Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack.
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Since her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997, 24 global productions have been seen by more than 100 million people in over 100 cities in 20 countries, on every continent except Antarctica, and its worldwide gross exceeds that of any entertainment title in box office history. The Lion King also received 11 Tony Award nominations, earning Taymor Tony Awards for Best Director and Costume Designer, and was honored with more than 70 major arts awards worldwide.
María Cristina Lancelotti, better known by her stage name Valeria Lynch, is an Argentine singer and actress. Named by the New York Times as one of the 5 best voices on the planet.
Repertorio Español was founded in 1968 by Producer Gilberto Zaldívar and Artistic Director René Buch to introduce the best of Latin American, Spanish, and Hispanic American theater to broad-ranging audiences in New York City and around the country. Robert Weber Federico joined the company two years later as Resident Designer and Associate Artistic Producer and is currently the organization's Executive Director.
The Subotica International Festival of Children's Theatres is an international festival dedicated to children's theatre.
Karin Schäfer is a performance artist and the head of the Karin Schäfer Figuren Theater - Visual Theatre Productions company. After studying puppetry arts with Harry V. Tozer at Barcelona's Instituto del Teatro and working in Spain for several years, she returned to Austria in 1993.
Jorge B. Merced is a New York-based Puerto Rican actor, theatre director, and gay activist. He is associate artistic director of Pregones Theater, a bilingual (Spanish/English) Puerto Rican/Latino theater company located near Hostos Community College in the Bronx, New York City. He is best known for his role as Loca la de la locura [The Queen of Madness] in Pregones's play El bolero fue mi ruina [The Bolero Was My Downfall].
The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) is an active arts service and advocacy organization founded in 1975. It is in the United States and is dedicated to Hispanic artists, actors and actresses. It is not to be confused with H.O.L.A., Helping Outstanding Latinos Achieve, a program winning numerous awards and grants and created in 2012 by Katelyn and Madison Singh; although both advocate for the success of Latino populations.
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, often called The Clemente, is a Puerto Rican/Latinx cultural center named after Puerto Rican writer and activist, Clemente Soto Vélez. The Clemente, which was established as a cultural center in 1993, is located on 107 Suffolk Street in the former PS 160 in Manhattan's historic Lower East Side neighborhood.
Migdalia Cruz is a writer of plays, musical theatre and opera in the U.S. and has been translated into Spanish, French, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish.
Luis Salgado is a Puerto Rican performer, director, choreographer, and producer. His career has led him to Broadway, film, television, and stages around the world. He served as associate director and choreographer of Cirque du Soleil's Paramour that opened April 16, 2019 at the Neue Flora theatre in Hamburg, Germany. He has worked with directors, choreographers and performers such as Andy Blankenbuehler, Jerry Mitchell, Sergio Trujillo, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti, Patrick Dempsey and Diego Luna.
The Key Theatre is an Israeli visual children's theatre established in 1998.
Karen Zacarías is a Latina playwright who was born in Mexico in 1969. She is known for her play Mariela in the Desert. It was the winner of the National Latino Playwriting Award and a finalist for other prizes. Mariela in the Desert was debuted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Zacarías is the founder of the Young Playwrights' Theater located in Washington, D.C.
Carmen Rivera is an American playwright, teacher, and producer. Working for over 20 years in the arts, she is best known for her play La Gringa (1996) and the musical Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz (2007), which she co-wrote with playwright and husband Cándido Tirado.
The International Puppet Fringe Festival NYC is a biannual puppet theater fringe festival hosted by Teatro SEA in the Lower East Side of New York City. The festival had its 1st edition in 2018, at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, and featured puppet shows, short films and artist talks with international puppet theater companies. The Puppet Fringe Festival is the first ever international fringe festival dedicated to puppetry.
Amelia Lirag Lapeña-Bonifacio was a Filipino playwright, puppeteer, and educator known as the "Grande Dame of Southeast Asian Children's Theatre". In 1977, she founded a children's theater troupe, Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas, the official theater company and puppetry troupe of the University of the Philippines. Lapeña-Bonifacio served as the President of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People-Philippines (ASSITEJ-Philippines) and Union Internationale de la Marionnette-Philippines (UNIMA-Philippines). She was recognized in 2018 as a National Artist of the Philippines for Theater.
Abelardo José Estorino López was a Cuban dramatist, director, and theater critic.
The Budapest Puppet Theater has been open since 1949, with its primary venue currently situated at 69 Andrássy út, Budapest. Since then, both children and adults are warmly welcome to their performances, because they have a motto that “the puppet is not the matter of age, but a genre.”
Francisco Cardozo is a Venezuelan theater actor, playwright and director. He currently lives in New York City. He has been nominated by most of Hispanic theater awards in the big apple including LATA Awards, ATI Awards and the New York Latin ACE Awards. He won in two categories in the 2020 edition of the New York Latin ACE Awards given by the Association of Latin Entertainment Critics. In 2020 Francisco won a HOLA Award given by the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors.
Dr. Manuel A. Morán is a Puerto Rican actor, singer, writer, composer, puppeteer, theater and film director and producer. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Latino Children’s Theater, Teatro SEA,.
