Jon Ludwig

Jon Ludwig is a puppeteer, designer, writer, and director who has written, designed, and puppeteered the shadow puppet segments for Bear in the Big Blue House. He also wrote several of the songs for Shadow along with Peter Lurye and Tara Mooney (voice of Shadow). I don't know why Ludwig has not performed in any other Henson Company shows. It must be because they don't do a lot of shows that feature shadow puppetry. For the Center for Puppetry Arts, he is the Center's Artistic Director. I wish that he would do Muppet work because he's performed with Muppet performers. I have read that in 1997, Jon was the featured guest artist at the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center where he workshopped a new production called Home. His other notable stage works include his adaption of Frankenstein and Safe as Milk, the latter was staged in 1994 as part of the Jim Henson Foundation's International Festival of Puppet Theater. Apart from those 2 festivals, Ludwig's only other television show he worked on was The Book of Pooh where he puppeteered and directed episodes. If he worked on stage for the Henson Company than he should do more work with both the Muppets and the Henson Company. The Muppets should have more shadow puppetry in their works because they have a book on how to make shadow puppets. Jerry Nelson has also worked a shadow puppet of an old lady episode 205 of The Muppet show. I wonder if that character has inspired him to design, write, and puppeteer the shadow puppet segments from Bear in the Big Blue House. If I were him, I would continue working for the Center for Puppetry Arts in order to be remembered always. It would make a difference if Ludwig could show the Muppets his shadow puppets, that way they'd be impressed by how hard he worked on Bear. Jon Ludwig, you're incredibly talented when it comes to shadow puppets. I hope you keep working at the Center for Puppetry Arts and maybe someday work on a project that would involve shadow puppets. If you ever think about doing anything else, please do it so you can have another project you've worked on outside. Whether it's a shadow puppet or just a regular puppet, you really know how to make them work. Superb puppeteering and directing Jon!