The Puppet Pod!

The Puppet Pod! Season 1 Finale

A Retirement Party

Photo: Sub/Urban Photography

Spencer (he/him) thinks puppetry is object manipulation for communication. Spencer Lott is a puppeteer, designer and director. His puppetry credits include A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (starring Tom Hanks), Sesame Street (HBO/PBS), and Melvin the Birder (Amazon Prime). Recently, he’s designed puppets for projects with Nickelodeon and LaGuardia Performing Arts High School. In addition to being the Associate Artistic Director of Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, Spencer Lott is the recipient of four Jim Henson Foundation grants for his original puppet productions including Blossom. He is a resident artist at HERE Arts developing a biographical puppetry work with visual artist Maiko Kikuchi. www.misterlott.com

Puppetry is a Love Language

Photo: Storm Thomas

Storm (they/them) thinks puppetry is a tool, no more, no less. Storm Thomas is a playwright/drummer-pastor/maker and has written and composed musicals: Notes on the Past, Ancient Future, and Be Like Bone. Storm has been everything from a Joker with Theater of the Oppressed NYC to a performer at the 2017 Obie Awards. In classes like Black Musical Theater, Music for Performance, and New Musical Theater Lab Storm's teaching focus is on generating new material (UArts and Playwrights/NYU). Storm has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and is currently pursuing a degree in engineering at City Tech. Performances include Skin of our Teeth (TFANA), Futurity (Soho Rep/ Ars Nova) and Lexus Verses and Flow Season 3 Episode 1, feat. Jill Scott.

Shine Your Heart

Nishikawa-Sensei (he/him) thinks puppetry is life. Koryu Nishikawa V is the fifth generation headmaster of the 160-year-old traditional puppet theatre company, Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo, a national asset of intangible folk culture. Since he was a child, Koryu Nishikawa V was trained in the form by his grandfather (third generation) and his father (fourth generation). At the age of 23, he studied the three-person-manipulation-technique as an apprentice at the Bunraku National Theatre. In addition to regularly scheduled performances in Hachioji town, Koryu Nishikawa has performed throughout Japan. He also teaches and directs for many traditional puppet theatre companies throughout the country. Since 1995, he sponsored the program “Succeeding Traditional Puppet Plays” and continues to promote Japanese traditional puppet theatre in order to protect and preserve it. He and his company have performed for Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA) international festival in the Soviet Union, Belgium, India and France. Other invited performances include the 200th Commemoration of the Founding of the U.S.A., Belgian Music Festival, and the Lisbon International Puppet Festival. Since 1987, he has taught Kuruma Ningyo for The Swedish National Puppet Theatre Company and for the Swedish Puppetry Institute. In 2000, Mr. Nishikawa participated in the Uruguay Theatre Festival, where he received the Frorrenshio prize, a special prize for foreign play. In 2004 he was chosen as Hachioji sightseeing ambassador and in 2006 Koryu Nishikawa received the Hachioji city Cultural Testimonial Award. Since 2013, Koryu-Sensei has been a co-creator and performer along with Tom Lee in the multimedia puppet piece, Shank’s Mare, which has toured from NYC, to Japan, to Hawaii, across the USA, and France.

Stapler Gaze

Photo: Emma Wiseman

Emma thinks puppetry is goofy, and Emily thinks puppetry is very uncanny valley. 

Emma Wiseman (she/her) is a multidisciplinary theater maker with a particular interest in puppets and objects. In addition to creating original and collaborative works of performance, including OOO: Out Of Office with the inimitable Emily Zemba, she has toured internationally with Robin Frohardt’s The Pigeoning and Nick Lehane’s Chimpanzee, and served as lead puppeteer for the Emmy-nominated “Animated Life”, a New York Times Op-Doc series created by Sweet Fern Productions.  More at emmawiseman.me

Emily Zemba (she/her) is a playwright and occasional office-object whisperer. Her work has been presented both on and off music stands at places like Local Theater, First Floor Theater, LPAC, Williamstown Theater Festival, Ars Nova, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater...and also at places not like them at all. She is a commissioned playwright with Theater Masters, a member of Two River Theater Emerging Writers group, an affiliated writer with the Playwrights Center, and a New Georges affiliated artist. Check out her upcoming projects with The Pool 2020 and Society emilyzemba.com

Material Performance

Photo: Janie Geiser

Janie (she/her) thinks puppetry is confusing. Janie Geiser is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes performance, film, puppetry, installation, and visual art. Geiser’s work is known for its recontextualization of abandoned images and objects, its embrace of artifice, and its sense of suspended time. Geiser is the recipient of a 2016 Doris Duke Award. One of the pioneers of the renaissance of American avant-garde puppet theater, Geiser creates innovative, hypnotic performances and installations that integrate performing objects, puppets, and projection. Her work has been presented at The Public Theater, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Redcat, The Walker Art Center, and other venues. Janie lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at CalArts School of Theater. More at janiegeiser.com

Odd & Unlikely Entertainment

Photo: Maria Baranova

Robin (she/her) thinks puppetry is intuitive.

Robin Frohardt is an award-winning artist, puppet designer and director living in Brooklyn, NY. Frohardt has a knack for taking a simple premise to an elaborate realization. Her rich imagination, unique sense of humor and stunning technical craft come together to create work that defies the conventions of traditional storytelling. Her original play "The Pigeoning" hailed by the New York Times as “a tender, fantastical symphony of the imagination,” debuted in 2013 and continues to tour at home and abroad and has been translated into German, Greek, Arabic and Turkish. In 2016 she received a Creative Capital Award for her new work "The Plastic Bag Store" an installation and performance that takes place in a fake grocery store in a real storefront and addresses the long term impact of disposable plastic packaging. More at robinfrohardt.com

Going So Ham

Photo: Shayna Strype

Shayna thinks puppetry is innovation of materials. 

Shayna Strype (she/her) is a theater, film and puppetry artist based in Brooklyn. Her solo show MINE will be presented in Dixon Place's upcoming mainstage season. Her short puppet film, "Pink Fluffy Hope", was awarded Best NY Film in the LA Puppetry Guild's 48 hr Film Festival in April. Shayna was an Artist in Residence at the Object Movement Puppetry Festival in 2018 where she created a multimedia puppetry piece called Antrak. Last summer, she was Director of Puppetry for Pig Iron and Mimi Lien's new work, Superterrranean. She teaches theater at Friends Seminary in Manhattan. MFA Sarah Lawrence College. Find out more @woosieparty and shaynastrype.com

Puppets for Grown Folks

Photo: Jeghetto

Jeghetto (he/him) thinks puppetry is magic.

Tarish Pipkins a.k.a. Jeghetto is a self taught artist and has been creating art from a very young age. He moved to North Carolina in 2005 where he launched his career in Puppetry. There, he fine tuned his skills by doing street performances with his puppets. In 2008 he started working with Paperhand Puppet Intervention. He has built puppets and performed in several Paperhand productions. Most recently, Jeghetto had the pleasure to work with national recording artist, Missy Elliott on her music video, WTF (Where They From) controlling the Pharell puppet and doing some puppet building. He also worked on the Amazon Echo commercial featuring Missy Elliott and Alec Baldwin as puppets. Jeghetto’s passion is promoting Oneness through the magic of Puppetry. More at jeghetto.com and on Instagram @jeghettos_puppets

“The Interns Go Wild”

Photo: Emon Hassan for The New York Times

Dorothy thinks puppetry is excellent for shy actors, and Andy thinks puppetry is WHAT THE?!  Check out their improvised Late Night Puppet Talk Show with Special Guest every Saturday at 10pm eastern time, at twitch.tv/talkpuppet2me

Dorothy James (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based puppeteer and teaching artist.  Puppet theatre credits include The New York Spectacular… (Radio City), Hansel & Gretel (Basil Twist, Michigan Opera Theatre), Made in China (Wakka Wakka, 59E59), and Snow Child (Arena Stage). TV: Moon and Me (BBC), and Patriot (Amazon). As a creator, Dorothy explores narratives that blur the line between fantasy and reality, working primarily in paper, clay, and shadow.  She is also a paper cut artist & avid baker. dorothy-james.com 

Andy Manjuck is (he/him) is co-founder and artistic director of Eat Drink Tell Your Friends, company member of the award-winning Wakka Wakka Productions, and often collaborates on new work from Robin Frohardt. He focuses primarily on devised theater and enjoys weaving narratives with surrealism, playing with scale, and solving problems with abstract ideas. Andy is also an established voice actor having worked in video games, animation, commercials, podcasts, and radio. Andymanjuck.com