Zlata Godunova

Zlata Godunova (she/her) is a performer, puppeteer, and designer. Classically trained at the National Academic Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy in Ukraine, she recently starred in the one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.

She puppeteered in Magic of Light with Yara Arts Group and Tom Lee at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club; Don Quixote Takes New York with Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company at Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and was part of the International Puppet Slam in 2024.

You can find her in Central Park, where she works as a puppeteer/scenic designer at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater.

Jan Leslie Harding

Jan Leslie is known for her collaborations with many masters of the Avant Garde, most notably with Richard Foreman at BAM, The Montreal International Theatre Festival. And the Ontological Hysteric (as a featured actor as well as creating puppets and set pieces for several Forman productions) , and With Reza Abdoh in EnGarde Arts site specific piece Father Was A Peculiar Man. With Theodora Skipitares in multiple productions as an actress, puppeteer and more recently in assisting with the fabrication of many original puppets and set pieces. Jan Leslie has appeared in over a dozen collaborations as an actor with Mac Wellman for which she received an OBIE Award. She is also a recipient of the Bowman Award through New Dramatist and excellence in acting awards from the Austrailian Short Film Festival and the Delaware Valley Regional theatre coalition. Jan Leslie is a founding member of the Flea Theatre where she created puppets for and directed her first full length puppet piece. Her focus has continued to be on live theatre collaborations with contemporary writers and performers. Most recently at the Public Theatre in Abe Kuggler’s Deep Blue Sound.

Other puppet related credits include: Breakers (St. Mark’s), Aialanthus Grove (Walker St.), Little Stories (Tour NYC), The Spider (Soho Rep), The Wizard of Oz (NYC HSAS), The No Smoking Plays (The Flea), The Chairs (The Whitney), Six Characters (La Mama) & Four Lives (La Mama).

Joshua Holden

JOSHUA HOLDEN is a self-producing puppeteer, designer, builder, and freelancer for The Jim Henson Company as an Emmy nominated puppet wrangler. Broadway: Water for Elephants. TV: Sesame Street, Helpsters. National Tours: Avenue Q, Peter Pan 360, Avett Brother Band (2024 Tour). He is the creator & host of The Joshua Show which toured for 10 years and currently is living his Vaudeville fantasy performing monthly in Dirty Circus (House of Yes). Joshua is an alumnus of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and earned a B.F.A. in Acting from The Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University. wowjoshuaholden.com @ohmygoshuajoshua

Eve Soffer Liberman

Eve Soffer Liberman wears many hats: artist; illustrator; puppeteer; seamstress; writer; musician— as well as an occasional beret. Her work draws inspiration from folklore and fairy tales, the body, nature, magic, and girlhood. Although trained as a fine artist in drawing, painting, and printmaking, her work often bleeds beyond the boundaries of medium into folk art, fiber art, performance, and video. Born and raised in New York City, she is a graduate of LaGuardia High School and Smith College, and has an MA in Children’s Book Illustration from Goldsmiths, University of London. You can find more of her work at www.eveliberman.com or on her instagram @eveliberman.

Instagram: @eveliberman

Diane Matyas

My work explores the intersection between natural history, biology and story. Through drawings, paintings, prints, shadow theatre, and public art. I create allegorical images that juxtapose animals with man-made environments and explore scientific concepts to spark curiosity and a foster a deeper understanding of our interconnected world.

In this shadow theater project, I present the story of Alice, the Luna Park Elephant who briefly escaped captivity, and swam across New York Bay in the spring of 1904. I aim to deliver engaging visual and narrative experiences using puppetry as I rely on the humble materials of cardboard, paper, wood, and found objects, to create metaphors inherent to light, water, and nature.

Daniel Toretsky

Daniel is an exhibit designer, artist, and licensed architect living in Brooklyn, NY. In 2016 he graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University and he recently completed an MFA focused on interactive media at Parsons where he now teaches exhibit design and fabrication. In his art Daniel explores climate futures through speculative installations and ecological myth-making, often informed by his upbringing in the Yiddish arts revival. His recent work confronts the natural history museum's colonial past and uncertain future, blending science fiction, climate grief, and ritual into immersive environments that question how we memorialize and survive a rapidly warming planet. 

Michael Vandergard

Vander is a storyteller and visual artist. Starting as a filmmaker and puppeteer, he developed new stories with a distinct visual style with his knowledge of practical effects. In his Brooklyn apartment closet—home to his production company, Closeted Films—he revived forgotten techniques inspired by Max Fleischer, Douglas Trumbull, and Industrial Light & Magic, adapting them for today’s technology and modern performance. Vander is now developing “Light Puppetry,” an inverted form of shadow puppetry, through which he aims to bring comedy, spectacle, and adventure back into the avant-garde.