Wild Works:
Puppetry on the Edge
May 6, 2026
7:00pm
Tickets $24.50 (including fees)
featuring performances from
Nick Lehane
Maiko Kikuchi
Marcella Murray
Purser and Amanda Card
Wild Works: Puppetry on the Edge is a new performance series spotlighting artists who are reinventing and expanding the language of puppetry today. Curated by Resident Curator Amanda Card, the series features bold, boundary-pushing work that experiments with form, embraces risk, and explores the emotional and imaginative power of the animated.
Nick Lehane
Nick Lehane is a Brooklyn based theater maker and puppet artist. His collaboration with Derek Fordjour, Fly Away ran at Petzel Gallery as part of Fordjour’s premiere solo exhibition at the gallery, SELF MUST DIE. Lehane’s puppet play Chimpanzee premiered at HERE Arts Center through Basil Twist’s Dream Music Puppetry Program, with the generous support of The Jim Henson Foundation and Cheryl Henson. It has since been presented at the World Puppet Theater Festival in Charleville-Mézières, by Casteliers at Théâtre Aux Écuries in Montreal, and by The London International Mime Festival at The Barbican Centre. Lehane has collaborated with PigPen Theatre Co. as the co-puppet designer for The Tale of Despereaux (The Old Globe, Berkley Rep co-directed by Marc Bruni), as a puppet designer and deviser for The Phantom Folktales (Virgin Voyages), and as the understudy for The Old Man and The Old Moon. He was puppet designer, puppetry coach, and choreographed the shadow puppetry for Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn’s Hood (Asolo Rep., dir Mark Brokaw). His original puppet work has shown at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Puppet BloK at Dixon Place, The Jim Henson Carriage House, Special Effects Festival at wild project, and Pillsbury House Theatre. Lehane’s select puppet performance credits include Madama Butterly (The Metropolitan Opera), Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store and The Pigeoning (HERE Arts Center, international tour), Petrushka (Giants Are Small, New York Philharmonic, Barbican Centre), Islamic Solidarity Games Opening Ceremonies (Baku, Azerbaijan), Doug Fitch’s El Retablo de Maese Pedro (American Symphony Orchestra, Bard SummerScape), James Ortiz’s The Little Mermaid (Glass Bandits Theater Company, Strangemen Theatre Company) That Life (Unknown Mortal Orchestra), and “Lore” (Amazon). Lehane provided puppet and movement direction for SeaWife (Naked Angels). Lehane studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School and received his B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.
Maiko Kikuchi
Excerpt from Daydream Tutorial
Daydream Tutorial is a multidisciplinary performance piece by Maiko Kikuchi, blending puppetry, mask work, object manipulation, and projected animation. Composed of whimsical vignettes that explore surreal and introspective “tutorials” for everyday life, the work invites audiences into a playful space between the familiar and the uncanny. For this event, two vignettes from the full performance will be presented as excerpts.
Maiko Kikuchi is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City, working across puppetry, collage, animation, performance, and sculpture. She creates surreal, handcrafted worlds that blur the line between reality and imagination—what she calls “visible daydreams.” Originally from Japan, Kikuchi moved to the United States to study at Pratt Institute, where she received her MFA in Theater. Her artistic language is deeply influenced by her early fascination with box gardens used in sandplay therapy, introduced by her father, a psychoanalyst. her work draws on miniature worlds, memory, and subconscious imagery. Her work has been presented at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japan Society, HERE Arts Center, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.
Marcella Murray
A New York-based theatre artist from Augusta, Georgia, Murray is a playwright, performer, collaborator, and puppeteer. Her work is heavily inspired by the observed ways in which people tend to segregate and reconnect and tends to focus on themes of identity within a community and (hopefully) forward momentum in the face of trauma. Performances include The Slow Room, a piece directed by Annie Dorsen at Performance Space New York; a workshop of Ocean Filibuster, which was co-created by the team Pearl D’Amour (Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl) with composer Sxip Shirey at Abrons Arts Center; the work-in-progress, I Don’t Want to Interrupt You Guys, created in collaboration with Leonie Bell and Hyung Seok Jeon during RAP at Mabou Mines; New Mony, created by Maria Camia at Dixon Place; and Shoot Don’t Talk at St. Ann’s Warehouse/Puppet Lab, created by Andrew Murdock. Along with David Neumann, Murray recently co-created Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Obie Special Citation for Creation and Performance), which opened at Abrons Arts Center in January 2020. Murray is part of an artist collective called The Midwives.
Purser and Amanda Card
IM MUCH FUNNIER NOW
A live performance of Purser’s song “IM MUCH FUNNIER NOW” with puppetry by Amanda Glynn Card.
Singer-songwriter Bobbie Purser (they/he) is a world builder.
Their polished blend of razor-sharp storytelling and experimental production has earned them featured performances with Olive Klug and Jake Wesley Rogers, selection for the 2024 Keychange U.S. artist development program, a Nashville Scene premiere for their live EP “3x,” and a featured single “Blue & Green” on John Mayer’s Sirius XM radio show Life With John. Purser’s immersive sound and intimate performances make them what Tuned Up Magazine calls “an emerging force.”
Amanda Card (she/they) is a Bushwick-based interdisciplinary artist and puppeteer whose work blends memory, disappearance, and handmade visual storytelling. Select Performance credits include Boy Crazy (Ars Nova), Our Bodies Like Dams (Mabou Mines), 9000 Paper Balloons (Japan Society), Daydream Tutorial (La MaMa), Small Acts of Daring Invention (Drama Desk Nominee – HERE), The Greedy Peasant’s All Saints’ Day Celebration, and Yuliya Tsukerman’s The Luminous Crow. She received the 2021 Lipkin Prize for Playwriting and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.