All About Muppets

Hector Loeza is a Mexican puppeteer and actor who is best known for performing Abelardo Montoya on Plaza Sesamo since 2004. He also performed the bird in the spin-off Pequeñas Aventureras and on Sesame Street proper in the YouTube special Elmo's World: Dance Party. Hector also performs with other Mexican puppeteers on Plaza Sesamo such as Rocio Lara, Alfonso Soto, Verenice Callejo, and Odin Dupeyron, to name a few. Loeza must be proud to be the current performer an international Big Bird-type character on an international co-production of Sesame Street. This seems to be the only show he performs on, at least the only known show he does. His only known outside production was on a show called ¡Yo soy yo! as Yo in an episode. It's a shame there aren't a lot of Mexican puppetry series for Hector Loeza to do. And even if there were, nobody knows what characters he would do nor the name of the show. At least this man has become famous for performing on Plaza Sesamo and being the ...

Mike Scanlan is a British puppeteer, puppet builder, and mechanical designer who has worked with the Creature Shop on numerous productions. He served as one of the regular dinosaur builders on Dinosaurs and also built puppets for Mother Goose Stories, Aliens in the Family, and Brats of the Lost Nebula. Mike even puppeteered on the Creature Shop film George of the Jungle with Julianne Buescher, Michelan Sisti, Rob Tygner, and Pons Maar. Outside of the Creature Shop, Scanlan worked on animatronics for Little Shop of Horrors, Dream Demon, and Gophers, as well as puppeteering for Monkeybone and providing alien effects for Alien 3. I wonder if this guy has any relation to designer Neal Scanlan as they both share the same last name, but I'll bet the former will deny it in an interview. His latest project with the Creature Shop was on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance where he was a mechanic for the characters. In addition to the Creature Shop, Mike Scanlan also worked in the Muppet Wor...

Patrick Comerford is a British puppeteer who has performed on numerous Henson productions, though mostly uncredited. He performed on Muppet Treasure Island, 101 Dalmatians, Lost in Space, and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, uncredited on the former two. Patrick should have been credited on the Muppet film because he got to work with the legendary Muppet performers like Jerry Nelson and Dave Goelz. Comerford is more well-known outside of Henson, doing productions such as Spitting Image, The Spooks of Bottle Bay, Seed of Chucky, and several Star Wars films as a creature and droid puppeteer. He also co-founded the puppet company Global Puppeteering Services with Barnaby Harrison and together they performed different types of puppets for different productions. Other films he did include E.T. and Babe: Pig in the City while television include Wizadora, The Big Garage, Dog and Duck, and more. With the company and his performing partner, Patrick Comerford has spent over two decades worki...

Dean Bareham is a Canadian puppeteer, voice actor, puppet builder, and clown who is best known for his work as artistic director for the theatre company Green Fools. He was an additional puppeteer on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock alongside many other performers such as Ali DeRegt, Jamie Konchak, Brendan James Boyd, and Andrew G. Cooper. It must have been very exciting for Dean to work on a reboot of such an iconic series, and to assist the main performers, all of which are legendary. Bareham also puppeteered on the show Joe Pickett and lent his voice to English dubs of anime such as Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Some of his other collaborations, according to his bio, include being a clown with Cirque du Soleil at Toronto's Luminato Festival and designing/building puppets and creatures for many zoos and aquariums all across North America. That's amazing for someone like him to have numerous contributions over the years in his career, which of course took him around the world. Dean B...

Jamie Konchak is a Canadian puppeteer, performer, educator, and creator known for a two-decade career in performing for screen and stage. She served as one of the additional puppeteers on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock performing alongside Geneviève Paré, Ellis Lalonde, Ali DeRegt, and Reese Scott, to name a few. It must have been very exciting for Jamie to perform on a reboot of the classic Fraggle Rock series, and with numerous legendary Muppet performers as well. In addition, Konchak also works frequently at Ghost River Theatre as both a collaborator and "Artist in Residence", doing lots of performance skills like puppetry for example. Some of the shows within the company she performed on include Giant, Reverie, Something to do With Death, and Frontier. Besides performing and puppetry, she also educates performers and college students at the University of Calgary and also Six Degrees Music & Sound. Jamie Konchak is pretty active in the theatres across the Calgary area ...

Ilysia J. Pierce is a singer, actress, and performer who has performed for Jewish audiences for many years in her career. She started out originating the role of Miss Oops=A=Daisy on The Huggabug Club, voicing and being in-suit as the character. I wonder how Ilysia managed to do her voice from wearing a mascot-like costume constructed by the company KCL Productions. Pierce also performed theatrically in shows such as Janina, Beauty and the Beast, Irena Sendler, Fiddler on the Roof, and many others. She is also the cantor of the Beverly Hills Temple of the Arts, leading Jewish holiday services since joining in 1999. She isn't considered a puppeteer, but technically on The Huggabug Club, they had full-bodied costumes that sort of worked like puppets as well as occasional puppet shows. At least Ilysia J. Pierce did interact with puppets on that show, sort of. In or out of the temple, she displays her vocal talents to CDs and other local venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the...

Susan French was an actress (stage/television/film) and puppeteer who was best known for her many roles in films and such. She started out performing in theater and was one of the few performers to be involved with World War II, even starting a theatre group during that time. Susan's well-known films include Jaws 2, Somewhere in Time, House, Flatliners, and Young and Younger, to name a few. French also appeared in episodes of many television shows including Bare Essence, Cagney & Lacey, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and many others. Apparently during the 1960s, she also ran a puppet theater as well as publishing a book about doing puppetry called Presenting Marionettes, which shows that she indeed did puppetry in her career. Based on her appearances on-screen, she was a perfect fit to play elderly characters within some of the television shows and feature films she did over the years. Such a shame Susan French didn't puppeteer after the World War II era, she...

Richard Robinson is a British puppeteer, actor, writer, and festival director who is known for founding the Brighton Science Festival, the biggest science festival in the UK. As a puppeteer, he built and performed puppets for many shows like Spitting Image, The Riddlers, Dizzy Heights, Puddle Lane. The only series Richard performed on where he didn't build the puppets was on the 1994 revival of Rainbow, where he played Bungle. Prior to becoming a puppeteer, Robinson was a busker until the mid-1990s when he was exposed to science and became a science busker with science cabaret acts. I don't think anyone on Earth has ever combined science with cabaret performances. In addition to puppetry, he also wrote nearly twenty books on science with his best-known ones being The Science Magic books and Why the Toast Always Lands Butter-Side Down. It seems that Richard Robinson is more focused on science than entertainment since founding and directing the Brighton Science Festival from 2005...

Glenn Williams is a Canadian puppeteer, actor, voice actor, and ventriloquist who is best known for being one of the puppeteers of Dr. Colosso on The Thundermans. For over 50 years, he's done many entertainment styles since the age of 7 when he showcased his ventriloquism on Pete's Place. Now an adult, Glenn has puppeteered on numerous productions, besides Thundermans, such as Tomorrowland, Animal Control, X Files, and Critters: A New Binge, to name a few. As for on-screen acting, Williams appeared in numerous television shows and films such as Millennium, Hostage Negotiator, The Christmas Train, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Other puppeteers he got to work with in his career include Jeny Cassady, probably the only Muppet puppeteer to ever work with him, so far at least. It's a shame he didn't puppeteer on Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, he would've been perfect as one of the additional performers. Glenn Williams still got to become another one of the greatest...

Eugene Lambert was an Irish puppeteer and actor as well as the father of puppeteers Miriam and Paula Lambert. He was the owner of Lambert Puppet Theatre and was well-known for performing co-star O'Brien in the shows Wanderly Wagon and Murphy and Friends. In addition to those programs, Eugene was also a ventriloquist, performing vaudeville acts with two of his puppet characters; Finnegan and Judge. Lambert seems to have brought a lot of humor among the Ireland citizens during the 1960s. With his family, they created The Lambert Puppet Theatre in 1972 upon inspiration from visiting The Harlequin Puppet Theatre and an International Puppet Festival in Prague. His company was also best-known for creating the puppet character Bosco which his daughters Miriam then Paula performed. Throughout his job, Eugene Lambert went on tours with his character Finnegan, starting out in the UK and Ireland during the early years before branching out into the US, Japan, and Australia in later years. It...

Larry Basgall is a puppeteer and puppet builder/wrangler who is known for his work on projects by Spiffy Pictures, working alongside David Rudman. He worked on almost every puppetry project by the company including Jack's Big Music Show, Bunnytown, Curious Buddies, and Donkey Hodie. Larry got to perform alongside various Muppet performers for those shows, besides Rudman, including Frankie Cordero, Haley Jenkins, Alice Dinnean, and John Kennedy, to name a few. Basgall must have been honored to work for such an incredible team of people who run Spiffy Pictures and perform on the productions. Away from the company, he is also the treasurer of another company called the West Michigan Puppetry Guild, where the team builds a puppet community across Michigan. But his most notable company where he got to be in charge was a company called The Village Puppeteers where he and Michael Schwabe developed many shows for both children and adults. It would seem that Larry Basgall is a really active...

Theodora Skipitares is a puppeteer and interdisciplinary artist who is based in New York and is known for her contributions to the world of puppetry. Initially trained as a sculptor and theater designer, she started out creating autobiographical solo performances during the late 1970s. Theodora became a puppeteer later where she used various puppets of all sizes to examine social and political themes. Skipitares managed to create 26 original projects with numerous forms of puppetry, original music, video, and documentary texts too. She shared her first "puppets" in 1981, in the form of 30-inch self-portrait figures for performances, from supporting to major roles. From the 1980s to the early 1990s, she created large-scale puppet shows on several different topics, shows including The Age of Invention, Defenders of the Code, Empires and Appetites, and The Radiant City, to name a few. Theodora Skipitares soon became a resident artist at the experimental theater La MaMa in 1992, ...

Mollie Falkenstein was a puppeteer and dancer who was known for her work with finger puppets. Since her childhood, she travelled from England to Canada to the US, where she remained. Prior to becoming a puppeteer, Mollie was a professional dancer, performing in both the musical film and live show versions of Rio Rita. Falkenstein soon got involved with puppets thanks to her daughter Jan, who made puppets and a show to accompany them. She also performed a one-woman show involving finger puppet ballerinas which became known as the dancing ballet later on. The way the ballet puppets worked was by the molded legs attached to her fingers and strings controlling the heads and arms. Mollie Falkenstein sure knew how to make those finger puppets move so gracefully in a technique that became known as "ballerette." Later she founded a puppetry guild in 1961 and attended several UNIMA organizations as the years went by prior to becoming vice president of the US one from 1976-1980. This e...

Audrey Atterbury was a British puppeteer and antiques dealer who was best known for her work on many puppet series during the 1950s-1960s. She started out performing on BBC children's series Andy Pandy before performing on Flower Pot Men, The Woodentops, and The Telegoons. Audrey was one of those many puppeteers to perform on television before the Jim Henson era, though she probably never heard of the man during that time. Atterbury also did puppet plays by Gordon Murray such as Rubovian Legends alongside her close puppeteer friend Molly Gibson. She even worked for the Little Angel Theatre, one of Britain's leading puppet theatres, where Ronnie LeDrew and Sarah Burgess also performed years later. It's a shame she mostly did puppetry during the 1950s and early 1960s for she could've had the opportunity to learn about the Muppets and their performers. Later in the 1960s, Audrey Atterbury stopped working with puppets due to animation taking over during that time and became...

John Simmit is a British actor, stand-up comedian, and suit performer who is best known for being the original performer of Dipsy on Teletubbies from 1997-2001. He worked alongside Nikky Smedley, Pui Fan Lee, Dave Thompson, and Simon Shelton who portrayed the other Teletubbies. John also worked with puppeteer Mark Dean who was the original Noo-Noo as well as Robin Stevens and Andrew Davenport who were crew members. Simmit probably had a hard time moving around in that heavy costume because he could only see out through the mouth and each Teletubby costume has mechanisms in the arms that control the eyes and mouths. In addition to being on that show, he also acted out of suit on many television shows such as The Real McCoy, The Gadget Show, and The Big Fat Quiz of the '90s. As well as acting, he does comedy, mostly producing through Upfront Comedy. For 25 years, John Simmit has put together comedy shows into UK theatres nationwide, as well as two major shows within two states in the...

Bill Traetta is a puppeteer and costumer who did the former for television and the latter for feature films in the science fiction genre. He puppeteered on McDonaldland, Jingle All the Way, and The Mr. Potato Head Show, as well as being assistant puppet master for the latter. Bill worked with many puppeteers such as Terry Castillo, Mark Bryan Wilson, and Tony Urbano, as well as voice actress Debra Wilson. Traetta has not done any puppetry projects since Mr. Potato Head ended after only one season. As for his costuming credits, he did many films such as Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness, Ghost of Mars, and even Obi-Wan Kenobi, though the latter was a mini-series. It's a shame there's no image of the person himself, but he did get interviewed in a YouTube video which shows his face perfectly. Even though Bill Traetta never worked on any Henson Company or Muppet projects, he still worked with several Muppet performers on some of the shows mentioned above. I hope he managed to ...

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...