All About Muppets

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 In addition to puppets, she also does drawings, quilts, collages, and prints/posters, the latter of which has been archived online.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...

Chris Kendall is a British puppeteer, performer, and puppet builder who has performed for numerous areas of show business, from television to film to music videos. He was one of the many additional puppeteers on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, where he worked with various Muppet performers. Chris must have felt excited to perform alongside some of the legendary puppeteers who performed on both Muppet and Henson Company projects. Kendall also built and performed puppets for several shows on Netflix, CBeebies, CBBC, and ITV, as well as hosting online campaigns, commercials, and music videos. Some of the productions he did outside include Dodge's Pup School, Britain's Got Talent, Puppet Aid, two 2020s Sooty projects, and many others. He even has his own blog like this own known as Chris Kendall Puppets where he revealed he was another person inspired by Jim Henson to perform. Chris Kendall got to work with many other puppeteers in his career including Leonie Wall, Tim Cherry-...

Randal J. Metz is a professional puppeteer, variety/stage performer, writer, and director who is best known for creating puppet productions and performing for Children Fairyland's Open Storybook Puppet Theater. The company holds the record for being the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the US. In the early years of Randal's life, he got to meet Jerry Juhl in a puppetry class taught by him and in the 1980s got to meet Frank Oz and even was apprenticed by Michael Earl. It would seem the Metz had puppetry in his eyes since childhood, which resulted to him meeting his heroes in his teenage years. From 1986-1990, he studied marionettes with Bob Baker of The Bob Baker Marionette Theater and in 1994, he participated in the Survey of Puppet Theater Techniques taught by the legendary Muppet performers. In addition to puppetry, he also wrote and published six books, all focused on puppetry in California and at Children's Fairyland. Randal J. Metz seems to be the most r...

Keith Harris was a British ventriloquist, puppeteer, and voice actor who was best known for performing his two characters, Orville the Duck and Cuddles the Monkey. He did his two characters for The Keith Harris Show, audio recordings, and club appearances as well as on the 1991 music video Helping Hand, which featured Fraggle Rock characters. As a kid, Keith assisted his father's ventriloquist acts, then made his own characters as a teenager which he performed at holiday resorts, and eventually, he ended up attracting some television producers' attention. Harris later did pantomime appearances during the late 1990s before he made guest appearances on many shows during the 2000s, like The Weakest Link for example. Despite not doing any Henson or Muppet series, he was one of the interviewees for the BBC documentary I Love Muppets which featured Muppet cast, crew, and celebrities. Even though he was successful during the 1980s-1990s, the end of his well-known show really affected ...

Andrew G. Cooper is a Canadian puppeteer and filmmaker who served as one of the additional performers on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock and is also another non-binary puppeteer. They usually assisted and/or doubled for the main performers' characters on the whole series, including the holiday specials. Another project Andrew puppeteered on is a short called Windchasers, as well as writing, producing, and directing that short. Cooper worked with several other performers on both projects such as Ellis Lalonde, Geneviève Paré, Ali DeRegt, and Anna Cummer. Who knew there would be lots of puppeteers that are non-binary no one knows about until looking up the puppeteer's bio online? Other projects they made include Star Bars: A Brew Hope, Under the Plaza, (exp)lore, and The Robber Bridegroom, to name a few. Andrew G. Cooper also creates theatrical productions across Canada like Frankenstein, The Time Machinist, Starslingers, and The Untold Tales of the Brothers Grimm, to name a few. ...

Jane Pickworth is a British puppeteer, voice actress, and visual artist who has done numerous productions since 1992. She trained with the Jim Henson Company in 2002 and later served as an additional performer on The Furchester Hotel with others like Mikey Brett, Emily Morus-Jones, and Dilpreet Kaur Walia. Jane even puppeteered Tutter for a Bear in the Big Blue House: Surprise Party live show in 2003. Some of the other shows Pickworth puppeteered on include Fun Song Factory, Bad Penny, Roly Mo Live Show, and Litter Things Matter. As a voice actress, her voice can be heard on numerous television and radio shows like Numtums, Love Monster, My Friend Maisy, and many other promos, commercials, and Audible book series. She seems to be so versatile when it comes to creating characters out of her voice. Jane Pickworth also did visual arts for shows like Tweenies, MacDonald's Farm, Doodle Do, and Supertato as either floor manager, art director, or a designer. In addition to performing on t...