All about our MEMBERS!

Puppet Club is lead by DOW Artistic Director Gretchen Van Lente who has over 15 years of experience as a teaching artist with children with special needs. Gretchen has a masters degree in special education and teaches theater at a District 75 school in the east village. She uses puppetry in much of the work with her students, most of whom are on the Autism Spectrum. Before becoming a full-time teacher she worked off and on for the Henson Company and Disney. She worked for the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater, and in their archives/exhibits department. She also helped run the Muppet Whatnot Workshop at FAO Schwarz. Through Drama of Works she has attended many conferences, workshops, and events in the puppetry world...

She is helped by two other DOW Artistic Associates: Meghan Williams who is avid ally, artist, and mother of a young man on the Spectrum; and Molly Kohl another avid ally who works in the New Jersey school system with children with special needs, and she is an amateur ASL interpreter as well.

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PUPPET CLUB IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY FUNDS FROM ART/NY AND

FROM A GENEROUS DONATION BY THE JANE HENSON FOUNDATION

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