Date and Time: Monday, April 24th, 6:30pm to 9:00pm
Location: Puppet Kitchen Productions, 220 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10009
More about our host:
MICHAEL SCHUPBACH (Head Chef, Co-Founder): Michael is a proud alumnus of Jim Henson’s Muppet Workshop. He has designed and built puppets for both children’s television programs and Tony Award-winning theatrical productions. He is the proud owner of four Daytime Emmy Awards for his work on Sesame Street. Mr. Schupbach constructed and/or performed puppets for Little Shop of Horrors on Broadway, Avenue Q, Disney Channel’s Johnny and the Sprites, and Bear in the Big Blue House, the Disney Live version of Bear in the Big Blue House Live, IFC’s Greg the Bunny, Noggin’s interactive series Play with Me Sesame, and Universal Studios’ Sesame Street in 4-D. He holds a degree from Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey’s Clown College as well as a B.A. in Education with a concentration in Children’s Television from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
ARIEL LAURYN: In NYC, Ariel has performed with The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show (Acorn Theater), The Talking Band, Columbia Stages, Stegosaurus Theater, LES Shakespeare and Co., The Ume Group, and Lady Fest at The Tank. She creates original works, ranging from slapstick shorts (Dixon Place, Bindlestiff Variety Show) to a webseries, Illuminutty, to a physical comedy one-act, Whether We Like It or Not. That show has performed at Flint and Tinder (The Tank, NYC), Mad River Festival (Dell’Arte, CA), the New Orleans Fringe Festival ’14, and CalArts. Puppet-wise, she builds, performs, and teaches with The Puppet Kitchen, has created pieces and performed for Puppet Playlist (Sinkingship Productions, Triskelion Arts), puppeteered for the short film The Neverbell, and hand-acted in web commercials with VaynerMedia. She is an MFA Graduate of Dell’Arte International, and has studied with ACT (American Conservatory Theater), The Guthrie Summer Training Program, and various clown instructors, including Ronlin Foreman of Dell’Arte, Aitor Bassauri of Spy Monkeys, and Gabriel Levy and Zachary Fine of The Funny School of Good Acting.
PUPPET KITCHEN: Puppet Kitchen Productions’ trio of “Head Chefs” blend style with engineering to create dynamic visual stories and characters. Since 2008, Emily DeCola, Eric Wright and Michael Schupbach have been designing, building, performing, directing and teaching puppetry in nearly every contemporary puppetry style from their workshop in downtown New York City. Some favorite recent projects & clients include The King and I and The Wiz (Maltz Jupiter Theater), Alice in Wonderland (New York City Opera), The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show (Off Broadway, UK tour, Australia tour), Compulsion (The Public Theater), Pictures at an Exhibition (Cornell College), and John Tartaglia’s ImaginOcean. Other collaborators include Disney Theme Parks, PBS, Mabou Mines, TheaterWorks USA, LG Electronics and The Disney Channel. PKP is dedicated to creating opportunities for everyone to interact with and advance the craft of puppetry by hosting workshops for all ages, fostering an apprenticeship program, and creating original programming for all ages integrating puppetry, music, movement and storytelling. More info at www.puppetkitchen.com
