With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic shutting down most industries except for those deemed essential, museums everywhere are offering virtual tours and other types of alternative programming to reach patrons at home. One of them is the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, which just happens to be the home of a special exhibition featuring puppet, original artwork, and other behind-the-scenes goodies from The Dark Crystal and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Originally, the exhibit was planned to be open through the end of June. But with the entire museum closed until further notice, SYFY Wire reports, the Center has uploaded a virtual tour of “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: World of Myth and Magic,” led by Museum Director Jill Nash Malool. Check it out below!
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The many artefacts on display include original illustrations by Brian Froud, disembodied Skeksis parts, pod person costumes, Landstrider heads, detailed character prototypes, and even a glass case filled with the background flora and fauna of the world of Thra. While Malool moves quickly through the exhibit, as SYFY notes, you can pause the video and read all the different descriptions on the displays.
The Center has yet to announce whether they’ll be extending the exhibit in case they stay closed past the original end-date of June 28. Either way, as the Museum Director points out at the end, puppets from The Dark Crystal will always be available to check out as part of the Center’s Jim Henson Collection. In the meantime, you can check out this and other virtual tours, workshops, puppet shows, and other digital programs on their website.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is currently streaming on Netflix. Also of possible interest to Jim Henson fans: DefunctTV’s miniseries on the puppeteer’s life, and a tour led by MythBusters’ Adam Savage through a Weta Workshop sculptor’s model of the maze from Labyrinth.
https://www.facebook.com/CenterforPuppetryArts/videos/841793506303981/
