“How many personality disorders do you have? It’s important to have a sense of humor about yourself and I admire people who have been able to flourish with and capitalize on their neuroses… like Martha Stewart.”
“In the social media sphere labeling something as problematic has become a shortcut – a way to brush off further discussion of something complex, potentially triggering, or that falls outside a binary – or to label something as oppressive without actually doing any of the work to think about what the problem is or why it exists. But where some see problematic, I see problemagic – an opportunity to welcome dialogue and generate new ideas and solutions in a world where tweets have all too often supplanted discourse.”
“There’s something about working with dolls and puppets that occupies a precarious border between beauty and terror. People volunteer information. They seem to go to their darkest places right away – recounting their most creepy and macabre moments with inanimate objects. They tend to disclose a lot. And while I try to keep their secrets, sometimes they’re just too juicy, and I have to fictionalize them.”
– Center Theatre Group Blog
2017, Los Angeles
“..in the current political climate, there’s been a lot of fabulous street art that’s very carnivalesque. And I was so proud of our Women’s March. It attracted 750,000, which is the most of all the women’s marches. Meanwhile in other parts of the country, people think we’re all getting our asses bleached… stuck in our cars… or getting lip implants and stuff”
– COLA20 Book
2017, LA Department of Cultural Affairs
“I am concerned that no one in the Democratic field has the sex appeal necessary to be elected president in 2016. The current media landscape has become infected with a Kardashian Effect where celebrity and reality show behavior trump substance in the ratings grab. Sure, Bernie Sanders’ social and economic justice policies are sexy, but I worry that the whole ‘Feel the Bern’ hashtag popular with his supporters sounds like a slogan for chlamydia or at least a UTI — and that burning (Berning) connotes more of a destructive force. I am taking a different approach with Bernie Sanders in ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ and I hope America is ready to consume what Sanders is serving.”
– Huffington Post
2015, Los Angeles on ArtBern
“people have become overly connected, but there is a growing sense of isolation. Live puppetry appeals to our need for the tactile and it doesn’t take place in an app, or on a touch screen. Puppetry brings people together for a shared experience to witness the artist in an intimate setting oozing raw creativity into a universe they have made with their own hands.”
– Howlround
2015, Boston
“Although [Bride of Wildenstein is] about this woman who becomes a cat, searching for happiness, it’s really about that quest for happiness and what people will do to be loved.”
– 89.9FM WCUF
2009, Orlando, on Bride of Wildenstein – The Musical
“Puppet artists are the new rock stars… Like Lady Gaga, one day I can only hope that the details of my next puppet show will be leaked to the media and that I will have to go on tour early.”
– New Urbanite
2011, Baltimore, on Fudgie’s Death