It’s not often a puppet show makes our news — but a production that’ll hit the stage tomorrow (Sunday) in West Liberty involves hundreds of eastern Iowans and hundreds of hours of preparation. Monica Leo is a puppeteer at the town’s Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre.The show “Portraits of the Prairie” is a history of Iowa’s landscape in six scenes, starting with the native prairie and Native Americans, moving through the early settlers and small farms, on through modern agriculture and back to reconstructed prairie. Leo says local artists hand-painted the elaborate sets in a Grant Wood style and local musicians will perform the show’s live soundtrack. Some 200 children in Iowa City and West Liberty helped make the many puppets that’ll be used. Some puppeteers are coming from as far away as Colorado to bring the puppets to life, though most are from eastern Iowa. Leo says the two main characters are a wacky painter named Raphaela and a squirrel — but there are dozens and dozens of other puppets.The performance starts at 2 P.M. Sunday at the West Liberty (Muscatine County) Fairgrounds on the Grove Stage. For more information, call 319-627-2487.
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