*Narrators 1, 2, 3 (N1, N2, N3)
*Tony Sarg
Mary Ellen, Tony’s grandmother
Johann, Tony’s grandfather
Crowd (read by all)
Puppeteer, a puppet-maker
Characters
Choose the character you will play. *Starred characters have large speaking roles.
James Devaney/Getty Images
Play,
Look Up!
The amazing story (and artist!) behind a favorite holiday tradition—the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
By Elise Broach
From the October/November 2025 Issue
Learning Objective: Students will read a play about the life of Tony Sarg, a German immigrant and artist who created the balloons for Macy’s famous Thanksgiving Day Parade. As they read, students will identify problems Sarg encountered and analyze how he solved them.
Complexity Factors
Featured Skill:
Problem and Solution,
Other Key Skills: vocabulary, fluency, text features, informational writing, narrative writing
Standards
Prologue
Fotograms News/Nantucket Historical Association
Tony Sarg
N1: What’s your favorite part of Thanksgiving?
N2: Definitely the pies!
N3: No, the football games!
N1: Are you kidding? The best part is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
N2: Oh yeah, the parade!
N1: Did you know the first one took place more than 100 years ago?
N3: Really?
N1: It was thanks to the genius of a German puppet-maker, an immigrant named Tony Sarg, that the parade became the amazing American tradition it is today.
N2: How’d he do it?
N1: Let’s tell the story.
Scene 1
small city in Germany, 1887
N2: The streets are filled with people dressed in colorful costumes, dancing and singing.
N3: It’s Karneval, a popular festival held before Easter.
N1: Seven-year-old Tony is home with his grandparents.
Tony Sarg: The parade is about to start!
Mary Ellen: Before we go . . . I have a present for you.
N2: She gives him a small box.
N3: Tony finds a colorfully painted wooden horse inside.
N1: He turns a tiny handle on the horse’s side.
Tony: Look how his legs move when I wind him up!
Mary Ellen: I knew you’d love it.
N2: Tony tucks the horse inside his pocket with a smile.
Johann: Let’s go—or we’ll be late.
N3: Tony and his grandparents make their way to the Karneval parade.
Crowd: Karneval! Karneval!
N1: Tony is dazzled by the giant figures of kings, queens, and dragons that loom 10 or 20 feet high.
Tony: How are they so tall?
Mary Ellen: A person is inside the costume, standing on stilts.
Johann: Or standing on the ground, using poles to make the head and arms move.
Tony: They’re like giant puppets.
N2: When they return home, Tony takes the toy horse out of his pocket.
Tony (gasping): Oh no! The leg broke.
Mary Ellen: These things happen.
Tony (thinking): I can fix it. Can I borrow your pocketknife, Grandpa?
N3: Tony finds a small stick in the yard and carves it carefully into a new leg.
N1: It fits perfectly into the hole where the horse’s leg had been.
N2: He winds up the toy, and the horse’s legs move as before.
Tony (proudly): Problem solved!
hotoprint Gravure Company, Inc./Nantucket Historical Association
Genius at Work
Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants streamed into the U.S. with the dream of a better life. A few lucky ones, like Tony Sarg, found huge success. He rose to fame doing what he loved—drawing, painting, and making puppets. Sarg also designed and helped build the first balloons (like the giant head below) used at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Tony Sarg (top right) working on a balloon
Scene 2
London, England, 1913
N3: Tony grows up and marries an American woman named Bertha.
N1: The two move from Germany to England, where Tony tries to make a living selling sculptures, paintings, and cartoons.
N2: Soon Tony and Bertha have a little girl, Mary, named after Tony’s grandmother.
N3: One night, Tony takes Mary to a puppet show of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast.”
Tony (whispering): Those puppets hang from strings, Mary. See how everything moves—their heads, their arms, even their feet!
N1: When the show ends, people cheer.
Crowd: Bravo! Bravo!
N2: Together with Mary, Tony pushes through the crowd to find the puppeteer.
Tony: What a spectacular show!
Puppeteer: Thank you, but please, the audience is not allowed backstage.
Tony: I’ve never seen puppets like yours.
Puppeteer: They’re called marionettes.
Tony: How do the strings work?
Puppeteer: If I revealed my tricks, anyone could do this show . . . and I’d be out of business! Move along now.
N3: Tony is very disappointed.
N1: But he doesn’t give up.
N2: He attends the same show 50 times until he figures out how the marionettes move.
N3: Then every night, at home, he tries to make a marionette.
Bertha: Tony, it’s so much work.
Tony: It’s not work—it’s play!
N1: Finally, he figures out how to build a marionette.
Tony: Problem solved!
N2: Soon he has created an entire cast of princes, wolves, dragons, and witches.
N3: He puts on shows for family and friends.
Mary: Papa, your puppets are so funny.
Bertha: You’re a genius, Tony. But how will we survive on cartoons and puppets?
Tony: Don’t worry, Bertha. I’ll find a way.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
The parade balloons were—and still are!—filled with a gas called helium. Helium is lighter than air, so it allows things like balloons to float.
Scene 3
New York City, 1915
N1: After World War I breaks out in 1914, people in England come to fear anyone from enemy countries like Germany.
N2: Tony no longer feels welcome.
N3: Nobody will buy his cartoons or come to his puppet shows.
N1: Desperate, the Sarg family moves to New York City in 1915, where they join a melting pot of immigrants—Russians, Italians, Irish, and Germans.
Bertha: I’ve never seen so many different people in my life.
Tony: We can make a home here, Bertha.
N2: Tony starts drawing cartoons that capture the spirit of New York—and its characters.
N3: Cab drivers, police officers, actresses!
N1: Newspapers and magazines pay generously for his drawings. In a few years, Tony becomes famous.
N2: And he starts organizing puppet shows again, for bigger and bigger crowds.
N3: His puppet company performs classic tales like “Rip Van Winkle.”
N1: One day in 1924, the vice president of the department store Macy’s visits Tony.
Herbert Straus: The famous Tony Sarg!
Tony: How can I help you, sir?
Straus: Have you heard of Macy’s?
Tony: Sure. It’s the biggest store in the city.
Straus: It’s the biggest in the world. I want you to decorate the store windows.
Tony: With paintings?
Straus: Well, something to catch the eye of shoppers.
Tony: Hmm. What if the windows could tell a story? With puppets!
Straus: Brilliant!
N2: Tony makes mechanical puppets for colorful window displays at Macy’s.
Shopper 1: Is that Cinderella?
Shopper 2: And Humpty Dumpty?
Shopper 1: How fun!
N3: Tony’s windows are a big hit, bringing crowds of people into the store.
Scene 4
Macy’s department store,
a few months later
N1: Straus calls Tony into his office.
Straus: Your window displays are terrific, but I need your help with something else.
Tony: Of course.
Straus: Walk through the store with me. Look around at my employees.
N2: As they walk, Tony notices people from different countries, speaking with all kinds of accents.
Straus: The people who work here come from places far away—places they miss. For the holidays, I would like to do something to remind them of home. But what?
N3: Tony thinks. He remembers the street festivals of his childhood.
Tony: How about a parade? Parades are popular all over Europe.
Straus: Wonderful idea! Will you help?
Tony: I’ll make it the best parade New York City has ever seen.
Straus: And if we have it on Thanksgiving, it will bring holiday shoppers into my store!
James Devaney/Getty Images
A float featuring a giant turkey at the 2023 parade
Scene 5
New York City,
Thanksgiving Day, 1924
Reporter 1: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We’re here to witness the first-ever Macy’s parade. The route is 6 miles long.
Reporter 2: We’re told as many as 250,000 people are lining the streets.
Crowd: Woooo!
Reporter 1: Here come Macy’s employees . . .
Reporter 2: . . . dressed as cowboys, clowns, and knights!
Reporter 1: We’ve got world-renowned puppeteer Tony Sarg and his daughter, Mary, standing by to describe his creations.
N1: Giant decorated platforms called floats pass by.
Reporter 2: Mr. Sarg, tell us about the floats!
Tony: I took children’s stories and poems and brought them to life.
Reporter 1: Look at that giant spider!
Reporter 2: These floats look like a lot of work, Mr. Sarg.
Mary: My father’s work is fun to him.
Tony: I told Mary, that’s the secret. Find a job that feels like play.
Reporter 1: Wait, what’s this? Live animals?
Tony: They’re from the Central Park Zoo. We’ve got elephants, bears, lions, and tigers.
Reporter 2: Amazing! But . . . what’s going on?
N2: As the cages roll by, the tigers growl menacingly.
N3: The lions roar.
N1: Children hide behind their parents. Some run through the crowd, wailing.
Crowd (scared): Aaah!
N2: Straus finds Tony.
Straus: These live animals are a disaster!
Mary: People are running away, scared.
Straus: I want this parade to be a tradition. We won’t use live animals next time—but we’ll need something BIG to replace them.
N3: Tony furrows his brow, thinking.
Mary: You can do it, Papa
Scene 6
Sarg family home, 1926
N1: Tony spends many months thinking about how to make the parade even more exciting.
N2: He shares his ideas with Bertha and Mary.
Tony: I could make animal puppets.
Bertha: You’d have to make them huge.
Tony: Like the giants from Karneval. What if I made them as tall as buildings?
Mary: But how?
N3: Tony thinks for a minute.
Tony: Balloons!
Bertha: You’ll need to make sure they’re strong enough to weather rain and wind.
Mary: And how will you make them move?
N1: Tony sighs, looking around the room.
N2: He spots his grandma’s toy horse on a shelf and stares at the leg he carved.
Tony: I know . . . sticks!
Scene 7
New York City,
Thanksgiving Day, 1927
N3: For the next few months, Tony works hard on his idea.
N1: He orders heavy rubber from a tire company.
N2: Tony and his team create giant balloon creatures, like a cat and a dragon.
N3: In the 1927 parade, these balloons move down the street, nearly 20 feet high.
N1: They turn and sway, held up by people using wooden sticks.
N2: It is the best parade ever.
Crowd: Hooray! Hooray for Tony Sarg!
Epilogue
N3: Since 1927, the parade has grown and grown.
N1: Within a few years, Tony Sarg replaced the sticks with strings to steer the giant balloons through the sky—
N2: Like upside-down marionettes.
N3: Today the parade includes more than 20 balloons, featuring characters like Spider-Man, SpongeBob, and Snoopy.
N1: About 50 million people watch the parade on TV every Thanksgiving.
N2: If you’re one of them, think about the great puppet-maker Tony Sarg.
N3: And how he turned work into play . . .
N1: . . . to create a beloved American tradition.
Write Now
Imagine you’re a reporter at the 1927 parade. Using details from the play, write a news article on the parade. Make sure to explain what problem led to Tony Sarg creating the first balloons.
This play was originally published in the October/November 2025 issue.
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Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
1. Preparing to Read
Build Background, Preview Vocabulary, and Set a Purpose for Reading
Ask students if they have ever watched or participated in a parade. Invite them to share what they remember about it: the sights, sounds, and feelings. Then explain that they will read about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and the artist who created its first giant balloons. Build background knowledge about the famous parade balloons by showing the video “Making Macy’s Parade Balloons.”
Distribute the Vocabulary Skill Builder to review challenging terms. Highlighted terms: cast, furrows his brow, immigrant, loom, marionettes, mechanical, melting pot, puppeteer, weather, witness.
Call on a volunteer to read the Up Close box on page 23.
2. Reading and Discussing
Assign parts and read the play aloud as a class.
Click here for great ideas for reading as a whole class, in small groups, or independently! Students can also listen to our Audio Read-Aloud with author Elise Broach.
Close-Reading Questions
1. Read the prologue. What do we learn about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? (key details) The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is an American tradition that began more than 100 years ago. Tony Sarg, a German immigrant and puppet-maker, helped make the parade a success.
2. In Scene 1, what problem does Tony have and how does he solve it? (problem and solution) Tony’s toy horse breaks while in his pocket. He uses his grandfather’s knife and a stick to carefully carve a new leg for the horse.
3. Read Scene 2. What does Tony’s decision to watch the puppet show more than 50 times tell us about him? (character) Tony is amazed by the marionettes used in the show and wants to know how they work. The puppeteer refuses to tell Tony the secret behind them, so Tony watches the show more than 50 times to figure out how to make the puppets. This shows us that Tony is curious, persistent, and a creative problem solver.
4. Why did the Sarg family move to New York City in 1915? (cause and effect) After World War I broke out in Europe, people in England became suspicious of people from enemy countries like Germany. The Sarg family left England because they no longer felt welcome in the country. Nobody would buy Tony’s cartoons or come to his puppet shows.
5. Look at the picture and read the caption on page 24. How do they support what we learn about Tony in Scene 3? (text features) In the picture, we see Tony painting a giant balloon with the help of other artists. It shows how successful he became after moving to New York. The caption adds to our understanding of the scene because it explains that a wave of immigrants came to the U.S. around the same time Tony did.
6. Describe how Tony gets involved with the department store Macy’s. (key details) Herbert Straus, vice president of Macy’s, hears about Tony because he is famous for his drawings and puppet shows. Straus asks Tony to decorate the store’s windows to attract new customers. Tony’s window displays feature mechanical puppets and are a big hit.
7. Read Scene 4. Why does Tony suggest that Macy’s have a parade? (problem and solution) Straus tells Tony that he wants to cheer up his employees who miss their home countries in Europe. Tony remembers Karneval, a popular parade from his childhood, and how parades were popular all over Europe. He thinks a joyous event like a parade will lift the employees’ spirits and help them feel connected to home.
8. In Scene 5, Tony says “Find a job that feels like play.” Why do you think he gives this advice? (character) Tony probably gives this advice because he finds the time he spends working as an artist fun. People spend a lot of time doing their job, but if they love it, the time feels enjoyable. Tony hopes other people will try to do work they are passionate about and enjoy doing.
9. Explain what was successful about the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and what needed to be changed. (summarizing) People who went to the parade enjoyed Tony’s floats that brought children’s stories and poems to life. But the live zoo animals in cages scared children. That part of the parade needed to be changed.
10. How does Tony’s toy horse help him think of a solution for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? (problem and solution) Tony wanted to figure out how to create giant balloons for the parade that wouldn’t float away while 20 feet in the air. The leg he carved for his toy horse reminded him that sticks could be used to hold up and steer the balloons.
Critical-Thinking Questions
11. Describe TWO challenges Tony faces in the play and how he uses creativity to solve them. (problem and solution) Answers will vary but should describe two of the following problems and solutions:
Problem: Tony’s toy horse breaks. Solution: He uses a stick and a knife to carefully carve a new leg for it.
Problem: People in England no longer buy Tony’s cartoons or attend his puppet shows during World War I. Solution: He moves to the United States and starts making art about New York City.
Problem: Macy’s employees are homesick and need to be cheered up. Solution: Tony suggests that Macy’s hold a parade to remind the employees of home.
Problem: Live animals in Macy’s first Thanksgiving parade terrify children. Solution: Tony thinks of giant parade balloons as an alternative and works to create balloons made of tire rubber and attach them to sticks, like upside-down marionettes.
12. Read the sidebar “All-American” on pages 26 and 27. How does the information in the sidebar relate to the story of Tony Sarg’s life? (theme) The play tells the story of Tony Sarg, a German immigrant whose creativity helped start an American tradition: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. In the sidebar, we learn about five traditions and foods that were introduced to the United States by immigrants. This information relates to the play because it shows how many beloved things and traditions considered “All-American” were started by immigrants who came here from other places—just like Tony and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Together the play and the sidebar support the theme that immigrant contributions have shaped American culture.
3. Skill Building and Writing
Distribute the Problem and Solution skill builder, which will guide students to respond to the writing prompt on page 27.
Differentiate and Customize
For Small-Group Intervention
As students read, create a timeline of events mentioned in the play so they can track these events as the story unfolds. Use this timeline to support students as they answer our lower-level Close Reading and Critical Thinking Questions.
For Advanced Readers
Ask students to do additional research about Tony Sarg and the 1927 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to include in their response to the Write Now prompt on page 27. Distribute our Write a News Article skill builder to support their writing.
For Multilingual Learners
Before reading, show the video “Making Macy’s Parade Balloons” to build knowledge about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Text-to-Speech