Dorothy James

Dorothy James is a puppeteer, educator, and artist who is more of a theatre performer than a TV person since she never did a Muppet project. She puppeteered for various productions like Basil Twist, Radio City, BBC, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and some streaming services. Some of the shows Dorothy did include Moon and Me, Snow Child, Patriot, Bill's 44th, and tons more theatre shows. Although James never worked with actual Muppet performers, she has met a few Henson ones on Moon and Me, mostly Raymond Carr and Robin Stevens, not the others. As creator, she used tabletop, shadow, rod, and paper cut puppetry techniques to create otherworldly narratives to express the characters. Maybe someday she will be trained to do Muppet-style puppetry, those companies could always use some more puppeteers to help out when needed. Of course, it could be hard for Dorothy James because that technique requires a puppeteer to look at a monitor while performing the character. In addition to puppets, she also does paper cuts, miniature builds, baking, and drawings, all of which show how talented she is. In the recent years, she collaborated with Hilary Hawke (a banjo player) for her concept album Open the Doors as well as make a stop-motion film called Lethologica. I personally think Dorothy would be a great person to become a Muppet performer for any project, no matter what company produces it. Let's hope James continues to be a puppeteer by doing the puppetry techniques she's good at. You never know when she'll meet a true Muppet performer in her life. Carr and Stevens are both Creature Shop performers, but they don't voice their characters on the Henson projects they did (well not the latter anyway). Dorothy James, you're a genius in the theatre puppetry world with the techniques you've used. Keep on working until the time comes to stop, which won't happen in years. I'm sure you'll become another Muppet performer at some point in the future. Remember to keep being creative Dorothy. You've got this James!