Photo: Puppets on parade

Puppeteers debuted The Vanities of the Poor, an operetta with puppets made of recycled Carnival materials, at this year's FORESTival at A Studio in the Woods on May 12.

The operetta is based on a Brothers Grimm fairytale called “Godfather Death” and is influenced by imagery from animal archetypes created for Carnival in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s. Nina Nichols began work on the puppet operetta in March while she was an artist in residence at A Studio in the Woods, a program of Tulane University.

Nina Nichols, left, the show's writer and puppet maker, and Owen Brightman operate the puppets.