'Birthday Bash': Local students get involved in puppet show to celebrate Missouri's bicentennial By Mike Genet The Examiner Kraig Kensinger, artistic director at Puppetry Arts Institute, took some of the time afforded by pandemic closures and wrote a puppet show for Missouri’s upcoming bicentennial, celebrating the spirit of the state. Usually, Kensinger is a solo performer for the Puppetry Arts shows. For the upcoming “Missouri Birthday Bash” show though, he’ll have some help from a couple Independence students who proved to be quick studies. Ava Brown, who will be a seventh grader at Bingham Middle School, and Danyell Rucker, a junior-to-be at William Chrisman High School, join Kensinger and Puppetry Arts board president Kathy Vest for the roughly 20-minute show, which technically debuted at the most recent Englewood Third Friday Art Walk but will be presented in earnest next month at the National Frontier Trails Museum.