By Joe Mancinelli
At the March 2 meeting of the Retired Men’s Association, Peter Uhry introduced the speaker Leslee Asch, career puppet builder who worked for Jim Henson for over 20 years. She served as director of exhibitions for Jim Henson Productions, curating and managing exhibitions world-wide. She also served as executive director of the Jim Henson Foundation and producing director of the Henson International Festivals of Puppet Theater. She was a long-time trustee of the Jim Henson Foundation, and now serves on the board of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. This experience led to the writing of her book Out of the Shadows: The Henson Festivals and Their Impact on Contemporary Puppet Theater, covering an important and previously unexplored aspect of the Henson legacy. The book includes hundreds of photos and sketches that display puppetry as a contemporary art form.
The Jim Henson Foundation’s International Puppet Festivals, which Leslee produced with Jim Henson’s daughter Cheryl, brought puppet theater into mainstream American theater. Between 1992 and 2000, the festivals presented 136 different productions from 31 countries that were seen in 24 theaters throughout New York City. Over 120,000 people attended the New York performances.
While most people assume that one’s involvement with puppetry stems from a childhood love of puppets, that is not actually the case. Many puppetry artists emanate from the theater. Leslee was a French major and studied French Theater, including great visual theater works like Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. At the same time Bread and Puppet was a major force in Vermont and the two influences combined to encourage her to pursue puppet theater. She attended an international puppetry festival in 1976, where she visited the Obraztsov Puppet Theatre in Moscow. This is the world’s largest puppet theatre, and it features a famous clock on the theatre’s façade with puppet figures looking out of small houses every hour as well as surround sound providing the puppetry with an added sense of realism.
With the aid of her slide presentation, Leslee explained that one of her first challenges was to create a pair of latex shoes for the marionette versions used in the now classic Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, a six-month project that evolved into a 20-year pursuit. She also contributed to the first Little Red skit that, with the addition of the character’s unique voice, ultimately became the world recognized Elmo that we know today. Likewise, she worked on the Fraggle characters, and Fraggle Rock continues today, shown on Apple TV. She reminded us that at the heart of Fraggle Rock was Henson’s theme of world peace where different characters can co-exist.
Her presentation included examples of noteworthy international puppetry that included Javanese shadow puppets symbolizing the Tree of Life which is shown at the beginning and end of all Javanese puppet shows, and the Warhorse puppet, which evolved into the Tony Award winning play. Of particular interest were Jim Henson’s initial creations, with video clips from the 1950’s featuring commercial ads for Wilkins Coffee. Jim cleverly and comically highlighted two puppets, Wilkins and Wontkins, one a strong proponent of Wilkins Coffee trying to convince his counterpart to take a drink, with humorous and entertaining results. Thus, the popularity of Jim Henson’s TV puppets was born and as they say, “the rest is history.”
The underlying theme of Leslee’s entertaining presentation was Jim Henson’s deep love of puppetry, his creative genius and his overall generosity and support for artists throughout the world to do their own thing and express themselves through puppetry.
To watch Leslee Asch’s presentation, click here (https://vimeo.com/684478629).
The RMA’s upcoming presentation “Creating a Brighter Future for Connecticut” by State Senator Ryan Fazio is scheduled for 11 AM on Wednesday, March 16. Ryan Fazio will discuss the challenges currently facing Connecticut, its state government, and the reforms needed to protect our community and make our state thrive for the future. He will speak on the state government’s precarious fiscal situation, stagnant economy, high cost of living and tax burden. He will also address ways to improve public education and reform the state’s 8-30g housing law.
A Republican, Ryan was elected to the Connecticut State Senate in August 2021 to represent the 36th District which covers Greenwich and parts of Stamford and New Canaan. Born in Connecticut and raised in Greenwich, Ryan is a graduate of the Greenwich public schools. After studying economics at Northwestern University, he chose to return to Connecticut and pursue a career in business. Ryan spent most of his career working in commodities markets, specializing in renewable energy. Currently, Ryan works at a growth equity firm that invests in small- and medium-sized businesses and advises their management to help them grow.
To stream Mr. Fazio’s presentation at 11 AM on Wednesday, March 16, click here (https://bit.ly/30IBj21). This presentation will also be available on local public access TV Channels, Verizon FIOS channel 24 and Optimum (Cablevision) channel 79.
RMA speaker presentations are presented as a community service at no cost to in-person or Zoom attendees. The RMA urges all eligible individuals to consider becoming a member of our great organization, and thereby enjoy all the available fellowship, volunteer, and community service opportunities which the RMA offers to its members. For further information, go to www.greenwichrma.org, or contact Michael Ambrosino (mailto:brooklynoil@ yahoo.com) or Peter Stern (mailto:pmstern@optonline.net).
