All About Muppets

James Ortiz is a puppeteer, actor, puppet designer, and director who is known for his work in theater, film, and opera. He became very popular after developing and starring in The Woodsman, a dialogue-less play based on the classic The Wizard of Oz. James also designed puppets for the 2022 Broadway revival of The Skin of Our Teeth, which won him a Drama Desk Award. Ortiz's other puppet design/build credits include Into the Woods, Candide, The Scarlett Letter, and Hercules, to name a few. His most notable film was the one that came out recently called Project Hall Mary, performing the alien character Rocky. For that film, he got to work with designer Neal Scanlan, the latter who worked with Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Other stage puppeteers that worked with James Ortiz include Emaley Rose, who was his student, while Creature Shop performers he met include Mike Quinn and Clare Roi Harvey. He is perhaps one of those very few puppet designers to ever work in the opera like at Opera...

Paula Lambert is an Irish puppeteer who is best known for performing Bosco on the series Bosco from 1981-1987 and other appearances. From childhood she performed with her family at the Lambert Puppet Theatre before doing her first show Wanderly Wagon as a mouse and a squirrel. Paula also did Spooky the Cat on the spin-off series Fortycoats & Co. where she was an antagonist. Lambert later took over the role of Bosco from her sister Miriam Lambert, performing the role on the series and touring the character around Ireland for 40 years. She is kind of like some of the Muppet performers for they toured across different parts of the world with their best-known puppet characters. It's true that sometimes puppetry runs in the family like with Jim and Brian Henson of the Henson Company. It's a shame that someone of such puppetry talent like Paula Lambert, never met any Muppet performers in her life. It's probably because there aren't any Muppet projects that were taped in I...

Mary McClung is a puppeteer, costume designer, and professor at West Virginia University who teaches both theatrical skills to students. She started off working at Animax Designs in 1994, doing projects for Disney, Sesame Workshop, and Universal Studios. Mary got to work with Chuck Fawcett, Jeff Conover, Kim Snodgrass, and other performers who worked at Animax during that time. McClung also designed costumes for The Beggar's Opera which won an award in 2002 and later designed costumes for the WVU dance concert piece known as The Elementals. It's amazing that a former puppet company employee would become a professor to teach these skills to students interested in that area. In 2015, she inherited leadership of the WVU Puppet Mobile from her retired mentor Joann Siegrist, bringing theatrical performances to West Virginia communities for over 30 years. Mary McClung also toured elementary schools across the state, performing shows which she saw as educational and professional train...

Ingrid Crepeau is a puppeteer and costumer who is known for her work with DinoRock Productions and also performed Jessica D'Antelope on the show Animal Planet News. In addition, she also built National Park Star Wars Day costumes and maintained the regular ones for six whole years. Ingrid mostly did her work with DinoRock paired alongside Michele Valeri doing shows such as Dinosaur Babies. Crepeau had used hand puppets, marionettes, and everything in between within that show. She even hosted her own YouTube puppet making web series known as Crafty Thoughts. It's a shame DinoRock Productions is no longer doing shows anymore as Dinosaur Babies was their very last one, according to a news article seen online. In addition to puppetry and costuming, Ingrid Crepeau also wrote a book called A Show of Hands, it's all about people using puppets with young kids. Pity she never worked with any Muppet performers why she probably never even heard of them. At least she's got a lot of...

David Joyner is an actor, suit performer, and therapist who is best known for being in-suit as Barney from 1991-2001 on Barney & Friends and its predecessor Barney & the Backyard Gang. He played the loveable purple dinosaur for six seasons, numerous home videos, and a couple concerts, all with Bob West doing the voice of Barney. Though I bet David had extreme difficulty physically performing the character as he was in a heavy costume biting down on a rod that moves Barney's mouth. Over the years, Joyner got to interact with a few Muppet performers like Alice Dinnean and Noel MacNeal in the Kids for Character video, doing their characters from The Puzzle Place. Non-Muppet performers he met include Todd Duffey, Brice Armstrong, and Earl Fisher who did the puppet characters from Seasons 4-6, though they were all built by James Kroupa's company. In later years, he also was the suit performer of the title character on the show Hip Hop Harry from 2006-2008 and 2016-2019. Besi...

Carlos Marttelo is a Mexican puppeteer and voice actor best-known for his work on Plaza Sesamo, the Mexican co-production of Sesame Street. During the 2005 and 2010 seasons, he played various minor characters consisting of Anything Muppets and AM Monsters, as well as dubbing occasional inserts. Since 2011, Carlos performed the role of Elmo on the series in the "plaza" segments and the dubbing on both the series and web videos. Marttelo should be proud to perform and dub an international version of the little red monster just like every Elmo performer around the world. Other puppeteers he got to work with on the show include Verenice Callejo, Alfonso Soto, Maripaz Garcia, and Igor Cruz, to name a few. Outside of Plaza Sesamo, he provided additional voices in Spanish dubs of Lost, Legally Blondes, Hannah Montana: The Movie, and A Beautiful Mind. As for cartoon dubs, Carlos Marttelo mostly did Disney projects such as Prep & Landing, Tinker Bell & the Lost Treasure, and T...

Scott Land is a puppeteer, actor, producer, and puppet builder best known for working with marionettes at Bob Baker Marionettes and his own marionette company. He puppeteered on The Princess Diaries films, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Still Breathing, and most notably, Team America: World Police, some of which he also designed and built puppets. Scott has been highly trained by Bob Baker himself to work with both puppets and marionettes, after all he built puppets and was his roadshow puppeteer. Land also appeared on camera as a father for a Kidsongs home video and as Binky on an episode of Shades of LA. In addition to Baker, he got to perform alongside numerous other puppeteers such as Greg Ballora, Tony Urbano, Frank Langley, and Michael Earl, to name a few. He even got to show off his puppetry skills on an episode of America's Got Talent, though he only auditioned and didn't get to actually be live on stage. Scott Land is still best known by people for his work on Team America...

Gerald Home was a British actor and puppeteer who was best known for his work on Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, playing Tessek and a Mon Calamari officer. His other film credits include Little Shop of Horrors (as one of Audrey II's puppeteers), London Boulevard, and Chatroom. As for television, Gerald was one of the puppeteers on Spitting Image and made appearances on The Boot Street Band, Casualty, Harry's Mad, Keeping Mum, and various others. Home was also known for being the original Mr. Muscle in a batch of Mr. Muscle cleaning brand television commercials. As a puppeteer, he got to perform with legends such as Anthony Asbury, Mike Quinn, David Barclay, and Christopher Leith, all on Little Shop of Horrors. It was probably easier for him to puppeteer on Spitting Image as the film had complicated puppets. Gerald Home even got to work in the theatre within the West End of London area, like on No Sex Please, We're British, The Arabian Nights, and The Blue Angel, to name a fe...

Emaley Rose is a stage actress, puppeteer, and voiceover artist who was the understudy for several of the Muppets and the sole human performer on Sesame Street: The Musical (2023 run). She mentioned in an interview that she is a self-taught puppeteer, while giving James Ortiz and Finn Caldwell credit. Emaley also puppeteered on other stage shows such as The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, and The Eric Carle Story Show. Rose also does voiceover work for animation, video games and apps, podcasts, and commercials, according to her website. Some of the voice acting credits include Little Women, Dragonfly Kids Chronicles, Weeping Cedars, and many others. Other performers she got to work with include Yanniv Frank, Vicki Oceguera, and Arlee Chadwick, to name a few. Some of the stage acting credits Emaley Rose did include Stephen Schwartz: Live in Concert, Miss Bennet, The Wizard of Oz, and Romeo and Juliet. Not only is she talented at puppetry but she's ...

Arlee Chadwick is a puppeteer, designer, and builder who is best known for her performance on Boop! the Musical with Huber Marionettes (original cast) and Rockefeller projects. In addition to Boop, she also did various other shows such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, The Little Prince, Dinosaur Train Live, and The Golden Girls Show. Apart from theatre, Arlee is the creator of Puppets by Arlee, where she builds custom puppets for theatre, film, and educational programming. Chadwick even got to perform in-suit for Sesame Street Live for 5 years and puppeteered on John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean. For the latter, she got to work with Ryan Dillon, Weston Chandler Long, Carole D'Agostino, and James Wojtal, all who work on Sesame Street. She seems to be well experienced with both puppets and marionettes as she's a resident artist at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, which does numerous performances. Arlee Chadwick is doing pretty well at performing puppets as well as desig...

Vicki Oceguera is a Native American actress, puppeteer, singer, and director who is known for her vast work in the theater, most notably with Rockefeller Studios. She may not have directly done Henson TV projects, but she did puppeteer on Dinosaur Train Live! and Sesame Street: The Musical, the latter with Yanniv Frank. Vicki also puppeteered on Clifford the Big Red Dog Live, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, and numerous others. Oceguera must've been trained by Sesame Street performers to puppeteer so well on stage. In addition to puppetry, she also acted in Honestly Abe, My Stage Daddy, US Drag, and staged readings of Rescue Rue and Before the Road. Some of the shows she performed on were also directed by her like the two acting credits mentioned in the previous sentence. I'll bet that performing a Sesame Street live show made Vicki Oceguera very excited as not a lot of lucky people get to do that. I certainly hope she continues to perform live on st...

Yanniv Frank is a puppeteer, puppet designer/builder, writer, and director who is known for his work in the theatre and for his company The Brother Earth Collaborative. As a puppeteer, he worked on many theatrical projects such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, The Pocket Park Kids, Runaway Rue, and most recently, Sesame Street The Musical. Yanniv previously had puppetry training within Sesame Workshop where he was trained by many Muppet performers, including Martin P. Robinson and Matt Vogel. Frank only did two television programs which were Boyish Charms and Feel Your Best Self, the former he also got to build puppets, write, and direct. Hopefully with these two screen credits, he'll get to write and direct more productions in the future. He should be proud to have been trained by Sesame Street performers in which led him to stardom for both screen and stage. In addition to puppetry and directing, Yanniv Frank is also a musician with a catalogue of over 50 original songs, 3 so...