Works

Charlottesville, VA, July, 2025 - multiple performances

THE MODEST PUPPETRY FESTIVAL 3: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

festival

Our Charlottesville community puppetry festival was back for a third year in 2025! We welcomed The Off Center (Staunton) with their feature-length puppet version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as short pieces from local artists Adele Josephine with Susan Loquat, Artist’s Proof Editions, Prim Bitch Productions, Ophelia, and myself. A drag puppet show from NC artist SoyBoy rounded out the evening. Musical interludes were provided by Benjamin Freedman and our dinner break/intermission was graced with a lambé lambé show from Cecilia Cackley (DC).

Charlottesville, VA, July 2025 - 12 minutes

WHAT IT DOES TO US

feltboard show

Premiering at the 2025 Modest Puppetry Festival was my feltboard piece, “What It Does To Us”. This short show uses cut felt characters and scenery to tell a true story of encountering the devastating effects of white supremacy on white people.

Charlottesville, VA and Staunton, VA, February 2025 - 50 minutes

THE NETTLE SHIRTS

Shadow puppetry with live shadow actors

Nettle Shirts Puppet Works’ eponymous show, “The Nettle Shirts”, premiered in Charlottesville and Staunton with two sold-out performances. Miranda Elliott-Rader collaborated with Charlottesville artist Jess Walters (www.jesswaltersart.com) to write and design this 50 minute shadow puppetry piece. Part fairy tale, part fiber arts tutorial, and part Deaf lesbian romance, The Nettle Shirts reimagines an old Grimms brothers story in new liberatory ways. The richly visually textured performance includes four ASL actors, live analog captioning, live mountain dulcimer accompaniment, and puppets made of real stinging nettles.

Charlottesville, VA, July 2024 - multiple performances

RETURN OF THE MODEST PUPPETRY FESTIVAL

festival

I once again curated and produced a festival of puppetry pieces for the Charlottesville community. In 2024 our performers were Bonky Dolls (DC), myself, Ophelia, and Emily Kobert and her Magic Lantern (Baltimore). This year featured our first half-time parade, with Celeste the Wish-Dragon from the SW2 Art of the Moving Creature Festival and illuminated jellyfish by Heidi Rugg and Genna Beth Davidson.

Richmond, VA, 2024 - 10 minutes

STORM AFTER STORM

overhead projector sand study

This short shadow performance premiered at Blood From A Turnip, Richmond VA’s puppet salon for adults. I explore the possibilities of projected sand, accompanied by recorded and live singing.

multiple locations, April 2024

SOUTHERN LOOP TOUR

solo tour

I performed The Lot, Creation, The Phosphorus Cycle, and I Made A Solemn Vow To Break The Sidewalk in backyards and homes around the Southeast, before and after witnessing the total solar eclipse.

Charlottesville VA, July 2023 - 22 minutes

The Lot

Suitcase Show

A parking lot opens out of a suitcase, and a small figure arrives with broom and dustpan to sweep it up. Based on my real-life experiences sweeping the parking lot at Bodo’s Bagels, as well as loosely based on the Lushootseed story “Lady Louse Lived There” as told by Vi Hilbert. Music and sound effects by Yessirov.

Visible Records, Charlottesville VA, July 2023 - Multiple performances

A Modest Puppetry Festival

Festival

I produced a one-night festival of puppet works for adults on July 30th, 2023. Participants included Charlottesville artists Molly Hickman, Dawn Schimke, Ophelia, and Yessirov, and visiting artists Audrey DuBois (Philadelphia) and Rae Red (Baltimore). Similar in format to a puppet slam but with longer performances allowed

Piedmont Virginia Community College, December 2022 - 12 minutes

Indigo and the Milk Cap

Luminary puppet show as part of Let There Be Light

Indigo, a 3 foot bunraku-style puppet with three puppeteers, goes for a walk in the woods, and after much searching, happens upon a bright blue indigo milk-cap mushroom. In real life, indigo milk-cap mushrooms can be occasionally found in the wooded area where this piece was performed. Original score by Luke Dahl.

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Multiple Locations, September 2022

East Coast Tour

Solo Tour

I performed I Made A Solemn Vow To Break The Sidewalk at the Black Cherry Puppet Theater's September puppet slam, and then performed three shows each at Palmetto Street Puppets in Brooklyn, New York, at Fox Market in Montpelier, Vermont, and at a private home in Ithaca, New York.

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Charlottesville, Virginia, September 2021 - 40 minutes

Dawn-Strider

Outdoor giant paper mache puppet show

I received permission from author Jane Yolen create this giant puppet adaptation of her 1974 short story. The giant Night-Walker, a two-story tall puppet with five puppeteers, is so widely feared that they don’t know how to make friends, and ends up accidentally making the sun disappear. Bravery and authentic communication save the day. Solo flute accompaniment was written and performed by Kelly Sulick.

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Piedmont Virginia Community College, December 2021

I Love The World And Things In It

Interactive shadow puppet activity as part of Let There Be Light

I displayed various backgrounds on an overhead projector, and invited audience members to make up their own stories with an assortment of shadow puppets. Raccoons riding aquatic bicycles, flying fish, and disastrous tea parties ensued.

Film, April 2021 - 9 minutes

I Made A Solemn Vow To Break The Sidewalk

Tabletop 3-D puppet piece for film and live performance

This life-cycle of a dandelion, a European plant, serves as a metaphor for how to be a European-descended American and disrupt the oppressive structures of our society. The film version includes old-fashioned editing-based special effects. Original vocal score by Miranda Elliott-Rader, Heidi Bird, and Julia Gentlestrength.

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Piedmont Virginia Community College, December 2020 - 20 minutes

Understory

Combined luminary and shadow puppet show as part of Let There Be Light

This piece tells the story of trees in the Eastern woodlands communicating and sharing resources via underground mycelium, the fungal network that makes up the so-called “wood wide web”. The trees, a 12-foot pine trunk and a beech seedling, scroll by on the overhead projector while 3-D lit mycelium reaches out from the roots on the projector screen and interacts with luminary mushrooms in the foreground.

Film, May 2020 - 5 minutes

Take Me Back, O Hills I love

Shadow crankie on two simultaneous overhead projectors, created for film.

Created in the early months of quarantine, the sound recordings for this piece were recorded by each singer separately in Virginia, New York, and Vermont, and digitally compiled.

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Carrboro, North Carolina, September 2019

Radicackalacky Radical Puppetry Convergence

Organized by Paperhand Puppet Intervention

Performed Creation (2018) as an opening act for performer Rae Red.

The Bridge PAI, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 2019 - 25 minutes

Shadow of Shadow of Shadow

Commissioned by Alex Christie as part of SOLOS II.

This abstract piece re-interprets a solo piano piece, Shadow by Rebecca Saunders, for two projectors, a slide projector representing the right hand and an overhead projector representing the left hand. Inspired by the original piece’s consonant chords that slowly reveal themselves out of dissonance, the overhead projector is darkened to almost black such that it cannot be seen when the slide projector is on, and when the slide projector is covered, cut paper images of solid black on the dark background slowly appear as the audience’s eyes adjust.

McGuffey Art Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, June 2019 - 10 minutes

Black Shining Angels

Shadow puppet performance.

Illustrating an original song sung live, this piece celebrates the tenacity of black locust trees and carpenter bees. Features a growing tree and a face with blinking eyes.

McGuffey Art Center, Charlottesville VA, April 2019 - 10 minutes

The Phosphorous Cycle

Overhead projector crankie with lights.

A colorful overhead projector piece, The Phosphorus Cycle illustrates how phosphorus moves through the world with narration and song.

Charlottesville, Virginia, September 2018 - 20 minutes

Creation

Overhead projector shadow puppet show

Using a-capella song and biblically-influenced poetic language, Creation presents a feminist and scientifically-accurate history of the universe from the beginning of time to the present moment, illustrated by a restrained palette of abstract shapes

Saxapahaw, North Carolina, Summer 2018

Internship

Paperhand Puppet Intervention Internship

Helped build their show In The Heart Of The Fire. Collaborated with fellow artists and assisted backstage.

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Staunton, Virginia, April 2018 - 20 minutes

The Ocean, At Night, It Comforts Me

Luminary puppet show performed at ShenFringe festival

Internally illuminated paper maché sea creatures move hypnotically, and as authentically as we can make them, in this ballet-like wordless piece performed in darkness. Features such delights as “shrimp and nautilus fail once again to see one another” and “whelk fights off being eaten by seastar”. Original electronic score by Alex Christie.

Olympia, Washington, 1996-2012

Parade Costumes

Frequent Participation

I grew up participating regularly in the Procession of The Species in Olympia, Washington. Pictured is a to-scale costume of a Western skunk cabbage flower, May 2011.