All About Muppets

Cynthia Von Orthal is a puppeteer, puppet designer, and actress who is best known for running her own company called VonOrthal Puppets. A podcast interview stated that she also puppeteered on Curious Buddies, working alongside Frankie Cordero and David Rudman. Cynthia performed in numerous theaters in Chicago such as Victory Gardens, The Goodman Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. When Orthal founded her company, she's been creating and performing puppets for children and adults since then. She also designs and builds large scale puppets for many companies like Redmoon, The Joffrey Ballet, CityLit Theater, and Lifeline Theatre Company. Her company also toured extensively across South and Central America from Bolivia to Machu Picchu to Guatemala, doing many shows. Cynthia Von Orthal has also acted on-screen for some television shows and films such as Roseanne, Chicago P.D., Alternate Universe: A Rescue Mission, and Diagnosis Trauma. It's a shame that she hasn't worked ...

Leah Leddy is a puppeteer and suit performer who performed Beauregard in the original run of the live stage show The Muppet Show: On Tour. She only did the body performance to a pre-recorded track by Dave Goelz, which makes sense because it's hard to voice a character within a walk-around. Leah also puppeteered on the Chiodo Brothers kid show The Crayon Box, as one of the additional puppeteers. Some of the other puppeteers Leddy worked with include Dina Fraboni, Todd Mattox, Len Levitt, and Kristin Charney, to name a few. It's a shame there's hardly a lot of information about her online, nor an image of the correct person, only images of those with the same name, like the one above. At least she worked with a bunch of Muppet performers on an outside project, though technically The Muppet Show: On Tour does count as a live Muppet production. Still, it must've been tiring for Leah Leddy to have to perform a walk-around character live on stage as it can get hot inside. But...

Benita Steinmann was a German puppeteer and graphic artist who performed Uli von Bodefeld on Sesamstrasse from 1978-1988 when the character was retired. I don't know why the character Uli got retired after the performer left, but it was the producer's choice to remove Uli after licensing issues. Benita began her career as a graphic designer, and she soon transitioned to puppetry upon marrying puppeteer Peter Klaus Steinmann. After Steinmann left her job on Sesamstrasse, she went on to perform in 57 plays, though it's currently unknown what some of those 57 plays she did were. At least she got to perform with many other international Sesame Street performers. Performers such as Martina Klose, Kerstin Siebmann-Roders, Lothar Klose, and Peter Roders, just to name a few. Someday, someone will find plays Benita Steinmann did in her career and archive them so people can know all about this German puppeteer. Sadly, her life came to an end in December 1996, for she died of lung can...

Tony Basilicato was a puppeteer and writer who worked as an additional Muppet performer on The Muppet Movie, his only known Muppet credit. It's a shame he never did any other project featuring the Muppets in his career. Though a few years later, Tony worked with Muppet performer Lisa Buckley and ALF performer Paul Fusco in a 1981 Halloween special called The Crown of Bogg. In addition to playing the role of King Mildew, Basilicato also co-wrote the special and became a writer from there. Years later, he focused more on writing children's books, penning Buzz & Flutter's Big Electronic Game Book, the comic Prime Slime Tales, and numerous other books. The image above shows him in 1991 with one of his puppet creations Grandpa Crusty, though it's currently unknown what show the character appeared in. It's too bad there weren't any other productions Tony Basilicato did that are listed on his Muppet Wiki page, it's probably considered lost. But at least he stil...

Caleb Fullam was a puppeteer, designer, writer, and director who was known for his many puppets shows throughout his career. He was also one of the puppeteers on the show Whirligig which featured numerous Muppet performers such as Bruce Edward Hall, Nikki Tilroe, Rick Lyon, and Alison Mork. Caleb also worked with Tilroe on a 1992 theatrical show called The Poet's Eye, basing their work on revered classics such as Shakespeare and Japanese folklore. Fullam may not have done any Muppet productions, but he did get to perform alongside legendary Muppet designer Kermit Love on Whirligig. Apart from The Poet's Eye, his other best-known pieces include The Conquering Worm, The Magician's Secret Garden, and A Full Elegy for a Parrot, to name a few. He was even the founder of his own two companies, one for adults and one for kids, The Other Glove Theatre and Tatterdemalion Puppets. Caleb Fullam was even a part of the National Puppet Conference in 2000 and 2001 where he created and per...

Basil Twist is a puppeteer and director based in New York who is best known for his underwater puppet show called Symphonie Fantastique. Since 1998, he has been directing and performing puppet shows to live orchestra music like in Master Peter's Puppet Show, Dogugaeshi, and Hansel & Gretel, just to name a few. Basil seems to be another one of those puppeteers to work in operas and anything classical, similar to James Ortiz, Mary McClung, and Haley Who. Twist also made the puppetry for the Broadway productions of The Addams Family and The Pee-Wee Herman Show, both in 2010. Some of the projects he did have used unique styles of puppetry like Symphonie Fantastique was done in a water tank. His other abstract puppetry techniques include creating wind puppetry for Red Beads and in Dogugaeshi he used Japanese sliding screens to tell the story. It would seem that Basil Twist has a taste in unique styles of puppetry and he somehow manages to direct them so well, working alongside other...