La MaMa Kids: Winter Wonderland End of Year Celebration

Puppeteer and theatre artist Jane Catherine Shaw is a passionate creator, director, designer, writer, curator and educator. Ms. Shaw was co-founder and co-curator of the VOICE 4 VISION PUPPET FESTIVAL, a festival that was devoted to presenting New York artists making work for puppetry.

Charlotte Lily Gaspard is a shadow puppet artist, playwright, director and performer. Charlotte’s mission is to activate imaginations and celebrate playfulness wherever she goes. Charlotte is the founder and artistic director of Midnight Radio Show, a shadow puppet sci-fi fairytale theater company based in Brooklyn, NYC. The company is known for devising innovative avant-garde enchantments, infused with puppets, poetry, music and dance, for the stage and beyond. She designs puppets for theater & film, including A Snowy Day & Other Stories by Ezra Jack Keats. Mommy Poppins declared, “The incredible shadow puppets will amaze the audience.” Along with puppets, Charlotte also creates costumes for theatre & film projects. She teaches at Child’s Play NY, a children’s theater company, and leads puppetry & theatre workshops all over NYC and beyond. MidnightRadioShow.org

Evolve Puppets (TANYA KHORDOC & BARRY WEIL) have been creating innovative puppet theatre in NYC for more than two decades.  In 2019, they presented their show HOME (a Jim Henson Foundation Grant recipient) at the Tank NYC.  Recently, they created a series of puppet films, including LIGHT AS PAPER (for the Object Movement Festival) and ONCE UPON A PLASTIC FOREST (for La MaMa Kids Online). Evolve created the world premiere production of former Czech President Vàclav Havel’s play MOTORMORPHOSIS for UTC61’s Havel Festival. They’ve created puppets for Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s PRINCESS MALEINE at La MaMa; crafted live-video-projected models for UTC61’s adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s CAT’S CRADLE; and designed the puppetry for Theater East’s DEVIL AND THE DEEP, a musical co-written by Graham Russell of Air Supply. Evolve has also performed many original works (written, designed and directed by Tanya & Barry) at venues that include La MaMa, HERE Arts Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Brick, Dixon Place, and two Puppeteers of America National Festivals. They are currently developing their fourth full-length puppet play, THEY WERE CALLED TREES.  www.evolvepuppets.com

Hula Fairies

Kiku Sakai is excited to be a part of the Winter Wonderland again this year! Addition to Cathy Shaw, Kiku has worked for puppet masters such as Federico Restrepo/Loco7, Tom Lee, Vit Horejs, and Theodora Skipitares, Kiku dances hula under Kumu Hula Vicky Holt Takamine, and she has also learned a special art form, Puppet Hula (Hula Ki’i) from Huka Ki’I master, Mauli Ola Cook.

Marina Celander received the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s Red Socks Award 2014 for her contribution to Asian American theatre. In 2016 Marina was nominated for the Innovation In Performance Award for her solo show Mermaid’s Howl at the Stockholm Fringe Festival. Marina’s solo show Shakespeare’s Sisters was invited to perform at the Estrogenius Festival in NYC 2019. Tree She, a collaboration with Swedish composer Fredrik Söderberg, premiered at Estrogenius Festival 2020. Marina’s and Fredrik’s continued collaboration, Sea She, premiered on The Six Foot Platform in Dumbo Sept 2021. As a hula student Marina has had the honor of studying with notable Kumu Hula (hula master teachers) for the last 20 years, and has then made it her mission to spread aloha and hula in New York City’s public elementary schools.

Maria Camia creator of the MARICAMA brand and universe, is a Filipino American Visual Theatre Artist who creates Spiritual Theater, Visual Art, and Fashion with the intention to globally inspire healing and play. Her transformative storytelling leaves audiences rewired and enlightened to the infinite potential of the MARICAMA mindset. She has performed original work for established theaters including The Henson Company, La Mama, and The International Puppet Fringe Festival. NEW MONY!, her first full length production, was commissioned and presented in NYC by Dixon Place with private funds from The Jim Henson Foundation and The Jerome Foundation.

Amanda Gynn Card is a multidisciplinary theatre artist. Most recently, her work has appeared in Puppet Blok 2021 at Dixon Place, Music City Puppet Slam, Liz Oakley's Anywhere Festival of Everywhere Stages, Great Small Works' Toy Theater Festival, Kindling Arts Festival, Verge Theater Company's Virtual Cabaret, and Nasty, Brutish & Short’s Puppet Cabaret. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she worked as a production assistant and swing puppeteer for Dan Hurlin’s Bismarck. She is a recipient of the 2021 Lipkin Prize for Playwriting. Her solo show I May Be Ugly But I’m Also Scared received a development workshop at the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference and is a recipient of the Puppeteers of America Rufus and Margo Rose Endowment Fund. Amanda is currently a resident artist with Object Movement Puppetry Festival. amandacard.com

Adrienne Gomez (Stage Manager) was born and raised in Southern California and has been in the theater since kindergarten. She attended California State University, Northridge where she majored in Theatre and minored in Philosophy. From 2012 to 2019, she wrote, acted, and produced sketch comedy in Los Angeles. Gomez
is a founding member of Women Of Color Anonymous (WOCA), a sketch comedy team composed entirely of women of color writers and performers. WOCA enjoyed an eight-season residency at Upright Citizens Brigade Sunset. In May 2021 she received her Masters in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Gomez is currently working with Loco7 as Assistant Stage Manager on Lunch With Sonia. She lives in Brooklyn is now writing plays of her own.

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La MaMa Kids Program (2021-2022) is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor and the New York State Legislature with additional support from The William C. Bullitt Foundation, Con Edison, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Jim Henson Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The SQA Foundation.