Come Play!

Join us for Imagination Ball 2026, Please Touch Museum’s annual fundraising gala and a special celebration of our 50th birthday. For one unforgettable evening, the Museum will transform into an imaginative playground for grown-ups, filled with immersive entertainment, interactive experiences, carousel rides, dinner, dancing and plenty of unexpected moments of fun.

Celebrate the people and ideas that shaped the Museum’s first 50 years while looking ahead to what comes next. Explore the Museum after hours, encounter characters and experiences throughout our galleries, create something of your own, and — for the first time at Imagination Ball — hit the dance floor.

Dinner, Dancing & Dessert

For the first time at Imagination Ball, a dance floor will make its debut in South Foyer. Bring your dancing sneakers for dinner, music, dancing and a playful dessert finale.

Stories Come to Life

The Philadelphia Live Action Roleplay Society will fill the Museum with interactive characters, theatrical encounters and playful surprises that invite guests to explore and discover.

Poetry Made Just for You

Marshall James Kavanaugh, Poet for Hire, will create personalized poems on his typewriter. Guests can also add their visions for the future to the collaborative “Dream Here Now!” community poem.

Portia Sperr

Montessori educator Portia Sperr founded Please Touch Museum in 1976, a decade after founding the Greene Towne Montessori School in Philadelphia. She served as the Museum’s Executive Director through 1988.

Under her leadership, the Museum became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved cultural institutions. Its emphasis on play-based learning, accessibility, and inclusion directly reflects Portia’s educational philosophy and her belief that every child deserves an environment that respects their curiosity and potential.

Portia’s visionary leadership, and her ability to inspire a community to help realize it, has created a lasting legacy that spans education, culture and civic life.

Nancy Kolb

After a decade at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Nancy Kolb took the helm at Please Touch Museum in 1988.

During Nancy’s 21 years as President and CEO, the Museum grew significantly and emerged as a leader in early childhood learning. In 2005, the Museum signed a lease to make historic Memorial Hall its new home. Following extensive renovations, the Museum opened its doors there in October 2008.

Upon Nancy’s retirement in 2009, the Museum’s Board unanimously named her President Emeritus.