Back when I was a composition student at Oberlin Conservatory, I wrote some songs and incidental music for a puppet production of Brecht’s one-act The Elephant Calf. The score was ebullient and dissonant, with cartoonish cues, and a few mocking quotations (B-A-C-H and a scrap of Mahler). It was performed in May 1973. The puppets were made by one of my fellow students, Julie Taymor, who has since gone on to larger stages.