Will people pay to see puppets? The Globe and Mail

An eccentric recluse from small-town Arkansas whose diet seems to have consisted largely of chocolate ice cream and beer, Disfarmer has, since his death at 75 in 1959, joined the ranks of Auguste Sander, Diane Arbus and Irving Penn as one of the world’s great portrait photographers.Years earlier, Hurlin had tried to conquer New York with another audacious avant-garde puppet show, this one based on the real-life story of 25 female victims of the first atomic-bomb attack who’d been brought to the United States in 1955 for reconstructive surgery. The show was enjoying sold-out houses until The New York Times weighed in with a pan, whereupon the production closed pronto.