All About Muppets

Dave Privett is a puppeteer, puppet designer/builder, writer, and set designer who is best known for his work on the Baby Einstein video series. He is also the founder of the puppet company PlaySoup alongside his wife June Privett. In addition to Baby Einstein, Dave was also a puppeteer and builder at Animax Designs, mostly performing on the Trollies video series and playing Snowbird the Penguin. Privett also worked with a few Henson people at Animax such as Jeff Conover, Eddie May, and Chuck Fawcett, as well as Kim Snodgrass and Steve Pennington too. He may not have done any Henson or Sesame Street projects, but he still worked on videos suitable for babies and children. Upon turning over PlaySoup to the new owners, Kristofer and Amanda Sommerfeld, he now works for DMPCreative and sold his puppet creations online. Other non-Baby Einstein production Dave Privett and his wife did was the Christian video series Baby Faith and the sign-language video series Baby Signs, two series made for...

Frank Cesario is a puppeteer, puppet builder, costume designer, and voice actor who is best known for doing all of those skills on Donkey Hodie. He is also known for his work on the web series DillonGale and on the live show adaptation of Winnie the Pooh. In addition to puppeteering on Donkey Hodie and DillonGale, Frank also puppeteered on a project called Monkey's Magic Merry Go Round. Cesario seems to be very busy with Spiffy Pictures, working with David Rudman and other Muppet performers such as Haley Jenkins, Frankie Cordero, and Stephanie D'Abruzzo, to name a few. With DillonGale, he built and performed puppets with Ryan Dillon and Mark Gale, two other Muppet performers on Sesame Street. In addition, he even built and wrangled many puppets for productions by Duolingo, Ronald McDonald House, and many others. With all of those projects Frank Cesario did over the years, maybe someday he'll get a job on Sesame Street building, wrangling, and/or performing puppets. He even ...

Indushree Raveendra is an Indian ventriloquist, impressionist, and experimentalist who is known for her appearances on Indian television. She was a contestant on India's Got Talent and Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega and appeared as a guest on That's My Job. Indushree also performed 68 live shows on Zee Kannada with one of her puppet characters named Dinku as well as her other character Grandpa. In 2010, Raveendra even got to perform an act with a 10-feet tall puppet named Mahishasura at the festival of Dussehra. It's a shame that with all of those shows she appeared on, she never really puppeteered on the Indian co-production of Sesame Street, Gali Gali Sim Sim. She could've performed with numerous other Indian puppeteers such as Ghazel Javed, Sangya Ojha, and Babita Kurdiya Rachoya. Indushree Raveendra probably wasn't old enough to do a show like that when it first began, though she could've joined the show when she got her master's degree. On a posi...

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...