I was finishing up my Master\u2019s degree at the Yale School of Drama. My last work-study was as a stagehand on a rather fine production of Pygmalion. We had been doing double performances for schools along with the evening shows. It was going to be a mixed crowd since it was a Wednesday and we had both the season ticket holders and a couple of school groups. <\/p>\n
I walked into the stage door to be greeted by the sound tech by, \u201cI didn\u2019t think you would be here since your hero Jim Henson died.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t believe him. We had history to the point that he had a reprimand in his union jacket because of me. My solution was to stay as far away from him but couldn\u2019t do it always.<\/p>\n
Then a couple of the actors came in and asked me if I was OK since the news broke that Henson had died.<\/p>\n
I knew it was real then. I went to the stage and checked my gear and made sure that all the set pieces were back where they needed to be. I ran my fly check of the scenery as well. Then I went into a dark corner and collapsed for a bit. People checked on me. The stage manager offered to get in the sub but I did the show and went home and was numb.<\/p>\n
I went to the memorial, which was a celebration of a man\u2019s life and the lives of all the people he touched. It made me feel better.<\/p>\n
Since then I have had a lot of discussions and conversations with people who knew Jim or worked with him. I had met him several times and, because I made myself rather memorable the first time thanks to the Tales of the Tinkerdee, he remembered me. <\/p>\n
Funny thing is that now a generation has grown up and some have even had children of their own without Jim Henson physically in the world but his spirit lives on through us. <\/p>\n
One of the reasons I do panels at various conventions about puppets and the history of puppetry and the ever popular \u2018what is a puppet?\u2019 is because of Jim and his belief in puppetry as another form of art and storytelling. He championed a lot of puppeteers that have gone on to champion others and encourage others to give, as Gonzo would say, \u2018wiggling dolls for a living\u2019 a try. <\/p>\n
He is a touchstone for many of us. He gave us some of our best childhood memories. He showed how with puppets you could make the world a better place. <\/p>\n
I have made so many friends through puppetry. I have had some seriously fun adventures because I am a puppeteer. I have made people laugh or just smile by what I do. I have had people thank me for cheering up their day with my puppets. Jim Henson is a big reason I do what I do.<\/p>\n
He is missed and is loved even twenty-five years later and his legacy lives on through all of us. <\/p>\n
I am grateful that I did get to meet and talked to Jim Henson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was finishing up my Master\u2019s degree at the Yale School of Drama. My last work-study was as a stagehand on a rather fine production of Pygmalion. We had been doing double performances for schools along with the evening shows. It was going to be a mixed crowd since it was a Wednesday and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5008,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5007\/revisions\/5008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}