Temps are still chilly, but the Good Harbor Hill Players are starting work on the Summer Solstice Pageant

The summer solstice is a month away, and the Good Harbor Hill Players are ready to embrace the season. Katie Belanger and Jeanne Wright told WTIP that planning for the annual solstice pageant has already begun.

Each year, the pageant features an original story, large-scale puppets built and controlled by community members of all ages, along with an assortment of masks and costumes donned by performers, some on stilts. The performance is generally a pantomime performed over a soundtrack provided by a live band.

The pageant reflects the summer solstice point in the year and the long days, but there is generally a second theme that the story is based on. “Our pageant this year is called the North Star,” Belanger explained. “It follows a loon as it moves through sort of the journey of life, trials, tribulations, hopes, and sorrows, loss, everyday wonder, guided by love and community.”

To put on the performance, the Good Harbor Hill Players also relies on community. Beginning on Wednesday, May 27, they will be holding regular work sessions to construct the set and puppets, and practice the pageant. The work sessions are open to anyone who is interested in participating.

Wright said that though the general plot has been in the works for a few months already, the exact details of both the story and the characters will. be worked out as the puppets are built. She said there are always extra ideas that come from the volunteers who help create the puppets. “That’s the beauty, I think, of not having like a play that we’re doing. There’s a lot of possibility,” she said.

Belanger and Wright said that there are several ways that people can engage with the pageant. The production needs puppet builders, puppeteers, and people willing to donate materials, and no one has to participate in every way. Information on what supplies the Good Harbor Hill Players are looking for is available on their social media.

Katie Belanger and Jeanne Wright of the Good Harbor Hill Players spoke with Tracy Benson live on North Shore Morning. Audio of that conversation is below.

Kirsten Wisniewski May 23, 2026