All About Muppets

Marcin Ryl-Krystianowski is a Polish puppeteer and occasional actor who performed on the Polish co-production of Sesame Street, Ulica Sezamkowa (as Pędzipotwór). The show may have been short-lived, but at least he got to work on an international co-production of Sesame Street, with Agnieszka Mazurek and Wojchiech Slupinski. Marcin is lucky to be one of the few Polish puppeteers to be selected to perform on that show, which is considered lost media by everyone these days. Ryl-Krystianowski is better known for his outside work at Teatr Animacji since joining the theatre in 1990. Some of his theatrical work includes The Tempest (as Prospero), Winnie the Pooh (as Eeyore), The Snow Queen (a raven), and many others. It's a shame his theater profile is no longer active for unknown reasons, though I'm sure his info is still out on the internet, somewhere. Marcin Ryl-Krystianowski also made guest appearances on the shows Biuro kryminalne and Television Theater, of course both are liste...

Hugo Picchi is a Brazilian puppeteer and voice actor who performed the Brazilian version of Cookie Monster for some time on projects related to Sesamo. He also performed Garibaldo on a 2006 special celebrating TV Cultura's 40th anniversary. Some of Hugo's performances as Cookie Monster include O Desafio do Elmo and dubbing the character for his appearance on an iPhone 6 commercial in 2016. Picchi should be happy to perform an international version of Cookie Monster since there are many incarnations of the character around the world. Other puppeteers he got to work with on Sesamo include Andre Milano, Kelly Guidotti, Marilice Consenza, and Thais Carvalho, to name a few. Outside of Sesamo, he performed characters on Brazilian puppet series Cocorico and Que Monstro te Mordeu? as well as voicing characters in many Brazilian cartoons such as Zuzubalandia and Irmao de Jorel. Besides performing for Brazilian television, Hugo Picchi has his own YouTube channel, where he makes original ...

John Stevenson is a British animator, film director, puppeteer, and illustrator who worked on several Muppet and Henson projects until 1998. He started out on The Muppet Show as a storyboard artist, designer, and background puppeteer, though uncredited throughout the entire series. John also worked on The Great Muppet Caper, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Jim Henson Hour, and Brats of the Lost Nebula, not to mention illustrating several Muppet books and coloring books. It's a total shame that Stevenson was mostly uncredited for his work with Muppets and Henson Company projects, but at least Muppet Wiki acknowledged that. Outside of Muppets, he contributed to several animated shows and films as a character designer like on Count Duckula, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, and FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, to name a few. He was later hired to work as head of story at DreamWorks Animation in 1998, where he worked for many years in the art department on numerous films. John Steve...

Veronica Langley is a production artist, puppet builder/performer, designer, and writer who works with several female Muppet performers at GLOP. They built and performed puppets on many projects such as Mowgli's Road, Mill on the Floss, Guillermo and Will, and Yamasong: Scavenger Days. Veronica is also another puppet person to be non-binary even though GLOP contains mostly women cast and crew. As well as the projects mentioned above, Langley also built puppets for Crank Yankers (reboot) and a SpongeBob SquarePants holiday special. They also make digital art, sketches, and collages for many people as seen on their website. They should be proud to work alongside Donna Kimball, Colleen Smith, and Alice Dinnean within GLOP as those three created the series and run it. I wonder if Veronica Langley has any relation to puppeteer Frank Langley as both of them have the same last name. Other people they worked with include Taylor Bibat, Elizabeth Hara, Morgana Ignis, and numerous other femal...

Bernice Silver was a puppeteer and activist who was best known for being called "the Queen of Potpourri" a combination of puppetry, music, storytelling, & politics, in her performances. She started out working in schools and factories in her career as well as selling encyclopedias and other items door-to-door. Bernice then joined workers' theatre groups and was even an original cast member for the Broadway show Our Town in 1938. By the 1960s, Silver began working with puppets and toured New York with many people, billed as the Vagabond Puppeteers. She was also active in the Puppetry Guild of Greater New York which earned herself the nickname of "the Queen of Potpourri." For decades, she entertained at children's events within the New York state area and pretty soon in her career, she did comedy. It's a shame Bernice Silver never did any Muppet or Sesame projects throughout her career, since the latter was shot in New York, but she was probably too bu...

Xander Marro is an artist, underground puppet maker, and arts non-profit director who is known for being a member of the feminist art collective, the Dirt Palace. With that company, she makes movies, puppet shows, prints, and phone calls, which shows that she is also a puppeteer as well. Xander also curated the long-running Movies with Live Soundtracks series and toured with Bird Songs of the Bauharoque, a two-woman puppet operetta. For the latter, Marro had two alter-egos known as Lady Longarms and Madame von Temper Tantrum as well as an alter ego of the Lavender Diamond singer Becky Stark. Some of the puppets she made can be seen in productions like Fine Dishes, Pick a Winner, The Journey, and My Pal Foot, to name a few. In addition to puppets, she also does drawings, quilts, collages, and prints/posters, the latter of which has been archived online. It's a shame though that Xander Marro never contributed to any productions by either the Muppets or the Henson Company, she probabl...