PROGRAM
BELOW

ACT ONE: Charlie prologue... = Kell Selznick & Adrienne Gomez

Kell Selznick is a puppeteer based in Queens and has been puppeteering and building puppets for over a decade. During the day they stitch or prep wardrobe for Broadway shows and at night they are a devoted cat parent. Previous Punch's include Ubu Roi and WW2. Favorite puppet jobs include Frozen, Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train, and Erth's Dinosaur Zoo.

Adrienne Gomez is a Chicana/Puerto Rican writer, comic, and producer born and raised in Southern California. She attended California State University, Northridge from 2008 to 2011, where she majored in Theatre and minored in Philosophy. From 2012 to 2019, she wrote, performed, and produced sketch comedy in Los Angeles. In 2019, she moved to New York City to earn her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with a thesis in playwriting. Gomez currently lives in Brooklyn and is pursuing stand-up comedy and playwriting. @kellznick and @adriemmecgomez

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ACT TWO: The Golden Tickets! = Sonya Sobieski/Crooked Square Puppetry

Sonya Sobieski is a playwright dramaturg turned pandemic puppeteer. Her short puppet films have been presented around the U.S. and in Canada. Live on stage in NYC: La Mama Puppet Slam, Drama of Works, We Wiggle Dolls, and The Idiot’s Hour. Media used: anything that works, preferably upcycled. Affiliated artist with Obie Award-winning New Georges, for whom she also serves as New Play Advocate. Aspiring clown at Brooklyn Comedy Collective. MFA Brooklyn College. @crookedsquare

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ACT THREE: Pure Imagination! = Marcelo Bottaro/The Figments

Marcelo Bottaro is a cartoonist voice actor, puppeteer, and our teacher locally from Brooklyn. New York has been teaching puppetry for over three years and has been performing puppetry and developing his craft for over 22 years. Instagram handles: @marcelobottaro_927  @figmentsinc @bottarocartoons

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ACT FOUR: Augustus! = Esme Roszel

Esme Roszel is a Brooklyn based teaching artist and puppeteer hailing from Plymouth, Massachusetts. His work has been seen at Jalopy Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, Puppet Showplace, and the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. Other recent puppetry projects include “Song of the North” (Fictionville Studios),“Bequeathed” (Dixon Place), and “The Legend of the Snow Queen” (Puppet Bucket Productions).  He holds a BFA in Puppet Arts from University of Connecticut. View his work at esmeroszel.com or @esmeroszel on Instagram.

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ACT FIVE: The Tunnel! = Hailey Bendar

Hailey is a puppet artist living in NYC. She has worked in television as a puppet wrangler and gotten into shenanigans in the Pennsylvania Theme Park scene. She is an alumni of Drama of Works' December 2024 slam, and spends her days with people of her maturity level as an elementary school teaching artist. She thanks her amazing boyfriend Ben and her cats, Tenar and God Emperor Clementine of the Known Universe, for their love and support. Hailey can be found on Instagram at @thehaileybendar, website coming eventually.

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ACT SIX: Violet! = Zlata Godunova, with Ariel Lewis and Stephan Shteynberg

Zlata is a performer, puppeteer, and designer. Classically trained at the National Academic Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy in Ukraine, she recently starred in the one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. She puppeteered in Magic of Light with Yara Arts Group and Tom Lee at La MaMa, and was part of the International Puppet Slam in 2024. You can find her in Central Park, where she works as a puppeteer at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater. @zlata_god zlatagodunova.com

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ACT SEVEN: Veruca! = Ricky Downes

Ricky Downes is a New York based comedian, voice actor, and puppeteer and SO excited to be joining Drama of Works for this delightfully delectable puppet slam! Ricky specializes in highly energetic, animated character comedy with a fusion of performance art, puppetry, props, drag, classic stand-up comedy, music, and more! Previous antics include the Off-Broadway, national tour of Paddington – playing the iconic bear himself, a one man show of The Lion King at The People’s Improv Theater, and going viral for singing the entirety of the Broadway hit Hamilton in the voices of the Muppets. Ricky also loves ducks! @rickydownesiii

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ACT EIGHT: Mike TeeVee! = Anthony Sellitto-Budney/BreakFAST Puppets

Anthony Sellitto-Budney (They/Them) is a graduate of the UConn Puppet Arts BFA Program and founder of BreakFAST Puppets. They are a puppeteer, clown, and performance artist and have been featured in the NOLA Giant Puppet Fest, the Asheville Fringe Fest, and were the 2023 Emerging Artist at the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference. @skunklurv

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ACT NINE: Charlie! = Kate Brehm/imnotlost

Kate Brehm is a professional puppeteer and movement director. Recent credits: The Odyssey at A.R.T. (puppet design and direction), Song of the North at the New Vic (puppeteer). Her New York based company, imnotlost, has produced full length and short form puppet shows alongside interactive events since 2003. She has enjoyed touring the world performing for amazing artists such as Basil Twist, Lee Breuer, Chris Green, and Torry Bend, in places like Japan, China, Chile, France, Sweden, England, Italy, the Netherlands, and across the USA. @therealkatebrehm