Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Local performers revel with larger-than-life puppets at Boxerwood Nature Center & Woodland Garden's Harvest Spectacle in Lexington on Saturday.

Cast members in the Harvest Spectacle's "Fruit of the Harvest" walk across a Boxerwood meadow Saturday rolling a large papier-mache mask.

Warren Ramp of Rockbridge Baths plays his trumpet with the Blue Ridge Brass at the festival in Lexington.

LEXINGTON -- So there were the giant puppets -- a somber-faced Autumnal Equinox, a weatherbeaten farmer and his wife, and more -- who marched up the hill to a varied music of fiddle, banjo, guitar, horns and drums.

There were the chicken-headed dancers and figures in black-beaked grackle masks who rained apples down upon an outdoor kitchen suddenly gone berserk.

There were cheers and laughter from hundreds of onlookers -- clapping adults and children holding their hands out for fruit.

And there were happy smiles as puppets, masks and costumes were later packed away by the dozens of actors, many of them teens, who on Saturday put on the first Harvest Spectacle during the annual fall festival at Boxerwood Nature Center & Woodland Garden.

This is the season for fall festivals, of course, with celebrations that were held Saturday in Christiansburg, Floyd, Boones Mill and elsewhere. There are ongoing events such as those at the Jeter Farm in Roanoke, Sinkland Farms in Riner and Layman Family Farms in Blue Ridge.

But the Spectacle stood apart. Participants struggled Saturday to describe the parade of audience members toward their hay bale seats, the dances of farm workers and livestock, and the troubled, grackle-plagued dreams of the gigantic farmer and his wife.

"I think it's a harvest thing," said Mauri Connors, 15.

"About the life of a farmer and all that goes into that," added Silvia Sheffield, also 15.

Both veterans of dance performances, Rockbridge County residents and, on Saturday, grackles, Mauri and Silvia said the Harvest Spectacle was one of the most enjoyable productions in which they had taken part.

Likewise, 13-year-old Gus Stewart of Lexington, part of the crew that animated the giant farmer, said he had a ball. "The wind caught the sleeves, but it wasn't a problem," he said.

Gus' dad, Jim Stewart, designed and built the big puppets and some of the Spectacle's masks. A cook at a fraternity in the city, Stewart said it was his first time joining such a production.

"Learned a lot about paper mache, learned a lot about bamboo," he said of the summerlong effort. "They're a lot of fun."

Spectacle mastermind Stephanie Hodde said she drew on experience with Chicago's Redmoon Theater and Vermont's Bread and Puppet troupe in Vermont as she wrote the script, choreographed the dances and directed the Spectacle.

A dancer and dance instructor, Hodde called on fellow members of Lexington's Community Dance Connection Theatre and students at Halestone Studio, also in the city. She won small grants and talked local musicians Carol Elizabeth Jones, the Poison Bottom Boys string band, the Blue Ridge Brass and the Fanyi Fan drum ensemble into joining the project.

Hodde said she wasn't sure at first about launching the Spectacle, having moved to Lexington six years ago. It turned out to be no problem.

"It's a challenge in a small town, but people came out of the woodwork," Hodde said.