Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545257
28 PROP CULTURE I SUMMER 2026 out of clay, made a pattern, and built three identical heads out of L200 foam. In the center head, I embedded a bike helmet and in the outer two heads, I embedded handles in their snouts so that the puppeteer could wear the center head and manipulate the outer two with her hands. Up until that point, the Cerberus puppet was my most mechanically ambitious build to date. I also made a simpler snake puppet that had to be maneuverable enough to wrap around the actor playing Persephone and appear to squeeze her to death. I bring up these puppets in this article on props because of the unique nature of that play. The puppets were both characters, as well as props for the actors and I found that sort of meta feeling about the puppets to be a challenging and yet rewarding perspective. You don't find that sort of performance in film and television. For the most part, those puppets are the characters and the puppeteers don't exist. So, to be able to create something that both are and isn't at the same time was deeply fulfilling. I ended up winning a Kennedy Center Award for Outstanding Puppet Design for The Forgetting River and it was an honor to be recognized for doing something that I love. After relocating to Los Angeles, I was hired to work on a feature- length puppet film called Yamasong: March of the Hollows. The creator and director of the film, Sam Koji Hale, used bunraku-style puppetry in which one puppeteer controls the head and right side, one puppeteer controls the left side and any extra appendage CERBERUS KLIK-KLAK CHARON