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BOARD
OF DIRECTORS |
2010-2011 UNIMA-USA Board Members
Lynn Jeffries, President lkjeffries@aol.com
 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.
Claudia
Orenstein, Vice President for Publications corenste@hunter.cuny.edu
 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.
Karen
Smith*
Vice
President for Committees (pending) karen.kathputli@gmail.com
 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.
Steve
Abrams*, Vice
President for Procedures sapuppets@gmail.com
 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.
Stephen
Kaplin, Treasurer skactw-AT-tiac.net
 Stephen
Kaplin studied puppetry at the University of Connecticut. After
attending the 1980 UNIMA Puppetry Festival in Washington DC,
he began his professional career working for a number of regional
touring companies: Tears Of Joy Puppet Theater, Poko Puppets,
and Pickwick Puppets among others. In New York City he forged
ongoing relationships with theater directors, including Julie
Taymor, Lee Breuer, George Wolf and Ping Chong. As a freelance
builder and designer, his credits include: shadow puppet sequences
for Broadway productions of Alice in Wonderland (Eva
Le Guallienne, dir), The Lion King (Julie Taymor, dir)
and Band in Berlin (Susan Feldman, Pat Birch, dirs); shadow
puppet sequences for the Big Apple Circus; and design
and construction of giant pageant puppets for Times Square
2000 (Michael Curry, dir). Mr.Kaplin is a founding
member of the New York City based Great Small Works. Additionally,
he is a co-founder (with his wife and artistic partner, Kuang-Yu
Fong) of Chinese Theatre
Works. As technical and co-artistic
director of CTW, Mr. Kaplin designed its original puppet productions,
touring with them to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Canada,
and across the US. He is a recipient of numerous awards
and honors including a Henry Hewes Award and UNIMA Citations
for work with GSW and CTW.
Colette
Searls, Secretary csearls@umbc.edu
 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.
Marianne Tucker, tucktale@aol.com
 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.
Blair
Thomas blair@blairthomas.org
 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.
Kathy
Foley kfoley@ucsc.edu
 Kathy
Foley is a Professor of Theatre at the University of California
Santa Cruz where she teaches mask and puppet work and edits Asian
Theatre Journal. She has curated puppet exhibits
for the Center for Puppetry
Arts in Atlanta, the East-West Center
in Hawaii, and other venues. She performs Wayang Golek
in the style of the Sundanese of West Java where she trained
with Dalang Abay Sunarya and Dalang Otong Rasta. She has
written for Puppetry International and
done research as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Indonesia.
Heather
Henson info@ibexpuppetry.com
 Heather
Henson has been President and Artistic Director of IBEX
Puppetry for the past 10 years. IBEX Puppetry is an entertainment
company dedicated to promoting the fine art of puppetry in
all of its various mediums, nurturing work for a myriad of
venues including stage, film, and gallery. Heather Henson is a graduate of the Rhode
Island School of Design and has also attended the California
Institute of the Arts. Through her productions, Heather
strives to use full sensory non-traditional story telling tools
to offer audiences a transformative experience. She is
fascinated with harmonies that occur in nature and is constantly
searching for innovative ways to demonstrate nature’s journey
within our lives.
Irina
Niculescu* inniculescu@gmail.com
 I
belong to the generation of theatre artists who established a
new conception of the professional puppeteer, as an actor capable
of integrating and practicing multiple forms of theatre from
traditional techniques to contemporary performance research. I
received my MFA, suma cum laude, from the Academy of Theatre,
Film and Music, Charles University in Prague and I dedicated
my professional work to puppet theatre. I began my career at
Tandarica Theatre in Bucharest, Romania. I have taught theatre
directing at: the Academy of Theater and Cinema in Bucharest,
at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, and at the
Actors Institute of Seville, Spain. I also conceived, co-directed
and taught in a three-year professional training program at the
Royal Theater of Norway. As an Associate Director, I collaborated
extensively with Théâtre des Marionettes de Genève,
Switzerland, where I established a training program for actors,
a series of workshops for teachers, and staged numerous shows.
I created performances based on the music of Stravinsky, including: the
opera Renard and Petrouchka in Bucharest, The Soldier's
Tale in Boston, The Firebird in Geneva and Bucharest,
and a new staging of Petrouchka at l'École Supérieure
Nationale des Arts de la Marionette in Charleville-Mezières,
France. In 2005, I moved back to the USA with my family.
Since my return I have given lectures, courses and masterclasses
at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, and
Xavier University. Summer of 2009 I staged the opera “Master
Peter’s Puppet show” by Manuel de Falla, which
received a Henson Foundation grant. At present, besides my work
as a director, I teach in the puppetry program at the University
of Quebec and at Xavier University. I am a current member of
the Professional Training Commission of UNIMA International and
will give a lecture on professional training and artistic development
at the World Festival of Puppet Theater Schools in
St. Petersburg, Russia in September 2010.
* denotes UNIMA International Councilor
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
updated
8/09 |
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