BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Marianne Tucker has been co-director of Tuckers’ Tales Puppet Theatre since 1981. Shortly after that she joined UNIMA-USA. She was elected to the board the first time in 1999. While on the board she has served as recording secretary and as president from 2003 to 2005 then again in 2014. She also represented UNIMA-USA as councilor at the world puppetry festival and meeting in Croatia, where she also served as recording secretary. When off the board she has chaired the committee for the Citations of Excellence, maintaining the records, managing the reviewers and presenting the awards annually. She also served as chair of the Nominations Committee and on the North America commission of UNIMA. She has had a good and cordial working relationship with the current and past boards and often presents the committee reports at the board meetings.

Tuckers’ Tales Puppet Theatre has performed and presented workshops at Puppeteers of America festivals and many other music and art festivals across the country and Canada.



Statement of Intent
:
After participating in the World Puppetry Day meeting on March 19, I am so proud of where UNIMA-USA is right now. There is a lot of work to be done as we transition to new editors of Puppetry International. The new Puppetry International Research journal is exciting as are the new publications awards named for Nancy Staub. I want to work with the heads of those committees to help them support the scholarship that is now being highlighted. I would like to see the blog re-instated and recruit more authors for it. Some of the theses that received awards this year are available through university and college archives for anyone to read. I want to make sure the links to them are available to UNIMA-USA members. I have a corporate memory from the time I served as board member and can often answer questions about why some things are done as they are, but I also want to want to hear and learn all the wonderful new ideas that are coming out of our board and members.

Karen Smith was a member of UNIMA International’s Executive Committee (2012-2025), serving as its Vice President (2016-2021) and President (2021-2025). She previously was president of UNIMA’s Publication & Communication Commission (2010-2016), its Publication & Contemporary Writing Commission (2016-2021), and was a member of UNIMA’s North America Commission and Research Commission, and is currently a member of UNIMA International’s Asia-Pacific Commission and Heritage Commission. She now serves as co-president of UNIMA’s Publication Commission (2025-2029), focusing again on the enrichment of the organizations’ encyclopedia, a work that entailed, from 2010 to 2017, overseeing preparation of the second edition of UNIMA International’s World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts (WEPA), utilizing the original French-language print version, Encyclopédie Mondiale des Arts de la Marionnette, as the point of departure. The expanded, updated, and illustrated encyclopedia was released online in September 2017 in three languages—English, French, and Spanish (the last titled Enciclopedia Mundial del Arte de la Marioneta); see: wepa.unima.org. The trilingual WEPA will now receive its second “update,” in time for UNIMA’s centenary in 2029. In 2021, Karen was named an UNIMA Member of Honor.

Karen is an honorary member of UNIMA Australia, a member of UNIMA-India and UNIMA-USA, having served on the UNIMA-USA Board of Trustees (2007-2014, 2017-2023, 2024-2025) and as its president (2008-2010, 2022-2023). In 2022, Karen received a UNIMA-USA Special Citation for her contributions to puppetry. She is the copy editor of UNIMA-USA’s Puppetry International Research, and a member of the editorial boards of UNIMA-India’s magazine, Sutradhar, and UNIMA International’s new magazine, UNIMAgazine.

Born in Australia and living in California since 2005, Karen has lived for over 25 years in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Costa Rica, where she trained and worked as a puppeteer, designer, and puppet builder. In New Delhi, India, she worked with three separate companies—Shri Ram Centre Puppet Repertory and Ishara Puppet Theatre (both directed by Dadi Pudumjee) and Jan Madhyam (directed by Ranjana Pandey). In Jakarta, Indonesia, she studied Javanese wayang kulit at Sanggar Redi Waluyo under the direction of Pak Kamsu and Sri Rahayu Setyawati. She has contributed reviews and reports of puppet festivals and seminars to journals, has presented papers on Indonesian Wayang and Indian puppetry at various venues in Australia, India, Indonesia, China, and the USA, and has mounted exhibitions of Indonesian Wayang in India and California. As a researcher, in 2007 and 2008 she contributed to two independent photo documentaries highlighting two UNESCO Oral Intangible Heritages of Humanity—Indonesian Wayang and Bhutan’s sacred performance, Drametse Ngacham—as part of UNESCO efforts to conserve world heritages.

Statement of Intent:
Being intimately familiar with the programs, operations, and institutional needs of UNIMA-USA, Karen’s experience and judgment could prove valuable assets as the incoming board moves forward through the next several years. Also, as a past member of UNIMA International’s Executive Committee and currently serving as co-president of its Publication Commission and member of two other commissions, Karen is well perched to share her international perspective and contacts with the UNIMA-USA Board of Trustees.

Kathy Foley is Research Professor of Performance, Play, and Design at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Distinguished Professor Emerita and she has taught at University of Hawaii, University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur), Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok) and Yonsei University (Seoul). She has served as President of UNIMA-USA and on the UNIMA-International Research Commission and Publications and Writing Commission. She edited Asian Theatre Journal from 2005-2018 and was one of the first non-Indonesian to perform in the Indonesia National Wayang Festival (Pekan Wayang) as a dalang. She has presented wayang at the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.), San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.), University of Melbourne (Australia), and other venues. She has curated exhibitions of puppets and masks of South, Southeast Asia, Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia at sites like the East-West Center (Honolulu) and National Geographic Society (Washington). Her work has been supported by Fulbright, Asian Cultural Council, Institute of Sacred Music/Yale University, and East-West Center (Honolulu, HI). Her publications have focused on the performing arts of Southeast Asia. She guest edited the first issue (2023) of Puppetry International Research focusing on Balinese and international puppetry. 

Statement of intent: In returning to the board I would work on continued presentations on selected topics on Zoom and additional experimentation with a more extensive use of Zoom to connect like-minded subgroups in UNIMA-USA (academics, therapists, designers, curators) to learn about each others' work and promote more collaboration. I would continue to promote the fuller representation of the diversity of U. S. puppet work in the online World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts and explore how to get more American puppeteers working on/with UNIMA-International commissions. I would like to see us further investigating opportunities for international workshops where American puppeteers can interface with and learn from international master puppeteers.

Kalob Martinez is an actor who combined his professional interests in stage combat and voice acting and found puppetry. His solo hand puppet show, El Beto, stands as the culmination of his theatrical endeavors in puppet arts, and in 2019 received a Jim Henson Foundation workshop grant. He was an associate artist and ensemble member of Sandglass Theater’s, “Babylon: Journeys of Refugees”, and is in the virtual production of “Rock the Boat". For five seasons he was the associate artist at the Classical Theatre Company in Houston,TX, and as co-director 2020's "Peer Gynt" his puppets and direction earned the "Best Use of Puppetry" award by the Houston Press. He has performed as the mascot, Buster Brackets and Fantasy Frank, for the "Tournament Marathon Challenge" and the "Fantasy Football Marathon" live on ESPN. Martinez is also a seasoned voice over actor for the English dubs of Anime. BA Acting, University of Houston. MFA Puppet Arts, University of Connecticut. Advanced Actor/Combatant, Society of American Fight Directors.

Statement of Intent
 I'm hoping to serve a second term on the UNIMA-USA board. My first term has been a bit of a learning curve for someone who seeks the spotlight. Board work is made up of unsung heroes who get the work done behind the scenes for the good of an organization. I firmly believe that puppetry is an artform that explores what connects us as a humanity which itself promotes understanding and friendship by making audiences laugh and cry. Currently, I serve as Board Secretary where I consolidate reports and take meeting notes - work that is definitely behind the scenes but is vital to UNIMA-USA. I hope to get your vote!

Pia Banzhaf is an independent puppetry artist, educator, and scholar, currently based in Michigan. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies, an MA in German Literary Studies, and an MA equivalent in education and German teaching license (Staatsexamen). She has worked in education since 2000, including nine years as Assistant Professor at Michigan State University before transitioning to independent practice in 2024. She has lived and worked in Japan, the US, Canada, Germany, and France. Her puppetry training and interests include contemporary shadow theater, carved puppets, marionettes, object-supported storytelling, and language learning through puppetry. She co-convenes the American Society for Theatre Research Working Group on Puppetry and Material Performance and published a chapter in Routledge's "Making Meaning with Puppets" edited volume.

Statement of Intent:
Born into two worlds–to a Vietnamese mother and a German father, raised in a language that was not the language of the street outside–I have spent my life crossing thresholds: between countries, between teaching and making, between examining how we perceive and creating perception itself.

Puppetry itself exists in the in-between. Between what our hands hold and what our eyes see move with apparent volition. Between the material truth of wood or shadow and the relational truth of presence we create together. Working in these spaces requires a particular kind of fluency. While I speak English and German fluently, French well enough to work across borders, and understand Italian, I think of fluency not just as linguistic competency but a transcultural mindset.

I will support building bridges, creating pathways between US and European puppetry communities - helping artists find residencies, collaborative partners, performance opportunities in contexts that might otherwise remain foreign territory. Meaningful connection requires structures that can hold difference without flattening what makes each tradition distinct. UNIMA-USA has been building these bridges, and I want to contribute to that ongoing work.


Felicia Cooper is a Minneapolis-based puppeteer, researcher, and public arts organizer. She is an administrator for the Puppeteers of America, the Secretary for the Twin Cities Puppetry Guild, and is on the advisory board of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. She serves as the Director of Audience and Volunteer Engagement for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, and recently presented on her work at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, the International Fringe Congress, and as part of a backyard lecture series in Providence, Rhode Island. Her artistic and academic research has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, the National Humanities Center, Puppet Lab, the Connecticut Sea Grant, the Puppet Slam Network, Winterthur Museum and Gardens, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, folkLAB, and others. She is a puppet slam super fan and is incapable of saying no to a puppet parade. She holds an MFA from the University of Connecticut. Go Huskies.

Statement of Intent:
I have been working in and around arts nonprofits for the last ten years, and currently serve as the Director of Audience and Volunteer Engagement for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. In running for UNIMA-USA Board, I am focused in three areas of interest. Primarily, I am eager to connect puppeteers around the world with opportunities to deepen their own communities of connection around their practice of puppetry. Living in Minneapolis has allowed me to appreciate an abundance of puppetry, and I believe that we can sow similar seeds across the country. I am also interested in how we can raise the profile of puppetry history as it relates to this moment of American uncertainty, and how we wield that history to understand our present. As a grant writer by trade, I am also interested in supporting fundraising and learning more about the budgeting process of an international institution.

I am a theatre director recognized internationally for my productions combining: actors, puppets, dancers, singers, and live orchestra, and creating new forms of dramaturgy. I created shows in Romania, U.S.A., Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Poland, Canada, Taiwan. I conceived and implemented a training program for puppet theatre in Riksteatret, Norway, training a new generation of puppet performers, I designed, and piloted a three-year cultural exchange and coproduction between Switzerland and Romania funded by the Swiss Department of State.

I have been a member of the UNIMA Commission for Professional Training of UNIMA International from 2010 to the present. In 2015, on behalf of the commission, I initiated the cycle of international meetings on puppetry training, participated in the conception and organization of the first 3 meetings in France, Romania and Brazil, which I headed. In 2019, I co-produced together with John Lewandowski the PofA National Festival and invited four foreign companies.

Statement of Intent:
I wish to bring my experience to UNIMA-USA and contribute to build bridges and create collaborations.

Lake Simons is a Brooklyn based director, designer, puppeteer, and physical theatre performer. She utilizes movement, puppetry, and live music to create stylized visual storytelling for the stage. Lake has collaborated with a multitude of musicians, performers, designers, and artists in NYC and Texas. She is the Managing Artistic Director of her family’s 48 year old Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas. Lake teaches puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as to elementary school age children with Arts Connection. 

Statement of intent: Because my own work is considered experimental (although I have deep admiration for traditional puppetry styles and those artists that uphold tradition), I will be mindful to focus on work that is artful and pushes boundaries and experiments with the form. I am a believer in puppetry as a performing art form. And I am really inspired by puppetry and puppets as performing objects. I believe that my active role in puppetry in NYC as an artist making shows(my own work), as well as my experience as co-director of the Puppet Lab at St Ann’s Warehouse plus my experience as a puppetry educator for young people(4-10) and for college age folks will give a vast perspective of what is going on with puppetry today.

Chris Ignacio is a Filipino-American puppeteer, producer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on storytelling, embodiment, and cultural connection. For more than a decade, Chris has been an active contributor to the American puppetry landscape, creating original works, performing nationally, and collaborating with institutions dedicated to the future of the field. Chris began his puppetry career in New York City, training with experimental artists at La MaMa and working across theater, community arts, and livestream media. His performance work has been presented at venues including La MaMa, The Tank, The Brick, Dixon Place, and national touring festivals. In 2023, Chris made his Metropolitan Opera debut as a puppeteer in Mary Zimmerman’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas. 

Chris’s artistic practice blends traditional puppetry techniques with emerging technologies such as motion capture, virtual production, and real-time animation. His recent article in Puppetry International explores the evolving relationship between voice, embodiment, and digital avatars, contributing to national discourse on innovation within the field. He is currently developing several multimedia puppetry projects, including a commission from the Phoenix Art Museum, and a puppet web series for children. 

In addition to his artistic work, Chris is deeply committed to community engagement and education. He has led workshops for youth, schools, and community organizations, emphasizing puppetry as a tool for expression and access. Chris serves as Creative Producer at the T. Denny Sanford Harmony Institute at Arizona State University, where he also teaches motion capture and 3D animation. His teaching bridges performance and technology, offering students new ways to understand the expressive potential of puppetry across media. 

Chris brings experience in producing, cross-disciplinary collaboration, arts education, and community partnerships, and approaches this work with a steady focus on practical support, clarity, and care for the field.



Statement of Intent

:
As a puppeteer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist working across performance, technology, and community engagement, I am eager to serve on the UNIMA-USA Board to help ensure the art of puppetry remains culturally vibrant, accessible, and interconnected. My priority as a board member would be to strengthen the bridges between traditional puppetry practices and emerging forms, ensuring that artists across generations, disciplines, and geographies see UNIMA as a relevant and supportive home. 

One issue I hope to help address is how UNIMA-USA can better support artists who are expanding puppetry into new spaces, such as digital media, virtual production, educational technology, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. As the field evolves, our networks, resources, and visibility must evolve with it. I would advocate for programming and opportunities that uplift artists working at these intersections while maintaining UNIMA’s commitment to the lineage and global heritage of puppetry.

I would also contribute to strengthening outreach and inclusion efforts. Having worked extensively with young people, community organizations, and culturally specific groups, I know personally how puppetry can spark participation from those who may not always feel represented in traditional arts spaces. I would work toward expanding UNIMA-USA’s reach through workshops, partnerships, and initiatives that invite new voices, especially emerging BIPOC artists, youth, and interdisciplinary practitioners, into the national puppetry community.

My background includes more than a decade of professional puppetry experience in New York City, including performances with the Metropolitan Opera, and original devised works presented at La MaMa and other experimental venues. I recently published an article in Puppetry International #58, contributing to the wider discourse on puppetry, embodiment, and technology.

Currently, I serve as Creative Producer at Arizona State University’s Sanford Harmony Institute and teach motion capture and 3D animation at ASU’s MIX Center, supporting students in blending embodied performance with digital tools. I bring skills in producing, organizational leadership, community partnership building, grant writing, interdisciplinary project management, and arts education.

I am honored to bring these experiences to the UNIMA-USA Board and to help steward the next chapter of puppetry’s growth in the United States.


Gretchen Van Lente is the Artistic Director of Drama of Works (DOW), a freelance theater director and a full-time Special Education public school theater teacher. She has been working in the field of puppetry and visual theater since 1995. Since this time, outside of the over a dozen award-winning shows she has created with DOW, she has been a freelance director, designer, and teaching artist. She has taken DOW to over 11 international festivals, from as close as Canada, to as far as Indonesia. She was the youngest president of UNIMA-USA since Jim Henson when she served previously on the board and also served as an international councilor. She received her BFA in illustration from Parsons School of Design, her BA in theater from Eugene Lang College, an MFA in directing from Brooklyn College, and an MS in Education from Pace University. 

Statement of intent: My priorities serving on the board would be to continue looking toward the future. UNIMA-USA needs to continue actively engaging younger puppet artists, and making the organization a desirable thing to be a part of. Access to scholarships, festival information, and other resources is a way to keep the organization a vital part of the puppetry community. Continuing to make collaborating with Puppeteers of America a priority is also very important. My relevant experience is that I was once the president of UNIMA-USA and had a pretty successful run of it. I also served as an international councilor and went to the UNIMA Congress in Perth, and served on the Commission for Cooperation within UNIMA-International as well. I am still in touch with many of the colleagues I met through this time and look forward to having the opportunity to reconnect with them in a meaningful way again. Being a part of the global puppetry community is extremely important to me as not only an artist, but also as an activist, and a citizen of the world.

Steven Widerman is Artistic Director of The Puppet Company, a performing company that produces puppet theater for children and their families. He learned his craft from Master puppeteer, Bil Baird. He has been involved in the application of Puppetry to entertainment, education, industry and advertising. With the assistance of artists, woodcarvers, painters and costumers, he has designed and built a remarkable variety of hundreds of puppets. The Puppet Company owned and operated a puppet theater from 1988 to 1998, at Union Square West in Manhattan. He has served on the Board of Directors of UNIMA-USA. He currently resides in Chicago and is filming puppets with 3D cameras using techniques he developed and trademarked under the name PuppetVid3D®.

Statement of Intrent:
I have served on the UNIMA-USA Board twice in the past, primarily working on the Awards Committee, and also on the Development Committee. Achievements included creation of a Legacy Gifts funding program for the organization. As part of my work on the Awards Committee I was tasked with the creation and naming of the Nancy Staub Award for published materials on Puppetry. This award, now entering it's third year, has been extremely well-received and highly successful. I also assured, in writing, the continuance of UNIMA-USA's strong relationship with the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts upon Vince Anthony's retirement as it's Executive Director, providing support staff and office space to the organization. Rejoining the Board, I would expand these efforts, hoping to serve in a position of leadership for the organization. I would like to see a stronger relationship between UNIMA-USA and the international puppet festivals that have become recurring events in the United States, including expanded coverage of those events in the organization's publication "Puppetry International."