Puppeteer puts on original show about baseball Children come to library for a show, a clown and to find good books

By Viktoria-Leigh Wagner

WANTAGE — The Sussex-Wantage Library was a busy place on Aug. 1, when some 80 people came to see puppeteer Tina Berchak put on a show, and Eleanor Wagner perform as Pennywhistle the Clown.
Berchak performed an original play “Maria Can Play” about a little girl who wants to play baseball for the Big Leagues. “Every good story must have a problem,” Berchak says.
Wagner, who has been a balloon-sculpting, face-painting clown for more than 20 years, ended the afternoon.

Puppeteer

Berchak has been putting on puppet shows since 1991, though her academic training is in environmental science. She writes her own scripts, often incorporating "multicultural themes," she says. She started Tina Berchak and Company for her daughter’s birthday using equipment gathered over the years and with a stage “in a refrigerator box before upgrading to a professional stage” through a grant from her church, the Port Morris United Methodist Church.
Her children Dana, 17, and Brian, 13, helped with the show at the SW Library.
A longtime resident of Morris County, Berchak has been playing the piano and practicing music since she was 4 and she incorporates her own original music when she can. After the show at the S-W library, she played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Berchak got the idea to use baseball as a theme for a show first from her niece, Bria Nieves, 9, who says, “Baseball is an interesting sport.”

Inspiration found everywhere

“My niece is my new motivation," Berchak says. "She’ll help get me through the next 20 years.” The inspiration for “Maria Can Play,” however, came from the 1992 movie, “A League of Their Own.”
“It was originally supposed to be ‘The Boy Who Couldn’t Make the Team" but her niece's interest in baseball led her to make the switch.
Berchak says the character of Maria was based on 1950s female baseball player Lois Baker. In her show, Maria, receives the help from her grandmother to learn how to hit a baseball.
“Every good story must have a problem,” Berhchak says.
Baker, who was born in Dover, N.J., in 1923, played with the Grand Rapids, Mich., Chicks in 1950 at age 27 for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Berchak interviewed Baker by phone as she prepared to write the play. “It was kind of neat to be able to use the information I learned from her in my show. I felt like a different person after talking with her.”
The story of Baker’s life appealed to Berchak, she says, as “with anyone who’s done what they wanted to do in life. After hearing their story, you’re kind of like, ‘Wow.’”
A helping hand
In addition to the puppet show, on that same day, members of the summer reading program Own The Night showed up to assist Berchak and the puppeteers with the event. The five-week reading program held by the Sussex-Wantage Library is designed to motivate children to read.
The young volunteers, including Stefanie Clark, 17, "help out with the summer reading and craft days and help people sign up.”

Editor's note: The author of this article is the daughter of Eleanor Wagner, aka Pennywhistle the Clown.