And what a year!

​I trained with the Jim Henson Company!  For three very fully, very intense weeks, I learned the Jim Henson Technique straight from the source.  What a life changing experience!  We spent half of each day doing on-camera puppetry, and the other half doing improv.  And this fantastic company continues to provide me with twice-weekly improv training as a new ensemble member of Brian Henson's Puppet Up!​

After my training, I got to WORK FOR the Jim Henson Company!  The training alone felt like an unreal dream, and at the time felt like it was as high as my career could go, so I was flabbergasted when I was hired shortly afterwards.  The project is currently under an NDA, so all I can share right now are these pictures from the company's courtyard :)

I debuted in Brian Henson's Puppet Up!  Right in the historic Charlie Chaplin Soundstage in Hollywood!  This was a dream beyond a dream beyond a dream.

I saw the Pacific ocean for the first time at Santa Monica beach!  The event was photographed (and styled!) by Anna Michelle Wang, who made this bathing suit from scratch for me.

Another secret project.  I reunited with two dear friends from my Henson training for this TBA web series.

I learned to draw!  These are some of my first drawings - character designs for puppets - one of which is finished, the other two have finished heads.  I'll have to update this later with pictures of the puppets :)

I signed with CESD Talent Agency as a puppeteer!!!
I continue to work with IPEX Artists Agency as a writer!
My writing is being performed: The Fantastic Tale of Rumpelstiltskin is happening right now at The Puppet Co. in Maryland, The Comedy of Wizards will premier at Super Secret Arts in Brooklyn this fall, and there's a TBA production of Gruff!​ coming up in 2023!

Ok, so, I'm flying high above the American Southwest at the moment, and I was busy saving Hyrule from goblins (thanks Nintendo Switch) BUT when the battery was low, I needed something else to do, and that's when I realized... I NEED to stop procrastinating.

ENTRY 2: Ok that's hilarious.  I started writing the above as my flight to LA was finishing.  It's three weeks later now and I'm back in the airport.  Oh it was NUTS.  Training with the talented artists at the Jim Henson Company was truly a dream.  But I'm not gonna talk about it yet!  No!  I really, really want this blog to represent a rough timeline of my career, and I always get too busy doing my career to update the blog.  There's been some very exciting developments lately (did I mention the Jim Henson Company?), and before I get to them, I want to finish covering the projects of the last few years, at least in a perfunctory fashion.  Luckily for me, the plane I thought I was getting on doesn't exist, and I'm trapped in the airport with nothing to do.  Did I say "luckily?"  I'm sticking with it.  So first, old stuff, and THEN new stuff.  No dessert till I finish my dinner!

Ok, so this puppet show of ours has gotten a little love in past posts, but now I'm finally going to lay it all out for posterity.  

We received a Family Grant from the Jim Henson Foundation to create The Amazing Story Machine (click that link for more show info.)  As if that wasn't exciting enough, we were also invited to do a week-long workshop culminating in a showing as part of PATCH (Puppetry at the Carriage House), which meant getting to spend a week creating at the Jim Henson Carriage House on the Upper East Side.

We then went on to a month-long run at The Tank, in Midtown Manhattan.  THEN we went to the wonderful Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline, MA.  THEN we performed at Symphony Space back in Manhattan.  THEN we did something crazy like 10 shows in 4 days over the New Year's holiday back at Puppet Showplace.  THEN we ended up back at The Carriage House for an APAP showcase.  So the Machine got around!  Now it sits, waiting, in my parents' garage.  It did recently come out of its slumber for the shadow puppets we did for A Midsummer Night's Dream.  But I get ahead of myself.  More on Dream at the end of this post.

Directed by my mentor Kim Bent at Lost Nation Theater, and performed with my dear friend Laura Erle.  We both narrated.  She played the protagonist.  I played everything else.  It was intense.  I loved it.  Acting!

My fifth production at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre.  I originally became acquainted with Noah Dach (circus wunderkind) while I was still completing Doppelskope's Grilogy (Gruff!, Grimm!, and Growl!) during our first three SMT summers.  We finally collaborated on Wild! which you can read about in an earlier post - it was a bucket list project for me in that it was my first full circus production.  I clowned, I did aerial, I juggled, I danced!  Noah was a great director and choreographer

Then, when Noah was completing his own trilogy two years later, he asked me to come back as his co-director.  Noah was performing in his own show for the first time, so he needed an outside eye.  I was flattered to be chosen.  Noah set all the choreo and then handed his baby over to me.  It was my first time directing a project that I hadn't written.  I don't have access to photos from it here in this airport, and it's my blog, so here's a photo of good ol' Upside Down Scheer:

Ok, Creatures has gotten some plugs in past/recent posts too, but damn I love this project!  Jacob Graham is a genius, I love working with him, and I'm certain your day will get better if you stop what you're doing and go watch some Creatures videos.  I'll drop the most recent one below.  Also we're releasing our biggest project yet next year!  Creatures was one of the creative anchors and sane-makers for me this pandemic, and I'm super grateful Jacob was willing to pod up with me and make art happen when the world had stopped.

Yes!  I did it!  The back logging is complete!  Huzza!!!  *pats self on back*

So, somehow, I made a 51 minute film adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The film crew and puppeteer cast was just my beloved partner Kate, and aforementioned/beloved Creatures of Yes creator Jacob Graham.  It was produced by my old dear friend Eric Love through Northern Stage with funding from the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.  Kate and I made something like 36 or 38 puppets for it.  You'd think I would remember the exact number, but we weren't sleeping a lot at the time, and I'm in an airport right now and I'm not re-counting.  Watch it!  

Now that i'm finished with back-logging my old projects, I'm ready to talk about the new stuff next time!

I've gotten a lot done in the pandemic, but one thing I haven't made much progress on is updating this blog.  There are still two or three YEARS of shows I need to update on here.  But as always (pandemic or not) I'd rather be doing than reporting.  And so I interrupt my backlogging catch-up process to bring current updates!

.Back in June, I finally came out as a non-binary trans person.  For clarity's sake, I will add that I'm not taking down photos on this site of me presenting as male, since it's part of my history, I still enjoy the pictures, and I intend to keep playing characters of all genders (as I always have!)

I got really excited about the congressional campaign of Dr. Nancy Goroff, a scientist who believes in climate change.  So I wrote this parody of Go Go Go Joseph from Joseph and the Amazing Technical Dreamcoat, and with the help of a few dear collaborators turned it into this music video and unofficial campaign commercial:

You gooooootta catch up on Creatures of Yes videos, which we've been releasing weekly!  I'm now producing and co-writing as well as puppeteering, building new puppets and fabricating set pieces.  I voice Murmel, Agnes, Walter, and Alphonso.  Here's our first short film (which kicks off the weekly series we are currently in.)

There's so much to catch up on, both new projects as well as old stuff I never had time to write about.  I can't believe I haven't done an actual post about The Amazing Story Machine yet.  Gah.  Check out this cool little film we made.  Or look at the trailer below: 

Right now ​I'm studying woodcarving with master puppeteer Bernd Ogrodnik.  Toby and I are doing more work on The Comedy of Wizards and developing a new holiday show, A Krampus Carol​.  Here ends this disjointed post.

Day 1: transport set from LI to Manhattan, do two performances of The Amazing Story Machine.

Day 2: MC and perform magic at a new circus show at The Muse, ABCirque and Play.

Day 3: Work on costume and script for upcoming Circus/Puppet/Variety show about gender.

Day 4: Write synopsis for new glove puppet show.

Day 5: shift as Pediatric clown at hospital.

Day 6: Memorize lines for upcoming production of The Turn of the Screw. ​I'm playing 3 or so characters.

​Ara Bartlieb of Lehigh Valley Stage called the show an "effervescent concoction" and "inventively eye-popping". He also wrote
​
“More adults than tots littered the theater during yesterday's 1PM performance, and I honestly can report that their response was even more enthusiastic than the youngsters'. And, trust me, the tykes were getting their money's worth of giggles and often outright guffaws at the non-stop onstage antics of this fine assembly of actors. I am willing to bet that, unless you're under ten years of age, you won't be able to keep up with its relentlessly sharp turns and witty reinterpretations of the story you thought you knew. The show runs one hour to the precise tick of a finely wound watch, with nary a child nor grandparent nor nanny showing signs of distraction for even a second.” 

​You can read Mr. Bartlieb's entire review here.

One of the songs from the show became a stand-along slam piece that we were able to perform twice at La MaMa. Check out the video!

In November 2016 we brought our original signature show to Puppet Showplace in Boston. We had befriended the artistic director, the fantastic, talented and intelligent Roxie Myhrum at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival. We stayed with Paul Vincent Davis while we were there, and it was a real privilege to hear some of his stories and puppetry/life wisdom.