My Name Is Mary Hildebrand Nagler, and I Am a Professional Puppeteer

My name is Mary Hildebrand Nagler, and I am a professional Puppeteer. I made my first puppet at 10 years old in girls Scouts and have had a life long interest in the art form. I used to hurry home from High School to watch Sesame street, and longed to work for that innovative company someday. In College at Santa Clara University, as a theater major. I was a frustrated actor. I was too often relegated to back stage because I could make things, so when the opportunity came up to do a Punch and Judy show for the school Renaissance fair I volunteered! It was great performing live and puppetry encompassed all I loved about theater. I finally got to act, in fact I got to play all the characters, make the scenery and props , all the costumes and even write the plays! I had found my calling. For years I worked performing a repertoire of 9 shows geared for a young audience, including some classic tales with a twist: Red Riding Hood, which taught the wolf to use his manners and say please, Harlequin and the Gift of many Colors, about the power of friendship to cross social boundaries and The Reluctant Dragon, a great story about the dangers of prejudice. I left Santa Clara University after two years when I was accepted in to Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown School. I graduated with a degree in Buffoonery and landed a one year contract to travel with the Greatest Show on Earth. Several of my parts in the show involved puppets there too! After my year with the circus I got married had two sons, got divorced and went back to school! I have a Bachelor of fine arts degree from Sonoma State University, in sculpture and painting. It was around this time that the Puppeteers of America held a National Puppet festival in San Francisco. There I was exposed to puppet forms I had never imagined! I took a foam puppet making workshop from Kamela Portugues and Lee Armstrong who own Images in Motion, a puppet building and video production company in Sonoma, CA. After hounding them for a year they hired me to build puppets with them. I worked with them for over 12 years making all manner of puppets, mascots, doing toy product prototyping and even some archive work for Pixar through them. I did not get to have much artistic input there however, and got restless to do my own work. My lads were grown so I took a mighty leap and enrolled in The University of Connecticut's nationally acclaimed Puppet Arts Program. In the tree three year there, getting my MFA with a goal of teaching I got to explore puppetry's many forms. At UCONN, I had the gift of time and money plus being immersed in a group of eager young talented puppeteers to explore my own ideas "Little Things" was my Thesis show, employing 5 puppeteers and 47 puppets to depict, to original music by Jon Illg, moments from childhood; learning life lessons from my father. My father was played by an old Cashmere coat he was wearing when he brought me home from the hospital at birth. It was a tribute to him and time spent together. The show is about seeing, and in the vignettes we look through magnifying glasses, telescopes, microscopes and make observations of little creatures engaged in large life situations. I was recruited out of School, after graduation, to a company in Hoboken, The Puppet Heap. They are the keepers and current builders of the Muppets. There I fulfilled a childhood dream and made the current Beaker and the Swedish Chef, and worked on a number of other interesting projects. I felt like I had reached to top, working along side so many luminaries from the industry. I am as proud as a mother when I get to see those characters on the big screen! The recession happened and the company had to downsize. I worked for another 2 years in the area taking jobs from a number of other shops in the NY/NJ area including most prominently Lyon Puppet Studio, Where I worked with Rick Lyon, the designer and builder of the classic AVENUE Q puppets. I learned a lot from Rick about durability, as his puppets work nightly for years! I also got to work for the Puppet Kitchen, The Vagabond Puppet Theater, and Furry Puppet Studio, rounding out my experience! During this time (2011) I received a Family Grant from the Jim Henson Foundation to build my new show Terran's Aquarium, which depicts in a fun, easy to understand way the current fresh water crisis. A great lover of nature, appalled by the way things are going I wanted to not just entertain but actually make a difference. The grant provided the means to: gather the necessary equipment, build the puppets and move forward on my own work. I was also invited by the late Jane Henson to work shop the show at the Carriage House, the Henson family theater in Manhattan. This was one of the greatest opportunities of my career. Finances however were making it harder to stay. My lease was coming up for renewal and I was barely able to hang onto my apartment and studio. Winter was also coming with the high gas bills and no work , so I sold off many of my belongings and headed west, back to my home town, Santa Rosa, my sons and the next phase of my career. I learned SRT, Santa Rosa JC Summer Repertory theater was doing AVENUE Q, and contacted them to see if they needed a puppet coach. They needed puppets! And though it was a scramble, the students and I got 24 puppets done in time for opening night. Since then I have rented out the set. Soon they will be in Novato in the hands of a new cast. I will be going in with them Sept 14, and 15 for Puppet Boot camp to teach the actors the fundamental skills and techniques for this hybrid form of manipulation. Boot Camp should be fun especially working with the two person puppet actors who not only have to act through the puppet but move as one! In the time since I returned, I have also had the privilege of working for my other Alma mater Sonoma State in their Theater arts department. Last Spring I assisted Student Designer, Michelle Dokos in the making a of the 5 headed Dragon, Tiamot and a Gelatinous Cube; from Dungeons and Dragons Fame. They were for a production of She Kills Monsters, by Qui Nguyen, Directed bu Paul Draper. That's my life in a nutshell. Let me know if you need anything more! Cheers! Mary Nagler, MFA Artist/puppeteer.

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