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BOARD
OF DIRECTORS |
2008-2009 UNIMA-USA Board Members
Karen Smith*, President karen.kathputli@gmail.com
 Experience: Karen Smith is a member of UNIMA-USA,
UNIMA-India, and a member of the UNIMA Research Commission.
She has worked as a puppeteer and designer at the Shri
Ram Centre Puppet Repertory, Jan Madhyam, and Ishara
Puppet Theatre, in New Delhi and as a student of Wayang
Kulit Purwa at Sanggar Redi Waluyo in Jakarta. Karen
has contributed reviews and reports of puppet festivals
and seminars to numerous scholarly journals and has worked
on the Asia, U.S., Great Britain and Australia sections
of the Directory of Scholarly Research. In January 2007,
she assisted with the documentation of Indonesia’s
Wayang as part of the form’s recognition as a UNESCO-acclaimed
Oral Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Karen is currently
continuing her research and writings on Indian puppet
theatre and Indonesian Wayang.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “Among other
things, UNIMA-USA serves its members by extending their
familiarity with puppetry traditions, performers and
institutions of other countries. Being Australian by
birth, and after spending 25 years working with puppet
theatre groups in South and South-East Asia, I am now
working with the UNIMA Research Commission to expand
its directory of current academic research. As a Board
member, I will draw upon my extensive experience and
contacts with the puppet communities in India, Indonesia
and Australia to enrich the institution’s and its
members’ international contacts.”
Steve Abrams*, VP, Procedures sapuppets@gmail.com
 Experience: Steve has been a
solo puppeteer for over
twenty-five years; working in museums, theatres,
schools, and libraries; presented workshops and
lectures on performance and the history and theory
of puppetry; served as President of Puppeteers
of America; currently Associate Editor of Puppetry
Journal; author of many articles and reviews, and
recently completed work as North American editor
for UNIMA’s World Encyclopedia of Puppetry
Arts; member of UNIMA-USA since 1978.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “I
think that UNIMA-USA could really help its membership
by continuing to do the fine work it is known for.
After one term on the Board, I have learned a bit
about the needs of the Board and the membership.
Over the last 3 years it has been an honor to serve
as a Vice President and one of four Councilors to
UNIMA International. I have worked as chair of the
website committee, liaison with Puppeteers of America,
and recently began doing some work with UNIMA archives.
I have served as chair of the committee to arrange
the first joint meeting of the UNIMA and PofA Boards,
with the goal of better communications between both
organizations, and seeking ways to foster future
cooperation. The international exchange of artistry
and ideas through the art of puppetry has been a
source of inspiration to me. I would like to continue
working on these tasks and hope that my skills and
insights will be of use.”
Marianne Tucker, VP, Committees tucktale@aol.com
 Experience: Marianne has been a member of UNIMA-USA and Puppeteers
of America, Inc. since 1982. She served on the UNIMA-USA
Board from 1999 to 2005 and was president for 3 years.
She also held the post of recording secretary and chaired
the citations committee. She traveled to Croatia in 2004
for the UNIMA World Festival and Congress as a Councilor
representing the USA and served as recording secretary
for the congress meetings. Once off the Board of UNIMA-USA,
she served on the nominating committee. She has served
on the Board of the Greater Philadelphia Area Puppetry
Guild, Inc.. She has also worked on six regional festivals
and was site director of the 1995 Puppeteers of America,
Inc. National Festival. She was PoA Mid-Atlantic regional
director for four years (1989 to 1993) and served on
the Board of Trustees of Puppeteers of America, Inc.
from 1993 to 1997. During that time she chaired the Youth
and Aging Committee, administered the Mentor Program,
and helped to organize the Scholarship Committee. Once
off the Board, she served as member and chair of the
nominating committee. With her husband, Tom, she is a
full time puppeteer and musician. Their company, Tuckers’ Tales
Puppet Theatre, is a not-for-profit
corporation registered in Pennsylvania.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “My
experience in Croatia showed me how important it
is for UNIMA-USA to be a presence on the world puppetry
stage. Our publications are well respected and our
opinions as well. People from other countries and
cultures needed to see us not just as Americans but
as people who care very much about our art. They
learned that we are willing to work with others to
promote puppetry internationally. I will work with
the Board of UNIMA-USA to maintain the quality of
our publications and to promote USA puppetry internationally.”
John Bell*, VP, Publications john.bell@uconn.edu
 Experience: John
Bell is a puppeteer, teacher, and theater historian
who came to puppetry as a company member of Bread
and Puppet Theater for a dozen years. His
exposure to international theater with Bread and Puppet
led him to study theater history at Columbia University,
where he earned a doctorate degree with a dissertation
about the rediscovery of puppets, masks, and objects
in early twentieth-century avant-garde European theater.
He is a founding member of Great Small Works, the Brooklyn-based
collective which creates various forms of innovative
community puppet theater (including the International
Festivals of Toy Theater in New York City) and won the
Puppeteers of America Jim Henson Award for Innovation
in Puppetry in 2006. John is the author of Strings,
Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History (Detroit Institute
of Arts) and edited Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects
(MIT Press). He is a Contributing Editor to both
Puppetry International (for whom he edited the Fall 2006
special issue on puppet scripts) and TDR: The Journal
of Performance Studies. He is currently working
on the manuscript for Playing with Stuff: American Puppet
Modernism, 1867-2007.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “I
would like to continue to help UNIMA-USA grow,
both to increase awareness of world puppet traditions
in the United States, and to help the American
puppet community play a constructive role in the
development of twenty-first-century puppet theater
as a global culture.”
Colette Searls, Secretary csearls@umbc.edu
 Experience: “I am a stage director specializing
in object theatre; my work has been performed nationally
and internationally. My company, Searls Puppetry (puppets.searls.com),
was recently awarded a Jim Henson Foundation grant for
the development of Objects in Motion, a new project fusing
object theatre with dance. Our most recent production,
Basura!, premiered at the New York International Fringe
Festival in August, 2005. In addition to my own work,
I have directed puppetry productions for other companies,
including Lunatique Fantastique’s Fixed Boundary,
(“Best of the San Francisco Fringe” 2003),
and have consulted on professional theatre productions
incorporating puppetry at Woolly Mammoth and PCPA
Theatrefest. I am also an educator; I serve as
Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), teaching
acting, literature, and puppetry. Since joining
UMBC in 2002, I have created three original puppetry
works, including BURIED, reprised at the Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts as a 2004 American
College Theatre Festival national finalist.”
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “I
think that UNIMA-USA could really help its membership
by aggressively connecting with the broader world
of theatre, particularly at colleges and universities.
Better web design and usability, contact with the
arts blogging community (including pod-casting
groups), and presence in other arts directories
(on-line and in print), would bring UNIMA into
the minds of more artists and potential supporters
of puppetry.”
Kathee Foran, Treasurer kforan@hobt.org
 Experience: Kathee brings 30 years of arts administration
experience to her position as the Executive Director
of In the Heart
of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT). She has a full range of experience in fundraising,
promotion, personnel and project management. Her previous
experience also includes work at COMPAS, where she developed
and managed community-based arts programs, and the Loft,
a literary center, where she served as Finance Director.
Kathee has served on numerous peer review panels and
as a Board member for several non-profit arts organizations.
She is a past recipient of a Jerome Travel Study Grant
to attend puppet theater festivals in New York and Vermont
and was elected to the Board of Directors of UNIMA-USA
for two terms (1999-2005).
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “UNIMA-USA
is the forum in which we can think “globally” and
connect with puppeteers not only across our own country
but around the world. If I am elected to a third
term, I would hope to work with fellow board members
on the big issues facing our field and members. Providing
a valuable service to our members and issues of cooperation
among U.S. puppet centers, as well as international cultural
exchanges are areas where I would like to see the UNIMA-USA
Board concentrate its efforts in the coming years. I
believe that my knowledge of the field and background
in arts administration would be of use as UNIMA-USA grows
and expands. I would welcome the opportunity to
serve.”
Lynn
Jeffries lkjeffries@aol.com
 Experience: Lynn is a puppeteer and designer of shadow puppets, bunraku,
toy theater, hand puppets, overhead projections, and other
sorts of animated objects. In a four year artistic
partnership with Paul Zaloom, she has worked on several projects,
including The Mother of All Enemies, the film Dante's Inferno,
and the current touring production, The Abecedarium, a jumbo
toy theater spectacle they perform together. She also
performs in nightclubs along with the neo-vaudevillian folk/jazz
band, The Ditty Bops. Lynn has designed, directed and
performed puppet scenes for theaters around the country,
including The Guthrie, The Mark Taper Forum, Oregon Shakespeare
Festival, and Cornerstone Theater Company, of which she is
a founding member. Cornerstone produces original plays
with and for diverse communities in Los Angeles and nationwide. As
a member of this consensus-run ensemble and a board member
of other arts organizations, Lynn has had over 20 years of
experience with strategic planning and fundraising, and is
a successful grant writer. For more on Lynn's work, see www.lynnjeffries.com.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: "I've enjoyed developing
relationships with the young puppeteers I've met through
guest teaching at several universities, especially Cal Arts,
and so fundraising and recruiting for the scholarship program
are of special interest to me. I'd also like to use
my experience with Cornerstone, a successful ensemble-based
theater company, to help puppet companies grow and thrive.
I'm eager to bring more of the great artists of the puppet
world to the attention of the larger theater community, where
there's a real interest in the kind of work we puppeteers
do. A position on the UNIMA board would give me the
opportunity to contribute to UNIMA's mandate to propel puppetry
into the greater cultural landscape."
Manuel Moran* mmoran@sea-ny.org
 Experience: Manuel
is the founder and Executive/Artistic Director
of the Society of the Educational Arts, Inc. (SEA),
which operates in Puerto Rico and New York and
is soon to open in Florida. He oversees all operations
of SEA’s programming, which reaches over 100,000
children and adults each year through performances and
art-residencies that provide training in all art disciplines,
including puppetry. He is also responsible for re-establishing
professional Children’s Theatre in Spanish in New
York City, a tradition that was abandoned for more than
18 years. In August 1999, Morán established SEA’s
home-based theatre, Teatro
SEA @ Los Kabayitos Puppet & Children’s
Theater, New York's only Latino Children’s Theatre,
and possibly the only Latino Children’s
Theater in the USA.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “As a Board
member, I will continue to work to expand awareness to/for
children and young adults, especially minorities who
have little or no exposure to puppetry, yet show tremendous
talent and potential. I shall promote the production
of major events and festivals that encourage and develop
children’s involvement in all facets of puppetry.
I plan to celebrate diversity by enrolling puppeteers
and/or puppet troupes from different ethnic groups that
reside in the United States, and I also believe in the
importance of creating UNIMA brochures and promotional
materials in several languages. As a member of UNIMA’s
North American and Latin American Commissions
and a Councilor for UNIMA-USA, I will continue
to promote the positive work of UNIMA-USA.”
Claudia Orenstein corenste@hunter.cuny.edu
 Experience: Claudia
is Associate Professor of Theatre at Hunter College
and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she has spent
the past few years teaching at both the graduate
and undergraduate level, researching, and writing
on contemporary puppetry. Her mission is to help
prepare young theatre scholars and critics to
respond to today's exciting and eclectic world
of puppet performance. Her writings on puppetry
include sections of her two books FESTIVE REVOLUTIONS:
THE POLITICS OF POPULAR THEATER AND THE SAN FRANCISCO
MIME TROUPE and THE WORLD OF THEATRE:TRADITION
AND INNOVATION (co-authored with Mira Felner)
as well as the articles "In and Out of Time: The Animated
Art of Janie Geiser," forthcoming in PUCK, "Puppets
Invade France: The XIVème Festival Mondial des
Théâtres de Marionnettes," forthcoming
in THEATRE MAGAZINE,"Kazuko Hohki: Objects of Contemplation," in
ANIMATIONS ONLINE, and several book and performance
reviews. She has organized and moderated several
scholarly panels on puppetry at national and
local academic conferences. Claudia has also
worked as an actor, director, and dramaturg.
She studied puppet performance with Dan Hurlin
and has directed a found object version of Eugene
Ionesco's FRENZY FOR TWO OR MORE. She also writes
and teaches in the areas of political theatre
and Asian theatre and serves as Associate Editor
of Asian Theatre Journal.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “I
see my membership on the Board of UNIMA-USA as
an extension of the work I am already engaged
in through my teaching, writing, and the panels
I have organized at international theatre conferences,
that of supporting thoughtful discussion about
puppetry and giving puppetry a higher profile
within the broader worlds of performance and
higher education. As someone raised partially
in France, as well as in the United States, and
who has lived in Japan and teaches and writes
about Asian theatre, I would be interested in
helping UNIMA with its mission of connecting
puppeteers in the United States with those abroad.
I can see myself being actively involved in any
of the following committees: Hands Across the
Sea, Publications, Conferences and Symposia.”
Blair
Thomas blair@blairthomas.org
 Experience: Blair
Thomas is a puppeteer in Chicago and has been leading
his own company creating an active repertory of work
for adults and for young audiences. His company
has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago,
the Clarice Smith Performing Center in Maryland, City of
Chicago’s Millennium Park Priztker Stage as well
as festivals in Mexico and Spain, to name a few. He
has been an associate professor at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago since 1991. He was the first
artist selected to hold the Jim Henson Artist-in-Resident
position at the University of Maryland ’06-’07. In
the past 5 years he as designed and built puppets for Trinity
Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., Victory Gardens
Theater in Chicago, the Chicago Children’s Theatre
and Chicago Opera Theater. He co-curated 2 international
puppet theater festivals in Chicago in 2000 and 2001. In
1989 Blair had started Redmoon Theater and served as the
artistic director and co-artistic director until leaving
in 1998, during which time he was principal in the creation
of all its productions, parades and pageants. He
has been awarded two Fellowship awards from the Illinois
Arts Council in 2002 & 2004 and as well as two UNIMA
awards for productions in those same years.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: I have great faith
in the ability of the puppet to cut through cultural and
societal barriers that otherwise divide us. I look to serve
on the Board of UNIMA to help in the advancement of contemporary
puppetry practices for adult audiences as well as for young
audiences in the US. I would bring what skills and talents
I have to facilitate this advancement.
Gretchen
Van Lente* gretchen@dramaofworks.com
 Experience: Gretchen is the Artistic Director of the puppet
company, Drama
of Works, and has been performing, building
and directing in the field of puppetry for over the past
seven years. Through this time, the company has created
over ten shows, performed all over New York City and the
East Coast; received 4 Henson Foundation grants, 2 grants
from the Rhode Island Foundation and a grant from Arts
International; participated in over five international
festivals and won two international awards. Gretchen was
also personally awarded an APPEX fellowship where she studied
theatrical collaboration with American and Asian artists
in Bali for six weeks. She makes her living teaching global
puppetry traditions through language arts in NYC public
schools as a teaching artist. She is currently the president
of UNIMA-USA.
Possible contributions to UNIMA-USA: “We
all know what UNIMA-USA already does well: the scholarship,
the Puppetry Yellow Pages,
being a voice at international meetings. Moving forward,
UNIMA-USA must become more visible in the membership
and more receptive to the changing times. This began
recently with a much-needed update to the website,
and I hope to see similar updates to Puppetry International,
making it an even more valuable tool for the puppetry
community and, hopefully, the public. This would give
our organization and our members an even greater visibility.
I also hope to implement a better email service - letting
members know about international festivals, grant due
dates and other international news, as well as news
within the organization. I hope you will re-elect me
so that we can take UNIMA-USA to the next level together!”
* denotes UNIMA International Councilor
updated
8/09
Ex-Officio Board Members and Consultants
Vince Anthony, General Secretary
vanthony@puppet.org
Leslee Asch, Consultant for Publications
LesleeAsch@aol.com
Donald Devet, Consultant for Electronic Media
ddevet@aol.com
Reay Kaplan Schloss, Puppetry International
Ad Sales
reaypuppet@yahoo.com
Allelu Kurten, General Consultant
allelu@ibm.net
Michael Nelson, Consultant-Procedures
mnelson@i-cafe.net
Andrew & Bonnie Periale, Editors: Puppetry
International
ab2periale@metrocast.com
Meghan Fuller, Director of Membership Services
meghanfuller@puppet.org
Lisa Rhodes, Controller
lisarhodes@puppet.org
Bart Roccoberton, Jr.
puppetarts@finearts.sfa.uconn.edu
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