Tanya Nixon Silberg, Little Uprisings, and Sarah Nolen
The Planetarium creative team (from left) Sarah, Tanya, Innosanto Nagara, and Roxanna Myhrum. Photo: Tess Scheflan
Tanya is a Black Mother, Artist, Educator, Radical Dreamer from Boston, MA. As an artist in Puppet Showplace Theater’s Incubator program, she co-created a puppet production of My Night in the Planetarium, and also participated in the first cohort of the Black Puppeteer Empowerment program. Tanya is the founder of Little Uprisings, a project that focuses on forming deep relationships with institutions that serve kids to make racial justice an everyday goal. Kids+Art+Justice is her recipe for liberation and kid-powered revolutions. https://www.littleuprisings.org/
Sarah Nolen is a puppeteer and filmmaker originally from Austin, Texas. As Puppet Showplace Theater’s resident artist, she performs regularly for youth and family audiences and teaches puppetry in camps, workshops, residencies, and evening adult classes. Her three original productions, Lisa the Wise, Judy Saves the Day, and The Fairy Tailor have all toured extensively in the Northeast and beyond. In addition to her own shows, Sarah has done puppet builds for Netflix, Suffolk University, Boston College, and more. Learn more about her work on stage and screen at www.sarahnolen.com
To learn about social justice with Tanya and Inno, get your tickets to My Night in the Planetarium, June 11-12
To read more about the development of My Night in the Planetarium and meet the whole creative team, visit our Planetarium page.
John & Megan Regan, CactusHead Puppets
CactusHead Puppets are known for their playful performance style and exuberant creativity. The West Springfield-based company was founded in 2010 by husband and wife team John and Megan Regan. Since then, they have created numerous shows based on favorite, familiar folktales and have toured throughout Western New England. John and Megan are both graduates of the University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts program. Megan is originally from the Kansas City area, where she worked with Paul Mesner Puppets. John is from Western Massachusetts, and is honored to be performing in the same libraries where he saw puppet shows growing up. Megan collects pop-up books, and John has a love for giant monster movies. Both John and Megan were interns at Puppet Showplace Theater, and they are excited to return to Boston to share their work as professional puppeteers. Learn more at http://www.cactusheadpuppets.com/.
To see this silly circus in action, reserve your tickets to Magnificent Monster Circus, June 18-19
Anna Sobel, Talking Hands Theatre
Anna Sobel has been a professional puppeteer since 1998. She first trained and worked a puppeteer for Kids on the Block while at Wesleyan University, and went on to perform with the educational company Blue Sky Puppet Theater (University Park, Maryland). In 2003 she was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study puppetry in India as a tool for social change and education. She spent nine months in India and founded Talking Hands Theatre on her return to New York in 2004. Anna holds master’s degree in educational theater and is also an award-winning teaching artist. Since 2010, she has operated her one-woman company out of Shutesbury, MA, bringing educational shows — and smiles!— to all of New England! Learn more about her work at talkinghandstheatre.com.
To make some buggy friends of your own, reserve your tickets to Bugaboo Revue, June 25-26
