Sessions begin:
May 7th, 2023, 2pm EST via Zoom
Choose from Beginner Live, Intermediate Live or the Beginner Replay option.

Instructors:
Tau Bennett
Geert Ritgers
Guest Host
Jean Marie Keevins 

Join our new Beginner’s Puppet Playground LIVE and get*:
4 months of live, weekly play and professional development all via Zoom!

Be Live in the room with all of the upcoming seasons “Muppet-style” classes and practice times including:

• 4 Guest Hosted Monitor Time Sessions
• 4 Basic Monitor Classes or Intermediate Monitor Classes**** 
• 7 Open Monitor Playtime Practice Sessions
• 1 Set of Peepers Puppets
• 1 Copy of “Puppetry 101: Creating Film and Television Style Puppetry” signed by Adam Kreutinger
• Access to our closed Puppet Playground Facebook Group**
• Certificate of completion

WHAT’S WHAT:

BEGINNER MONITOR TIME with our Guest Hosts (90 minutes): Each month, a leading monitor puppeteer in the industry will teach monitor puppetry from their perspectives. Previous guests have included Noel MacNeal, Martin P. Robinson and Tyler Bunch.
Time: Selected Sundays at 5pm est

INTERMEDIATE MONITOR TIME with our Guest Hosts (90 minutes): Each month, a leading monitor puppeteer in the industry will teach monitor puppetry from their perspectives. Previous guests have included Noel MacNeal, Martin P. Robinson and Tyler Bunch.
Time: Selected Sundays at 2pm est

BASIC MONITOR SKILLS with instructor Tau Bennett (90 minutes): Still struggling with eye focus? Wondering what eye focus is? Always feel like your puppet is listing to one side or speaking like a bobble head? This workshop is for you!

Been doing this a while but need to brush up on your foundational skills, this class is also for you. Television’s own, Tau Bennett will take you through the basics monthly! That’s 6 classes in an intimate setting, with Tau. Pretty awesome.
Time: Selected Sundays at 5pm est

INTERMEDIATE MONITOR SKILLS with instructor TBD (90 minutes): This strand will start with basics but will quickly pick up speed. Be prepared to advance your rod skills, level your use of space, get some live hand action in and generally uplevel your skills.
Time: Selected Sundays at 2pm est

OPEN MONITOR PLAYTIME with monitor Geert Rigters (60 minutes): Everyone needs time to play. And to become a better puppeteer, we need time to practice. With monitor puppetry, this often means screen time with others. In our Open Monitor Playtime, we offer just that… Time to Play! Moderated (not taught) by UK-based, GeertRigters, you will find this playground a wonderfully supportive place to come play and explore with positive feedback. No pressure added. The recordings of Open Monitor Time are not available for replay. Time: Selected Sundays at 2pm est

INSTRUCTOR BIOS:

Tau Bennett (Intermediate Instructor – 4 Sessions):
Tau Bennett is a young puppeteer from Brooklyn, New York. He’s been a professional puppeteer since 2016, performing on such shows as Sesame Street, Helpsters, and Donkey Hodie to name a few; as well as producing his own work on the YouTube channel, Cold Sober.

His puppetry training started at an incredibly young age– originally self-taught, but soon began collecting tips and tricks from various mentors within the puppetry community; people like Marty Robinson, Kevin Clash, Matt Vogel and countless others. Now, with all these years of experience with television puppetry, Tau has been given the opportunity to share his knowledge, and seeks to learn even more in the process.

Geert Rigters (Open Monitor Play Room Monitor – 7 Sessions):
Geert Rigters is a London based Theatre Professional, working as a performer as well as many other jobs in the theatre industry. An aspiring puppeteer, his journey with monitor puppetry began in 2020 with Little Shadow Productions’ monitor skills classes with Noel MacNeal. Geert is excited to help create an encouraging and inclusive play space for all participants!

Bradley Freeman, Jr. (Beginner Instructor – $ Sessions):
Bradley Freeman, Jr has been a puppeteer since he was 5 years old. From that time on it was his dream to become a Muppet performer. He would practice everyday after school lip-synching to the sketches from Season 1 of The Muppet Show. All through elementary, middle, and high school Bradley took puppets around to mess around with his friends, and to give them lessons in the television style of puppetry. After high school Bradley began creating, building, and performing original characters. In 2018 Sesame Street held a workshop to train young puppeteers from around the world. Out of over 400 international applicants, he was one of 30 selected to participate. This got him on the Sesame Streets radar, and several years later they held auditions for a new character named Wes. After a long audition process he got the part, and since then his world has completely changed for the better. Along with playing Tamir on Sesame Street, he has worked on shows like The View, Helpsters, Michael Bublé’s Christmas in the City, The Muppets Mayhem and more.

Kira Hall (Guest Instructor – Beginners):

Kira Hall (they/them) is a Yellowknife-born, Toronto-based puppeteer, voice artist, actor, and et cetera. A Jim Henson Company-trained puppeteer, they recently provided puppetry and voices on Apple TV+’s Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock and CBC Kids’ Gary’s Magic Fort, and they play pink kittycat Cottonball as part of the Kidscreen Award-winning Studio K host team on CBC Kids. Notable stage work includes The Little Prince: Reimagined by Puzzle Piece, for which their performance as the Prince received a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination; Theatre Direct’s Old Man and the River; and Kira’s solo show with puppets Paleoncology which toured across Canada– including to SpringWorks!– to rave reviews and accolades. Kira can also be heard as a bevy of voices on podcasts The Story Store (CBC Kids) and Kwantum (Highly Scientific Productions, also co-written/co-produced by Kira).

Pam Arciero (Guest Instructor):
Pam Arciero is the Artistic Director of the National Puppetry Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center.  Pam performs for film, television and theater, most notably as a puppeteer with Sesame Street  (Grundgetta Grouch, Oscar’s girlfriend, and assorted characters) and for the Muppets for over 30  years. She is the Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Jim Henson Foundation. Pam is a director  for live theater, television, and film. She choreographs and directs live walk-around (the big versions of  the puppets) shows for Sesame Workshop in such far flung places as Jamaica, Turks and Caicos,  Barcelona, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Sesame Place and Sea World, USA. Pam has taught  puppetry all over the world, from New York to Hong Kong, Hawaii to South Africa and her love and joy  of Puppetry is contagious. Pam holds a Master’s Degree in Puppetry and Drama from the University of  Connecticut and a Bachelor’s Degree in Dance and Dramatic Arts from the University of Hawaii.

Martin P Robinson (Guest Instructor – Intermediate):
Broadway:  Little Shop of Horrors (designer/performer); The Frogs (designer).  Off Broadway:  Little Shop of Horrors (Drama Desk, L.A. Drama Critics, Villager Awards); Night on Bald Mountain, Carnival of the Animals and Firebird for the Young People’s Concerts at Carnegie Hall (designer/performer).   Film:  Muppets Take Manhattan, Follow That Bird, Elmo in Grouchland, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Producers.  TV: “Sesame Street” – since 1981 playing Mr. Snuffleupagus, Telly Monster, Slimey, etc. (Emmys, Outstanding Children’s Performer nom.); “Allegra’s Window”; “Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss”; “Spitting Image”; “Oobi.”   Sesame Street International Senior Muppet Coordinator/Teacher – numerous countries worldwide (Peacebuilder Award);  Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center National Puppetry Conference – staff.  Recently wrote, designed, directed musical, “All Hallows Eve” for a NYC showcase run. Currently performing Mr. Primm in the new Apple+ production, “Helpsters”