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The Caterpillar's Footprint
The Caterpillar's Footprint
The Caterpillar's Footprint
The Caterpillar's Footprint
The Caterpillar's Footprint
Virtual Program
Cast
Koda: Myanne Zachary
Cousin, the Musician: AiRos Sung-En medill
Sturgeon: Sharaina (Shay) Turnage
Coyote: Emilie Wingate
Goose: Rachel Hartmann
Puppeteer Understudy: Chio Cabrera
Koda/Cousin Understudy: Caroline M. Watson
Production Team
Director: Alyssa Vera Ramos
Scenic/Props Designers: Josué Esau & Kal Haille
Puppet Designer: Emilie Wingate
Costume Designer: Jazmin Aurora Medina
Puppet Movement Director: Michele Stine
Puppet Fabricators: Anna Villanyi, Rachel Hartmann, Emilie Wingate
Production Coordinator: Madeline M. Freeman
Assistant Stage Manager: Emma Smith
Play Development Teaching Artists: Alyssa Vera Ramos, Ashley Laverty
Poster Art: Emilie Wingate
Special thanks to:
Preschool students at Saint Mary of the Woods School
Erin Poor
Eco Flamingo
West Ridge Nature Park Advisory Council
Puppet Zoo
South Side Nature Play Group
Krissi McEachern
Jim Alrutz
Wyatt Kent
The Edge Theater
This project is supported in part by funding through the Night Out in the Parks in collaboration with Rabbit Foot Puppetry.
We'd like to thank The Puffin Foundation for their support of this project.
Cast Bios
Myanne Zachary
Myanne is delighted to return with Kerfuffle and make new friends with Rabbit Foot Puppetry! An early education major, they dream of one day getting paid to make believe professionally. Myanne loves creating laughter, wonder, and wildly imaginative worlds where stories leap off the stage and into young hearts. Myanne is driven by their belief that theatre is the magical place where reality and pretend shake hands. Past adventures include performances with PlayMakers Laboratory, Mr. Kringle's Inventionasium Experience, Improv Playhouse, and The Cornservatory.
AiRos Sung-En medill (air/airs & they/them)
AiRos 頌恩 medill practices with the 5 elements (water, wood, fire, metal, earth) as a way to connect to their lineage through the ecosystem of the body. AiRos has begun to hold song circles for community calling to voice as movement. Airs makes protective adornments from clothes and beads passed down to them. Reimaging through dismantling their inheritance and weaving together repair. In 2024 AiRos was an Artist in residence at Links Hall’s CO-Mission and received a Make Wave Grant from 3Arts as a visual artist in fall 2023. AiRos currently works as a licensed massage therapist.
Sharaina (Shay) Turnage (she/her)
Sharaina is an actor, puppeteer and (sometimes) clown from the south side of Chicago. With her B.A. in Theater Performance from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in hand, Sharaina has performed across the US and Suriname, South America (studied and performed Afro-Surinamese Du Theatre to Surinamese, Illinois and Maryland audiences) Scotland (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and Singapore (International Festival of Arts). Most recently a touring puppeteer with Manual Cinema (Leonardo!, Mementos Mori, No Blue Memories, The End of TV), Free Street Theater (A Mild Goose Chase created for Night Out in The Parks), Physical Theater Festival (Curiosity Caught The Cat - a short clown show) and Bread and Roses Co (Mrs. Palmers Honey radio show on Spotify). Sharaina would like to thank her small circle of family, friends, and Uncle Nearest whiskey.
Emilie Wingate (she/they)
Emilie Wingate is a Georgia born-Chicago based Puppet fabricator. She has a focus on animal, anatomy, movement, and behavior, which she explores through the medium of puppetry. All of her work is made from completely recycled and found materials. It is her golden life to create a puppet zoo with puppets instead of real animals.
Rachel Hartmann (she/they)
Rachel Hartmann is a puppeteer, stilt walker, and carpenter based in Chicago,IL. They have worked with the Chicago International Puppet Festival, Center for Puppetry Arts, and performed with Electric Forest and the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival. They are a co-director at Rabbitfoot Puppetry and love create wherever they go.
Chio Cabrera
Chio Cabrera is a puppetry artist from Chicago. She creates tabletop, shadow, and large-scale puppetry rooted in community storytelling and youth collaboration. Chio is the Co-Director of Opera-Matic, where she develops accessible, participatory arts experiences for audiences of all ages. She loves using puppetry to explore history, advance justice, and foster collective creation. Co-creation is her favorite method of artistic exploration. She has collaborated with Free Street Theater, TIAHUI, Palenque LSNA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. Her work has also been exhibited at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.
Caroline M. Watson (she/her)
Caroline M. Watson (she/her) is a Chicago-based theatre artist, poet, and educator. She was born and raised in Texas and is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. Caroline serves as Filament Theatre’s Director of Engagement, as well being a performer and teaching artist. Caroline has devised new work and toured nationally performing at such venues as The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and The Arden as a company member with Theater Unspeakable. Above all, Caroline has a passion for creating spaces for artists, young and old, to find their voices and thrive.
Production Team Bios
Alyssa Vera Ramos (she/her)
Alyssa Vera Ramos (Director) is a theatre director, intimacy director, facilitator, and cultural strategist dedicated to dreaming — and living into — a liberated world. For more than 15 years, Alyssa has directed, devised, and co-written many plays and workshops for audiences of all ages throughout Chicago and its suburbs, with tours to Austin, New Orleans, Detroit, and more. Her artistic work explores themes of reproductive justice, racial justice, advocacy for sexual violence survivors, decolonization, collective learning and resistance, her Puerto Rican heritage, and getting in right relationship with ancestors and each other— all through a participatory and pleasure-based lens. Recent directing credits include We Could Be (About Face Theatre at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble), Tacos LA Brooklyn (staged reading at UrbanTheater Company), and You Can’t Cover the Sky with Your Hand(s) (excerpt at Pivot Arts).
Alyssa has been awarded grants for her artwork from 3Arts, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and others. Of note is her involvement as founding member of artistic collective FEMelanin, whose work is documented in the text Ensemble-Made Chicago, and was selected for the Latinx Theatre Commons’ Sin Fronteras TYA Festival for Epic Tales from the Land of Melanin, which she directed. You can read about (and practice) Alyssa’s work with The Sex Ed Playbook: Participatory Theatre for Health Education, which she co-authored, or the chapter she co-wrote in Into Abolitionist Theatre: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making. Presently, Alyssa is an organizer of Swarm Artist Residency, where she focuses on curating healing and racial justice experiences for Midwestern-based artists.
Alyssa holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work Sexual Health Certificate Program. As an intimacy professional, she studied with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, Inc. (IDC - Certification Pending), Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE), and others. A lifelong learner, she has trained in community accountability with Just Practice and in applied theatre and civic engagement through performance at Sojourn Theatre Institute, The Center for Performance & Civic Practice, Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., and Cardboard Citizens-UK.
Alyssa has been awarded grants for her artwork from 3Arts, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and others. Of note is her involvement as founding member of artistic collective FEMelanin, whose work is documented in the text Ensemble-Made Chicago, and was selected for the Latinx Theatre Commons’ Sin Fronteras TYA Festival for Epic Tales from the Land of Melanin, which she directed. You can read about (and practice) Alyssa’s work with The Sex Ed Playbook: Participatory Theatre for Health Education, which she co-authored, or the chapter she co-wrote in Into Abolitionist Theatre: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making. Presently, Alyssa is an organizer of Swarm Artist Residency, where she focuses on curating healing and racial justice experiences for Midwestern-based artists.
Alyssa holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work Sexual Health Certificate Program. As an intimacy professional, she studied with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, Inc. (IDC - Certification Pending), Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE), and others. A lifelong learner, she has trained in community accountability with Just Practice and in applied theatre and civic engagement through performance at Sojourn Theatre Institute, The Center for Performance & Civic Practice, Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., and Cardboard Citizens-UK.
Jazmin Aurora Medina (she/her/ella
Jazmin (hahz-meen) Aurora Medina is a Xicana interdisciplinary artist based in the midwest, but is a frequent adventurer with her design work! With a focus in costume design, Jazmin believes in the magical power of empathetic, transformative storytelling through her practice. This is her first show with Kerfuffle, and she couldn’t be more excited to join this creative team! Previous design credits include theatre work in Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Colorado, Seattle, and DC. Jazmin also has received the honor of being selected as one of thirty-four US 'young emerging costume designers' for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial for EURYDICE (UW-Waukesha). She wouldn't be here without the constant support of her family, friends and community, and would like to continually honor them through her work. For current and upcoming work check out @jazminnauroraa on IG or jazminaurora.com for more! Bendiciones!
Josué Esau
Kal Haille
Emilie Wingate (she/they)
Emilie Wingate is a Georgia born-Chicago based Puppet fabricator. She has a focus on animal, anatomy, movement, and behavior, which she explores through the medium of puppetry. All of her work is made from completely recycled and found materials. It is her golden life to create a puppet zoo with puppets instead of real animals.
Michele Stine (she/they)
Emma Smith (she/her)
Emma Smith is a Director, Stage/Wardrobe Manager, and Teaching Artist emerging in the Chicago theater scene. Since graduating from Loyola University Chicago in 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, Emma has worked with Court Theatre, Northwestern University, Chicago Children's Theatre, Madison Ballet, and The Apollo Theater. Before her career in the theater, Emma worked as an outdoor educator for Northwest Outdoor Science School and Campfire Columbia in Oregon, where she is originally from. She is excited to synthesize her love of nature, teaching, and theater at Kerfuffle!
Madeline M. Freeman
Founded by Rachel Hartmann and Abby Palen
Rabbit Foot Puppetry is a LGBTQIA+ puppetry collective committed to creating bold, original puppet theatre. Rooted in spectacle and driven by imagination, the collective’s work fuses the technical precision of puppetry with the joy of play and experimentation. Rabbit Foot Puppetry creates performances for audiences of all ages, centering accessibility, wonder, and meaningful engagement and strives to craft shared experiences that are both thought-provoking and delightfully strange.
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