Staff
Festival Team
Blair Thomas, Artistic Director, Festival Founder, Chicago Puppet Studio Co-Director
Sandy Smith Gerding, Executive Director
Cameron Heinze + La Mar Brown, Business Managers
Taylor Bibat, Festival Coordinator & Director of Education
Deidre Huckabay, Grants & Giving Manager
Jess Mott Wickstrom, Web + Visual Communication Designer
Zach Sun, Studio Coordinator
Margaret Nelson, Festival Production Manager
Frank Rose, Festival Production Manager
Shawn Lent, Marketing Coordinator
Jay Kelly, Press Relations
Andy Wickstrom, Video Production
Tom Lee, Chicago Puppet Studio & Puppet Lab Co-Director
Grace Needlman, Chicago Puppet Lab Co-Director
Anastar Alvarez, Chicago Puppet Lab Production
Caitlin McLeod, Chicago Puppet Studio Project Manager
Dr. Paulette Richards, Symposium Co-Director
Samuel J. Lewis II + Erica Mott, Catapult Facilitator
Administrative support: Mimi Newcomb, Veronica Timble, and Nathalie Lam
Special Thanks
Basil Twist, Shoshana Bass, Charlie Branda, Krista Bryski-Richard, Barbara Busackino, Marc Chevalier, Brenda Coughlin, Adrian Danzig, Matthew Duvall, Ginger Farley, Fine Arts Building Staff, Fine Fröhlich, Vanessa Valliere & John Gregorio, Gwei Lun-Mei, Jacob Harvey, Lela Headd & Zygmunt Dyrkacz, Paul Heflen, Cheryl Henson, Heather Henson, Teresa Hernando Rojo, Brett Holmes, Lisa Kaplan, Rowena Liu, Midwest Academy for Gifted Education, Bill Michel, Charla Moseley, Kim Ohms, Diane Pascale, Mike Reed, Michael Reed, Andrea Sáenz, Roell Schmidt, Matthew Sostrin/Mayer Brown, Spektrix Staff, Spoke & Bird Staff, Connie Spreen, Meredith Sutton, The Saints, Omar Torres-Kortright, Jeff Usow, Will von Hartz, Naomi Walker, Michael Wallace, Zac Whittenburg, Kristi Widgery …and thank you to our fabulous Box Office Team, Drivers, and Volunteers!
Photo Saverio Truglia
Blair Thomas, Artistic Director & Founder
The founder and Artistic Director of Blair Thomas & Co., Blair Thomas has twice earned the highest international honor for creators of original work in the medium, the UNIMA Excellence in Puppetry Award (2001, 2004). In addition, Thomas has received the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award (2001, 2004), the After Dark Award (2002), and a number of Joseph Jefferson Citations. Currently on faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Thomas has taught at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, and held the first-ever Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence position at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Co-founder and past Artistic Director of Redmoon Theater, Thomas has vigorously contributed to the Chicago theater scene as an actor, director, puppeteer, designer, and teacher for three decades, contributing to his status as “Chicago’s unofficial puppeteer-general” (TimeOut Chicago). Past President of the UNIMA-USA Board of Directors, Thomas represented the American chapter of the oldest international theater arts organization in the world.