Handmade Puppet Dreams Film Screening and Talkback

Alex U. Griffin is an Emmy-award-nominated filmmaker, photographer, and puppeteer. He has worked with many clients and companies including Universal, YouTube Studios, Dreamworks, Jim Henson Company, and was cinematographer for the all-puppet feature film Yamasong: March of the Hollows. He is also a past president of Puppeteers of America, produces the annual 48hr Puppet Film Project, the bi-annual Reel Puppetry Film Festival, has been a frequent writer for the Puppetry Journal, and has photographed at national and international puppet festivals since 2013. Alex is currently producer for Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams film series, a branch of the Green Feather Foundation.

Heather Henson is a second-generation puppet artist whose work promotes healing for the planet. After studying at the Rhode Island School of Design and the California Institute of the Arts, Henson has focused her efforts on supporting other independent puppet artists, producing her own award-winning environmental spectacles, and bringing people and nature into reciprocal harmony through hands-on educational experiences. By supporting Indigenous knowledge keepers who are reviving traditional practices, Henson strives to support a sustainable and healthy world for generations to come. Henson sits on the Board of Directors for The Jim Henson Company, is President of the Jane Henson Foundation, a trustee of the Jim Henson Legacy and President and Founder of the Green Feather Foundation.

Raymond Carr started his professional career here at the Center, performing short pieces in XPT and full-length shows as a resident puppeteer. He has since been professionally trained by the Jim Henson Company and frequently works in Hollywood on various large-scale puppetry productions. He is skilled in state-of-the-art animatronics, Muppet-style puppetry, motion capture digital puppetry, and traditional theatrical puppetry.

Around the world, countless movie fans remember Toby Froud for his role as “Baby Toby” in Jim Henson’s 1986 feature film Labyrinth. The son of the film’s conceptual designer Brian Froud and puppet builder Wendy Froud, Toby continues to create creature effects and puppets for film and television. Since 2009, Toby has worked in the stop-motion industry as a puppet sculptor and fabricator, working with several companies, including LAIKA. Toby’s work includes ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link. After spending almost two years supervising, sculpting, and fabricating on the live action TV series Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for Netflix, he returned to stop-motion to work as lead sculptor and fabricator on Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Linda (stage name Polly Sonic) is a multidisciplinary visual and performing artist and third generation puppeteer. In 2011 she revived her family puppet company with her first full stage feature production, Luna’s Sea, an aquatic adventure for five puppeteers and two dancers, produced for the Mystic Aquarium and debuted in NYC at the American Museum of Natural History. In 2014, she was an O’Neill recipient of the Jane Henson Writing Scholarship Award. Linda has taught puppetry at universities, libraries, elementary and high schools, including Quinnipiac University, Fairfield University, Montserrat College of Art, Boston University, Cornell University, Yale School of Drama, and most recently for the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. Linda currently works from Ithaca, NY, building puppets on commission for school and professional productions, teaching workshops, producing live puppet shows and shadow films, and building kinetic art.