We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Teddy Yudain. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Teddy below.

Alright, Teddy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My wife is also an actor. She and her parents were very active at The Monomoy Theater in Cape Cod. It was a training ground for theater students that operated only in the summer, a different show basically every week. It was a formative place for her and an important place for her whole family. Her godfather, who was also a fixture at the theater, is a puppeteer and designer and he asked me to help him build and perform the puppets for their production of “Little Shop of Horrors”. I had never built any puppets for a professional show, and I was thoroughly tested in my knowledge and ability. My wife was cast as the lead in her father’s production of “As You Like It” which played the week after our show. I finally got to experience the magic of that place, and we were experiencing it together. The theater was having financial troubles though, and what we didn’t know at the time was that we were part of the very last season of The Monomoy Theater. I’m so grateful for that summer for the artistic collaboration with her godfather, and for the month we got to spend together making new memories as a family.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I grew up in a family of actors and singers. Both of my parents did musical theater and brought my sister and I along to all of the rehearsals and performances, so I basically grew up in the theatre. I went to the University of CT to study acting and while I was there I realized my love of physical theater, clown, and puppetry. UConn is one of the few places that offers a degree in Puppetry, and I was exposed to many different styles of puppetry and puppet artists. Out of school I was cast in a puppet opera, “El Gato Con Botas” with Tectonic Theatre Project and Gotham Chamber Opera, where I joined an ensemble of up and coming NYC puppeteers, and this is what changed the course of my career for the next 13 years. I joined the puppetry community and found creative and performance opportunities that I hadn’t been able to find as an actor and singer. I was frequently workshopping and developing new work, and my strong performance background along with special skills like puppetry, singing and playing musical instruments, improvisation and clown meant that I was useful asset in many different scenarios. All of this work culminated in getting cast in the current Off-Broadway revival of “Little Shop of Horrors”, where I serve as a puppeteer and Puppet Captain (similar to a Dance Captain) as well as an understudy for both Seymour and Orin et al. It’s a job that utilizes all of my performance skills and has also thrust me into a leadership role which is still new for me.

While Broadway was shut down during 2020/21 I enrolled in many online courses studying with puppet artists around the world learning about puppet construction, since most of my work has been purely as a performer. My heart went to carving wooden puppets which I studied with Puppets in Prague and Bernd Ogrodnik, whom I continue to study with currently as part of his Academy of the Wooden Puppet in the Mastermind Program.

With puppetry becoming more visible on Broadway stages, I’m currently working on offering my services as a puppetry director, coach, and consultant since it’s a niche art form with its own set of rules.
And as I develop as a puppet builder and designer, I would love to eventually offer those services for professional productions as well.

Currently I’m most proud of celebrating 1,000 performances of “Little Shop of Horrors”, where I am the only remaining original cast member in the acting company.

The thing that has served my career and my soul is to Follow the Fun, and it’s my north star for any decision I make.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think one of the best ways to support artists and serving the creative ecosystem is creating more access to art for people regardless of their income, and I think one way to do that is government subsidies for arts institutions. The American theatre system as we know it is not sustainable, whether it’s expensive tickets for commercial Broadway/Off-Broadway or Not-for-profits and regional theaters with a subscription model. Art should not be only available to people who can afford it, and we can’t continue to rely on corporations and philanthropists to make accessible what is so essential to the human experience.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect is meeting other creative people, experiencing their art and seeing the world through their particular lens. I’ve participated in the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference which is an annual gathering of puppet artists from around the world, where I’ve gotten to work with puppet artists and learn from them and actually try on their own special methodology and processes. It’s an incredibly broadening experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.teddyyudain.com
• Instagram: @teddy_yudain

Image Credits
Michael Haller, Richard Termine, Bruce Glikas, Thomas Mundell, Rebecca J Michelson, Todd Owyoung