

After retiring as a kindergarten teacher in 1989, she remained in contact with children through puppetry, as she was at the helm of the PIRÓKA PUPPET THEATER until 2000. Her puppets can be viewed—hopefully—in a permanent exhibition in Martonvásárhely. Her entire puppetry work and performance material are preserved for posterity on DVD at the Bács-Kiskun County Archives.

Her book on complex puppetry for educational purposes provides kindergarten teachers with methods that are still useful today. Congratulations on this great life's work!
 

Performances staged by Piroska Juharosné Molnár and performed by the PIRÓKA PUPPET THEATER company (from 1986 to 2000):

1) Once Upon a Time There Was a Dog Market in Buda;
2) King Matthias and the Clever Girl (shadow play); 
3) King Matthias and the Shoemaker; 
4) The Salt; 
5) The Kitten I. (A Macskacicó I.);
6) The Three Wishes;
7) The Sun, the Moon and the Rooster; 
8) Mother Hulda;
9) The Frog Prince; 
10) King Matthias's Jokes (adaptation of three tales);
11) The Enchanted Wild Pear Tree (Japanese tale);
12-13) Two tales entitled Raven Tales (The Raven and the Black Shells and Bechstein's tale The Seven Ravens);
14) Where Did the Pony Go? (also presented at the Békéscsaba Festival);
15) Adam and Eve (for adults, presented at the Pécs Festival);
16) Tom Thumb;
17) The Little Pine Tree's Dream;
18)     The White Wolf (musical);
19-20) Chicken Tales (adaptation of two tales: The Three Chickens, Spring Cleaning at the Sun);
21)     Sleeping Beauty (also performed at the World Puppetry Festival in Budapest);
22)     The Kitten II. (A Macskacicó II.);
23)     Michael and the Man (mystery play);
24)     The Tale of the Sea.

Thank you to Dr. Piroska Molnár Juharosné for the photos!