Carole D’Agostino is a puppeteer and fabricator for TV, film, and stage. She’s the Puppet Shop Manager at the Center for Puppetry Arts. Her newest original piece Helix of Fire is part of the Center’s XPT Showcase for 2017. Previous work: Jim Henson Creature Shop NYC, Puppet Heap and The Lyon Puppets. Selected credits: Muppets: Most Wanted, Sesame Street, Crank Yankers, Greg the Bunny; Broadway’s Avenue Q, Aladdin, and Shrek! The Musical; Off Broadway: ImaginOcean, Arias with a Twist. Personal productions seen at previous festivals: The Hoarding Show, Object Theater Time, Flirty Birdie the Peacock Marionette. www.hellocarole.com.
WORKSHOP:
Ready, Set, Puppetshow! (SKILL COMBINATION)
Norwegian-born Yngvild Aspeli studied theatre and performance at the Lecoq School in Paris, then puppetry at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières. She formed the Franco-Norwegian company, Plexus Polaire in 2008. Her work is highly visual theatre where the relationship between actors and human-sized puppets are central. The current repertoire Is comprised of three shows, Signaux (2011), Opera Opaque (2013), and Cendres (2014). A new work, Chambre Noire will be created in 2017.
WORKSHOP:
The Double Presence of the Actor-Puppeteer (PERFORMANCE)
For more than 25 years, Greg Ballora has been a Los Angeles-based puppet builder and performer. He has puppeteered with the Muppets, Henson’s Puppet Up!, and was the Puppet Captain on Disney’s Crash and Bernstein. On film, Greg was a lead marionettist for Team America: World Police and part of the core Doc Ock performance crew on Spiderman II. Greg has also been a Puppet Master at the Disneyland Resort, where he has built puppets, trained puppeteers, taught students and created parade choreography for puppets and large floats. Greg spent 15 years performing with Jim Gamble Puppet Productions, as well as building puppets with Jim and directing his video projects. Greg has taught puppet construction and performance at UCLA, Pepperdine University, Penn State and Cal Arts.
WORKSHOPS:
Building a Hand & Rod Puppet that WORKS! (INTENSIVE)
On-Camera Hand and Rod Puppet Technique (PERFORMANCE)
Building a “Fedatov”: an Easy but Effective Nodding/Turning Rod Puppet (CONSTRUCTION)
Margarita Blush is a puppet and devised theatre artist, director, performer, and teacher. She holds a BFA in Performance and an MFA in Directing for Puppet Theatre from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Art in Sofia, Bulgaria. In addition, Margarita has trained extensively with various physical theatre organizations and master teachers. She works and tours nationally and internationally and collaborates with diverse artists from around the world. Margarita’s original productions blend live performance, shadow theatre, puppets and objects, masks, movement, and music to produce imaginative, aesthetically captivating, thought-provoking and deeply meaningful theatre experiences for the audience. Her latest show, Unfolding, has been performed at international festivals and venues in the U.S., Bulgaria, and Turkey. Margarita is a restless seeker of inspiration, collaboration, aesthetic value and social meaning in performance and has devoted her artistic life to the ever-fascinating art of puppetry.
www.MargaritaBlush.com
WORKSHOP:
Character Mask Performance Techniques (PERFORMANCE)
Dr. Cheryl Bragg works as a Therapist with special needs children and their families, and has for over 25 years. She holds a doctorate in Developmental Psychology from Boston University. Dr. Bragg draws upon the Miller Method®, a cognitive-developmental approach, in her work with autistic children. Dr. Bragg possesses a research background in the area of early childhood with a specialty in social development. She has held several held several college teaching posts, including Tufts University, and the University of Massachusetts, and currently serving as an Adjunct Professor in Special Education for George Mason University. She is licensed as a School Psychologist from Virginia’s Department of Education and her professional memberships include the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Puppeteers of America.
WORKSHOP:
Expanding the Autistic Child Through Puppetry (TEACHING)
Jeff Bragg has, among other things, been the Director of the Electronic Music Studio at UVA, a TV commercial director/producer, and a studio synthesist and sound designer, with credits from Milton Bradley to Acura. He is also president of the National Capital Puppetry Guild, edits their newsletter, Puppetimes, and is currently working on video programming for young children that stresses inclusiveness and cultural diversity, using puppetry.
WORKSHOP:
Sound Effects and Design 101 (UNIQUE)
Brendan Burns & Tony Leva have been collaborating since 2011. Brendan is the coordinator of the guitar department at Brookline Music School, founder of Guitober, musician-in-residence at Puppet Showplace Theater, and works as composer/producer for freelance clients. Tony is an improviser, collaborator and teacher who focuses on sounds from the low end. He performs regularly with Jaggery, Bury Me Standing, The DJQ Quartet and Brian Carpenter and the Confessions. He is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree at Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA.
WORKSHOP:
Working With Music (UNIQUE)
Sean Cawelti graduated from the University of California Irvine with his BA in Drama with honors in Directing and studied puppetry at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Sean is the founding Artistic Director of Rogue Artists Ensemble, a multi-media, puppet and mask company in Los Angeles. He has won awards for his work as a designer, director and playwright, honored with an UNIMA Citation of Excellence for Gogol Project and was presented the 2015 Sherwood Award, by the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, for his work as a director. Sean was selected by the City of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department to travel to Brazil for two months to study woodcarving and Candomblé, a religion born of African and Catholic traditions. His directing and design work has been seen at the Getty Villa, South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Cornerstone Theater Co., Chicago Opera Theater, LA Theatre Works, The Geffen Playhouse, New York City Opera, Imago Theater in Portland and the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. He has designed puppets, masks, props and video for theater, music videos, museums, concerts and arena shows. www.seancawelti.com, www.rogueartists.org
WORKSHOPS:
Rogue Artists Ensemble’s Adapting for the Stage (SKILL COMBINATION)
Rogue Artists Ensemble’s Using Technology in Live Theater: Video and Sound Playback (UNIQUE)
Kathleen Conroy is Managing Director for Frank Theatre in Minneapolis and previously Managing Director for Z Puppets Rosenschnoz. After graduating from Bennington College, she discovered a passion for puppets and received her Master’s degree in Puppetry Arts from the University of Connecticut. She toured nationally as Production Manager for two productions with Underground Railway Theater of Cambridge, MA and was Artistic Director of the Puppet Showplace Theater in Boston. She has worked with Twin Cities based companies, Theater Space Project, Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, and Teatro del Pueblo. In 2016, she received her Certificate in Fundraising from the University of St. Thomas.
WORKSHOP: Fundraising & Grant Writing (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Trudi Cohen and John Bell are theater makers, puppeteers, festival organizers, musicians, and founding members of Great Small Works, a visual theater collective created in 1995 in New York City, whose six members share roots in Bread and Puppet Theater. John is Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and an associate professor in the Puppet Arts Program at UConn. He received a doctorate in theater history from Columbia University. With Great Small Works, we investigate folk, puppet, avant-garde and popular theater traditions to address contemporary issues. We create shows and perform, teach and mentor. We have produced 10 international festivals of Toy Theater since 1993, and present regular Spaghetti Dinner cabarets. Our newest show, Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls, was presented at La MaMa in NYC in November 2016, and at the Chicago International Puppetry Festival in January 2017. We are both organizers of the HONK! Festival of activist street bands, presented annually since 2006 in Somerville, MA, and the inspiration for other HONK festivals in Providence, NYC, Austin, Seattle, Detroit, Rio (Brazil) and Wollongong (Australia). Trudi and John perform toy theater and cranky shows for audiences of all ages in New England and New York City.
WORKSHOP:
Toy Theater (SKILL COMBINATION)
Since 1983, Pam Corcoran has brought stories to life with her original hand-made puppets. Traditional stories with a whimsical twist, a healthful habits series, and a series based on Jolly the Jester from The Queen of Hearts are toured to libraries, schools, festivals, museums, and theaters. Pam also presents workshops. She has served as Artist in Residence for Very Special Arts for over 25 years. She has presented her needle felting workshop at PuppetFest MidWest, Owl Glass Puppetry Center, St. Joseph School in Fort Atkinson, WI, National Puppeteers of America festivals, and more. She began needle felting with un-spun wool around 2000, and now, 17 years later, is still discovering ways to use this marvelous, renewable resource. (The backyard woolies need to be shorn every spring – that is quite a bit of wool!)
WORKSHOP:
Needle Felting (CONSTRUCTION)
Dr. Larry Hensel is a creative tour de force and wildly inventive storyteller who blends the arts of singing, directing, writing, puppetry and movement into theatrical and musical works of intrigue and humor. As an educator, Hensel draws upon his Eastman pedigree, twenty-five years of teaching experience and his skills as a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique to equip developing singers, actors, dancers, and puppeteers to thrive in the complex arts of singing, acting and movement.
WORKSHOP:
The Puppet and I: An Introduction to the Alexander Technique for Puppeteers (UNIQUE)
Katherine Fahey is a papercut artist, shadow puppeteer, designer, and performer. She’s a candid and thoughtful artist equipped with a storyteller’s voice and meticulous craftsmanship. Katherine has been working as a professional artist and puppeteer for over ten years. Her cut paper artwork has become shadow puppet shows, posters, set design animation, lush music videos, and films. Katherine spent ten years designing and printing posters, shirts, and CD covers for musicians before she becoming a performer in her own right through the form of shadow puppetry. She was drawn to this art from because of its accessible, intimate, and communal nature. She has performed locally and nationally at festivals and shows. She has participated in Puppet Slams for years and has attended and shared her work at both national and regional puppetry festivals in the US. Last year she finished her largest puppet show yet, a moving panorama (or “crankie”) for a live action film for Cortina Productions and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. More recently, Katherine completed a shadow crankie for the public television network of Kentucky and her third commissioned shadow show for the Peabody School of Music. Her newest piece is based on The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
WORKSHOP:
Crankies and How to Make Them (CONSTRUCTION)
Jefferson Fietik has twenty-five years directing and arts education experience in the Midwest. He is in his twelfth year as Theater Department Chair of Anoka Middle School for the Arts in Anoka, MN and fourth year as Adjunct Faculty in the School of Education at the College of Saint Scholastica, where he teaches Arts Integration. At both institutions he teaches students how to utilize and create puppets. He co-founded Young Artists Initiative (YAI) in Saint Paul, MN where he served as Artistic Director for eight years. Besides being an educator, he is a playwright who has had scripts for three of his plays produced as well as a series of educational films. His original musical, Dreams Of A Cobblers Son, is a biography about the young Hans Christian Andersen, extensively utilizes puppetry. As a stage director, he often uses puppetry such as in his productions of The Neverending Story, Disney’s Aladdin, Don Quixote, Disney’s The Lion King, The Witches and more. He was awarded the Ordway Center’s Education Award for Community Commitment, the Center for Excellence in School Counseling and Leadership’s (CESCaL) Educator of the Year Award, and the Anoka-Hennepin District 11’s TOP Teacher Award.
WORKSHOP:
Solving Two Dreaded Problems: Writer’s Block and Lackluster Scripts! (WRITING)
An Associate Professor in the Schedler Honors College, University of Central Arkansas, Adam Frank is a graduate of the University of Arizona Department of Theatre, a 33-year SAG-AFTRA member, and a company member of Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre. Through the Schedler Honors College, he has directed mask/puppet versions of Macbeth, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. In spring 2016, he piloted the creation of Ozark Living Newspaper (OLN), a puppetry-based theatre company focused on social justice issues. In fall 2016, in collaboration with the Schedler Honors College, Conway Symphony Orchestra, and El Zócalo Immigrant Resource Center, Adam produced and directed a puppet adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. As of spring 2017, Adam is continuing OLN’s work through a theatre and juvenile justice project and through puppetry and mask-based staged readings of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here and C.P. Taylor’s Good. Next year, OLN will work with Vietnamese Americans and Vietnamese Australians to devise and produce a shadow puppet performance of The Girl Who Flew, an original play based on the experiences of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong refugee camps in the 1980s.
WORKSHOP:
Pulling Back on the Strings: Tools and Tricks for Using Puppetry for Social Change (WRITING)
Kristin Haverty serves as Associate Producer at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA. She has performed in the Center’s The Ghastly Dreadfuls and Anne Frank: Within and Without and created cut-paper animations for Duke Ellington’s Cat, all UNIMA Citation award-winning productions. She has toured the Northwest as a puppeteer with Tears of Joy Theatre, studied puppetry with Dan Hurlin at Sarah Lawrence College and with I Wayan Nartha in Bali, Indonesia and performs music regularly with Jeffrey Bützer and the Bicycle Eaters. She has presented workshops for Puppeteers of America National Festivals, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and ASSITEJ-USA’s One Theater World Festival. She has contributed articles to Puppetry International and The Puppetry Journal. In January 2017 she served as Catapult Program Director for the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and is currently serving as a UNIMA-USA councilor. More of her work can be found at www.jarvisilhouettes.weebly.com.
WORKSHOP:
Press Kit 101 (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
With a BA in English from Williams College, MA, minoring in Theater, Music and Philosophy, Bill Henderson has pursued a lifelong career in the arts. He is a painter, sculptor, mask-maker, playwright, poet, director, actor and puppeteer. Due to the synergy of these disciplines in puppetry, he focused on that art form during 25 years living in Chicago. There Bill eventually established a small storefront theater, founded a not-for-profit company called AnimART, created and presented puppet productions for both adult and children’s audiences and toured them all over the city and from coast to coast. A highlight of those years was his collaboration with the Chicago Symphony to create a large-scale puppet presentation for the purpose of teaching families about the orchestra and some of its repertoire: Music for All Seasons premiered on the stage of Orchestra Hall to packed houses and standing ovations. Bill has written four full-length dramas for adults, one adaptation, twelve puppet plays for families, two collections of poetry, several one-acts, essays and short stories. During the past year-and-a-half he has been collaborating with Luman Coad on a book of his plays for puppets, The Magic Glade – Volume One, recently published by his Charlemagne Press.
WORKSHOP:
Playwrighting 101 & Play Clinic (WRITING)
Deborah Hertzberg is a NY based costumer, puppeteer, and theater maker. She serves as the Costume Shop Supervisor for the Department of Theater at Brooklyn College and is also an Adjunct Lecturer for Puppetry for the Theater. For Brooklyn College she has designed puppets for She Kills Monsters and Camino Real and designed costumes for The House of Bernarda Alba, Spring’s Awakening, Wonder of the World and Suburbia. As a costumer and puppet builder, Deborah has worked on projects for The Muppets (Puppet Heap), Avenue Q (Lyon Puppets), Little Shop of Horrors, Heineken, Optimum On Line, Triple Canopy, Frogs (Lincoln Center), Greg the Bunny, Blue’s Room, Finding Nemo on Ice, Family Concert Series at Carnegie Hall and many others. Deborah collaborated with Red Glass Pictures creating and performing shadow puppets for the short documentary film featured in The Atlantic, George Saunders, On Story. She has created original puppet works, Seven Dwarves, A Survival Story, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, where she attended as an Artist in Residence. Deborah wrote, designed and directed the award winning Nosferatu, which premiered at the NY International Fringe Festival and received an award for Achievement in Puppetry. Noferatu, went on to perform at the Puppeteers of America National Festival. Commissioned by the Bruce Museum in CT, Deborah created her solo family shadow puppet show, Animals in Winter, for their exhibit “Animals in Winter, Survival at Zero Degrees.” Publications include Puppetry International, Fall 2016, “An Avant-Garde Approach to Comprehensive Puppet Performance Training.” Deborah has a BFA in Acting and an MA in Puppetry both from UCONN. She has received grants from the Jim Henson Foundation, Puppeteers of America, and NYSCA.
WORKSHOP:
Collaboration (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Wu-Shan Huang— grew up in central Taiwan, a member of the minority Hakka community. At the age of 10, Mr. Huang began training in traditional Chinese hand puppetry with Master Tien-Lu Lee, and travelled internationally with Master Lee’s I Wan Jan Puppet Company. He studied traditional Hakka folk music and opera from Master Bi-Xia Lai. After receiving an MFA in Theatre from Taipei University of the Arts, Mr. Huang began create original work combining traditional puppetry and Hakka music with the modern theories of theatre. He founded Shan Puppet Theatre in 2002 with the mission to pass on Hakka culture to the public and the younger generation, producing new performances for children and adults and participate various cultural events and festivals throughout Taiwan. Mr. Haung has travelled extensively throughout Taiwan and China, as well as to Vietnam, Malaysia, Netherlands, Czech Republic, France, Tunisia and the US. In 2005 he was a recipient of an Asian Cultural Council travel grant to study theater and puppetry in the US for 6 months.
Chinese Theatre Works was founded in 2001 by Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin. CTW’s mission is to create and promote traditional Chinese performing arts, including opera, music, dance and puppetry, as well as create new theatrical works that blend contemporary western and Chinese practice.
WORKSHOP:
Bu Daixi! Chinese Glove Puppets in Performance (PERFORMANCE)
Phillip Huber, world-renowned marionette artist, is best known for his work in the 3-time 
Academy Award nominated film Being John Malkovich and giving life to “China Girl” for Disney’s Oz The Great And Powerful. Phillip’s career has featured nightclub performances at: The Lido, Paris, Casino De Monte Carlo, Monaco, Magic Castle, Hollywood, Hansa Vareite Theater, Hamburg, Georgspalast Variete Theater, Hannover. His television appearances include: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Le Plus Grande Cabaret Du Monde (France) and Variete (Chile). His puppetry skills have enhanced theatrical shows such as: Busker Alley with Tommy Tune, That’s Christmas with Sandy Duncan, Christmas With Friends & Nabors with Jim Nabors and The Road To Hollywood directed by Walter Bobby. His work is in demand at international festivals in Japan, S. Korea, Norway, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. Phillip’s show Suspended Animation has appeared on more than 50 luxury cruise ships worldwide.
WORKSHOPS:
A Portable Stage for One-Man Cabaret Marionettes (SKILL COMBINATION)
Choreography for Variety Marionettes (PERFORMANCE)
For over twenty years Art Grueneberger has made a good living as a puppeteer. His company does over 600+ performances a year, touring non-stop up and down the Golden State and beyond. Armed with an MFA in Theater from University California, Davis (and thus ill-equipped to run a garage sale let alone an Entertainment Company), he has floundered his way to financial success through a series of glorious blunders and fortunate coincidences. Art has served as Vice President of Puppeteers of America.
WORKSHOP:
Dollars and Sense – Running a Successful Puppetry Business (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Kurt Hunter is a Minneapolis-based puppeteer best known for his innovative solo marionette work. He has performed with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre and as a guest artist with the Minneapolis Chamber Symphony and the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra. For Open Eye Figure Theatre he has constructed marionettes for “A Prelude to Faust” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and was a featured performer in three “Toy Theatre After Dark” festivals. He has studied with marionette masters Phillip Huber and Albrecht Roser. In 2008 he received an UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence in Puppetry for “Sock Puppet Serenade.”
WORKSHOP:
Marionette Crash Course: Learn, Build, Perform (SKILL COMBINATION)
Rachel Jackson worked in PR and marketing for various Seattle theaters for six years before she quit to become a self-employed puppet artist. Her puppeteering has been called “mad and masterful” by The Seattle Times. The mind behind the hit puppet musical MANOS: The Hands of Felt, Rachel has been puppeteering on stages both local and international since 2008. She most recently brought her talented hands to Fire and Tassels, Game of Thrones Burlesque and Nasty, Brutish and Short at Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. Rachel teaches puppetry classes through her company Vox Fabuli Puppets, produces the Fussy Cloud Puppet Slam, and is unofficial Puppeteer-at-Large for the Seattle Nerdlesque scene.
WORKSHOP:
Marketing Demystified (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
In 2001, Liz Joyce opened Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater in Sag Harbor, New York. Sag Harbor is an historic village of less than 3000 and is part of The Hamptons, a popular vacation spot. The Goat’s first theater was in the parish hall of Sag Harbor’s Christ Episcopal Church. Goat on a Boat has recently moved to a new home at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.
WORKSHOP:
So You Want Your Own Place? (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Erik Kuska is a writer/puppeteer/animation director/goofball from Los Angeles. Having drawn for the animation industry for 20 years, he has pitched and created animated shows, most notably Wabbit for Cartoon Network/Warner Brothers Animation. He performed Clocky (and Mr. Window) in the latest Pee Wee Herman shows and most recently, was a puppeteer on the 14 new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (coming out April 14th on Netflix). Erik enjoys writing/performing/analyzing sketch and has taken numerous writing courses from Groundlings, UCB, iO West, The Pack Theater and ACME, including workshops from writers of Saturday Night Live, the Whitest Kids U’ Know, Conan O’Brien and Kids in the Hall. He started his puppetry career in 2008 and was mentored by former muppeteer, Michael Earl. He soon began putting up his own puppet sketch shows as well as teaching TV puppetry and his own writing workshops. Erik has performed in over 80 birthday/music puppet shows and slams around Los Angeles.
WORKSHOP:
Sketch Writing: for Puppets and Beyond (WRITING)
Michael Lamason is Executive Director and cofounder of Baltimore’s Black Cherry Puppet Theater. For twenty years, he has coordinated Black Cherry’s education and community arts program, exposing thousands of students and educators to classical and contemporary puppetry, while integrating it with the Maryland State Curriculum. Michael conducts puppetry based professional development programs for educators and teaching artists, and continues to build his skills as a puppeteer and educator by developing new shows at the theater and innovative educational/community arts programs.
WORKSHOP:
Puppets in the Classroom (TEACHING)
Monica Leo and Teri Jean Breitbach of Eulenspiegel Puppets established the Owl Glass Puppetry Center in West Liberty, Iowa, in 1995. West Liberty has a population of about 3700 people, in an area of about 57,000. They present an annual season which includes performances by Eulenspiegel, as well as by guest puppet theaters from all over the world.
WORKSHOP:
So You Want Your Own Place? (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Theresa Mason started making and creating performances with giant puppets over 30 years ago. She has directed youth, adults, and intergenerational teams of puppeteers for regional and national conferences, justice groups, churches, parades, and community programs. She has created performances as a solo writer and in collaboration with others to build community, address injustice, and act out stories and rituals. She brings her background in theatre (Ph.D. Theatre Arts, University of Oregon) to her work writing and directing. She is an ordained United Methodist minister, who brought theatre and puppetry to the churches she served in CA and NE. She was chaplain of Hamline University in St. Paul, MN; associate professor in religion department; and the director of Spirit Bound Players, a group of college students who developed and performed theatre, music, and puppetry in churches. She retired from pastoral ministry in 2016. She is director of Earthen Pot Theatre, a ministry of consulting writing, and directing in theatre, puppetry, worship, and other arts.
WORKSHOP:
Think Big: Operating, Directing, and Creating Performances with Giant Rod Puppets (PERFORMANCE)
Annett Mateo (Puppet Designer/Coach) believes anything can be a puppet! She has made all kinds of puppets out of all kinds of materials for people, projects and theatres both locally and nationally. In her career as a professional puppet designer and builder she has built marionettes, Muppet type puppets, rod puppets, large body/costume style, modified Bunraku, shadow and pretty much every other kind of puppet. She has attended the O’Neill Theatre conference for Puppetry a number of years and is in her fifteenth season as a puppet designer and builder for Seattle Children’s Theatre. She has done custom requests, puppets for parades, theatre performances for adults and is a regular participant of regional puppet slams. You can view her puppets at Puppetlandia.com.
WORKSHOP:
Making Giant Puppets: a hands-on workshop (CONSTRUCTION)
Randel McGee has been a professional ventriloquist, puppeteer, storyteller, and author for over 30 years. He has toured throughout the USA and Asia with his performances and workshops. He has taught at numerous regional, national and international puppetry, storytelling, and cultural events. Randel performed the lead character in 2 educational video series that highlight values and character for young people. Randel is best known for his signature ventriloquist act, “Randel McGee and Groark”. This show is a unique blend of stand-up comedy, storytelling, songs, and character interaction.
WORKSHOP:
The Art of Ventriloquism (PERFORMANCE)
Tom McLaughlin has loved puppets and rubber since a kid. He created rubber skins for such iconic characters as Miss Piggy, Yoda, Jabba the Hut, Ewoks, Chewbacca, Babe the talking pig and the original Budweiser Frogs. His custom rubber formulations have graced needy amputees and movie stars alike. Tom developed the Microcellular Latex Foam Formula still in use today in the entertainment industry (Monster Makers Foam). He literally stretched the limits of rubber skin technology for Babe, with the world’s first photorealistic animatronic silicone animals on film for The Jim Henson London Creature Shop. In doing so, he helped the movie win the Academy Award® for Best Visual Effects. Author of the groundbreaking technical book Silicone Art, McLaughlin lectures on silicone as an art material and gives workshops on silicone techniques and materials. He is a materials consultant, formulator, compounder, sculptor, mold maker, award winning abstract painter, puppet maker, character painter, music composer, audio engineer, sound designer, researcher, writer. Tom’s newest venture – Silicone Art Materials – makes coloring and finishing materials for silicone rubber. Tom may be contacted at tommclaughlin75@hotmail.com
WORKSHOPS:
Fun With Foam & Silicone: Application Techniques (CONSTRUCTION)
Into to Silicone and Polyfoam for Puppets (CONSTRUCTION)
Michael and Valerie Nelson formed Magical Moonshine Theatre in 1979 and have been exploring the creative possibilities of toy theatre for about 15 years. They have performed in 18 countries around the world and won 3 UNIMA-USA awards for Excellence. Michael is past president of UNIMA-USA, current president of SFBAPGuild and studied puppetry with Jim Henson at the International Institute of Puppetry in France. Valerie and Michael are currently Artists in Residence at an Arts Magnet school in California.
WORKSHOP:
Performance Workshops (2): The Miller’s Tale by Chaucer (PERFORMANCE)
Judith O’Hare is the Education Consultant and chairperson for the Puppetry in Education and Therapy committee for Puppeteers of America. She has planned and implemented the “Professional Day for the Teaching Artist and Therapist” for regional and National Festivals and has worked to bring attention and prestige to those puppeteers who work in the area of education and therapy. She is a touring artist and teacher trainer and developed a unique style of toy theater using pop-up scenery. She has done teacher training in Kenya, Tanzania, Calgary, Canada, Hong Kong and across the US. She is a recipient of the Marjorie Batchelder award for Puppetry in Education.
WORKSHOP:
Teacher Training and Workshop Presentation Skills (TEACHING)
Andrew Periale has been a puppeteer for over 30 years. Together with his wife, Bonnie, he has produced the magazines for UNIMA-USA since 1985, and as Perry Alley Theatre has been awarded the George Latshaw award, three UNIMA Citations, and an Emmy nomination. The Periales were recently elected Members of Honor of UNIMA, the global puppetry organization.
WORKSHOPS:
Forman Brown: Poet, Playwright, Puppeteer (UNIQUE)
Everybody In the Pool! A Water Puppet Primer (SKILL COMBINATION)
Director, Actress, Singer and Puppeteer Yael Rasooly is one of Israel’s leading independent theater artists. Yael’s distinct signature theatrical language is based on a multidisciplinary approach, combining different forms of theatre, puppetry, visual art and music. Her shows – Paper Cut, How Lovely, The House by The Lake, Chambre Minuit, The Gramophone Show and others, which range vastly in themes, scales and tones, have been performed in more than 25 countries and at over 150 festivals and theaters worldwide and have received numerous awards and critical praise. Alongside her prolific theatrical career, she also performs as a singer with numerous ensembles and orchestras in Europe and North America. Yael has been nominated for the Institut International De La Marionnette Award For Creation and Experimentation and has recently received a (highest) 3 star rating from Télérama, France’s leading culture magazine. She is currently directing her new production “BON VOYAGE and other lies”, in collaboration with NUKU theater in Estonia. The performance will premier in September 2017 at the International Festival of puppetry in Charleville-Mézières (France).
Among the numerous awards and prizes Yael has received are:
- The Excellence Award For a Solo Show at the New York International Fringe Festival (2011)
- The Award for Best Artistic Conception and Realization at The International Adult Puppet Festival of Pecs, Hungary (2010)
- Diploma of Distinction from U.N.I.M.A, the World Puppetry Organization (2010)
- Grand Prix Award at the International Festival for Solo Puppeteers in Lodz, Poland (2011)
WORKSHOP:
The Puppeteer, the Object, and the Secret In Between – Master Class with Yael Rasooly (PERFORMANCE)
Paulette Richards is a teaching artist who uses puppets in her digital narratives to affirm the agency all people can exercise in shaping their own life stories. She holds a Ph.D. in French Civilization from the University of Virginia and has over 30 years experience teaching
on the faculty of Georgia Tech and other institutions of higher learning, as well as in after school programs. She serves as a docent at the Center for Puppetry Arts. To see more of her puppets and videos, visit: paulette-richards.com
WORKSHOP:
STEAM Punks – Introduction to Puppet Robotics (CONSTRUCTION)
Julie Scarborough holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater degree from the University of Florida, and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting degree from the University of Georgia. Her over 20-year professional performance career includes acting, musical theater and puppetry; most notably as the Head Puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA, the largest nonprofit organization in the U.S. dedicated to puppetry, where she performed from 1998 to 2012. Currently she is in the Entertainment Department at Walt Disney World, helping bring to life beloved characters like Gonzo and Fozzie Bear in The Muppets: Great Moments in American History. Additionally, she holds a teaching certificate from the state of Florida in Drama, and has taught drama and directed performances in Orange County Public Schools for 4 years. Personally, she is married and lives with her husband and two daughters in Ocoee, Florida.
WORKSHOP:
Ensemble Puppetry 101 – The Basics of Team Performance (PERFORMANCE)
Elizabeth Shaffer holds an M.F.A. in Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young, with a focus in Directing Theatre for the Young from Eastern Michigan University. She also holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies with a concentration in Directing. Her passions are community outreach, serving as a teaching artist, directing, and theatre for the young. She has over 10 years of experience advocating and creating theatre and drama experiences for youth. Elizabeth possesses a strong drive to provide an outlet where youth and communities can explore and further grow their imagination, creativity, and experience in the arts. She is a middle and high school drama teacher in Arizona.
WORKSHOP:
Puppetry for the Very Young: Experiential Performances (TEACHING)
Seth Shaffer is an MFA graduate from the Puppet Arts program at University of Connecticut and teaches Kindergarten Engineering at a charter school in Arizona. In his engineering courses, he engages and teaches his students about engineering concepts through the art of puppetry and storytelling. When not teaching in the classroom, Seth is a freelance puppeteer whose work has included restoring, researching, and remounting the puppet shows of Dick Myers. As a puppeteer, Seth’s work spans beyond restorative work and can also be found in the vein of theatre for the young and very young. He has built puppets for theatre for the young productions such as The Velveteen Rabbit, Lily Plants a Garden, and I Can Hear the Sun, an adaptation of the book of the same title by Patricia Polacco.
WORKSHOPS:
Puppetry for the Very Young: Experiential Performances (TEACHING)
Restoring and Remounting a Puppet Show: The Dick Myers Project (UNIQUE)
Scott & James Silson are both Puppet Masters with the Walt Disney Company, and have partnered together on numerous productions from choreographing the puppetry for Finding Nemo the Musical at Disney’s Animal Kingdom to directing the elaborate puppetry program for Shanghai Disneyland Resort. They have co-created numerous puppetry training programs spanning 3 continents and have collaborated with high-profile vendors including Michael Curry Design, Puppet Heap, and Animax Design. James is also a Show Director with Walt Disney World and recently opened the highly successful and well-received Muppet production of Great Moments in History (But Just the American Parts!) at the Magic Kingdom. Scott’s most recent credit is co-designing and directing the puppetry for the acclaimed new stage musical at Disney’s California Adventure, Frozen: Live at the Hyperion! Outside of The Walt Disney Company, they have both enjoyed an extensive performance background in musical theatre, pantomime, clowning, and writing/performing original music, stage shows, and sketches.
WORKSHOP:
The Show Is In Your Hands (PERFORMANCE)
Nancy Smith and Ken Bonar founded Great Arizona Puppet Theater in 1983 as a touring theater. In 1986 they opened their first theater in a retired fire station. 10 years later the theater bought an historic building in the center of Phoenix where shows are held 5 days a week, year round. The Phoenix metro area has a population exceeding 3.5 million.
WORKSHOP:
So You Want Your Own Place? (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Pix Smith is Founding Director of the Dallas Puppet Theater and has been a puppeteer and Puppeteers of America member for over 35 years (yikes). He currently is active with a number of arts organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and served on the board of UNIMA-USA and as a Board Member and Vice-President of Puppeteers of America. He brings experience and hundreds upon hundreds of mistakes to the table, and hopes to help other people be more successful by avoiding them. A business major from Texas A&M University and lifelong entertainer in spite of that, he tries to serve as a good example of why you need to make choices in life carefully.
WORKSHOP:
Dollars and Sense – Running a Successful Puppetry Business (BUSINESS & MARKETING)
Paul Spirito is a puppet and theater designer, creator, and performer. Currently, he is the Director of the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts Online Graduate Certificate Program and the Puppetry Technical Supervisor in UConn’s Puppetry Arts Program. Paul guides students through the process of designing, creating, and performing puppets for their projects and for Connecticut Repertory Theater. His profound love of machines and the parts that make them go; along with his obsession with the people of the industrial age are the driving forces behind much of his work. Paul attempts to push the arts forward by infusing traditional forms and techniques with 21st century materials and processes. In his spare time, Paul founded of the Hartford Art Sled Derby, an annual event where people come together to share art and experience the creativity and excitement of sliding down a snowy hill in an original creation – Art Sledding.
WORKSHOP:
Maker Spaces: The Best Thing to Happen To Puppet Building Since Papier-Mâché (UNIQUE
Lisa Sturz is a full-time professional puppeteer and certified teaching artist with over forty years of experience working in film, television, theatre, opera, special events, and educational environments. She is the Artistic Director of Red Herring Puppets, an award-winning national touring company performing over 300 shows and 10 residencies a year. Lisa has an MA in Theatre from UConn, an MFA in Puppetry from UCLA, and majored in Directing at the National Theatre Institute. She has staged puppet sequences for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, UNC-TV, Asheville Community Theatre, NC Stage, La Mirada Civic Theatre, Asheville Symphony, the Mark Taper Forum, and many more. Lisa has taught puppetry at CalPoly and Warren Wilson College.
WORKSHOPS:
Shadow Puppetry in the Classroom (TEACHING)
THE OUTSIDE EYE – Directing for the Puppet Theatre (UNIQUE)
Steven Widerman is a professional puppeteer involved in puppetry for entertainment, education, advertising, film, and TV. He has been exploring the use of 3D cameras to film puppets during the past 3 years, and he has been a member of Puppeteers of America for more than 50 years. He is owner and director of The Puppet Company and is a founding partner of Heart Strings Media. He operated a critically acclaimed puppet theater at Union Square in Manhattan for ten years, for which he wrote and composed theatrical musicals performed by imaginatively crafted puppets and marionettes of every variety. He is also an accomplished pianist with a degree in Music. Steve recently relocated from New York to Chicago.
www.ThePuppetCompany.org, www.GumRappers.us
WORKSHOP:
3D Television Puppetry (SKILL COMBINATION)
Michael Paul Ziegfeld started his career in local television at age 16, and for the last 28-years comedy has been his full-time job. His stage act (improv/stand-up/ventriloquism) has allowed him to tour with such names as James Brown, Lisa Lampanelli, Wynonna, Joan Rivers and Don Rickles, headlining in over 40 countries along with television credits on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, films 27 Dresses opposite Katherine Heigl and The Ten, co-starring with Winona Ryder, Paul Rudd, Liev Schrieber and Jessica Alba. Michael has been lucky to lend voice (or hands) to Pixar, Jim Henson Productions and Disney, as well as creating branded puppet characters including, “Nadia Coma: The World’s Oldest Gymnast”, MTV’s “CJ and Peanut” and training casts of The Lion King and Avenue Q. From the production aspect, Michael has consulted on shows and scripts for TBS, CBS, Kevin Spacey, David Letterman, Bill Maher and others. His published works include comedic editorials for USA Today, Huffington Post, LaughSpin Magazine and a new book, Breaking Out of Show Business: What I Discovered by Not Being Discovered (by Post Hill Publishing), can be found at numerous book outlets, including Barnes and Noble.
WORKSHOP:
Writing, Comedic Structure & Character Development for the Puppeteer (WRITING)