Recently, the Dynamic Family hosted a very special guest: Ms. Julie Zobel – sister-in-law of Mrs. Zobel and lead puppet designer/creator of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop!
Julie Zobel began her career at Henson in New York City in 1980 as part of the Costume Department. She specialized in designing, creating, and building the large walkaround characters that were employed by arena shows and public relations, such as Sesame Street Live, Muppet Show on Tour, and Muppet Babies on Tour. She worked on numerous other Henson productions and toy prototyping during those years as well.
In 1991, she moved out to Los Angeles to be part of the LA Creature Shop when Dinosaurs went into production and remained there to be a part of opening the west coast Creature Shop. Her work in Los Angeles has often been for outside production companies who want realistic animal puppets to match performing animals in movies such as Dr. Dolittle. Fifteen years after leaving the New York Workshop, Julie Zobel often finds her time spent working with familiar Muppet characters once again.
Ms. Julie talked with our students about her work in the Creature Shop and we took lots of photos to document our time with our special guest. Check them out – especially the awesome display board that Ms. Laura Keene made for us!!!
