'Annie': Muppet meister comes to Sandy’s rescue

When director James Larson decided to use a puppet as the stray dog, Sandy, in the Rose Theater’s production of “Annie,” he lucked out. He had no idea he had an expert on his staff to train the young puppet handler for his show, which opens Friday.

Stephanie Jacobson, who teaches children’s theater classes at the Rose, worked three years at the Jim Henson Co. in New York City, which produces episodes of “Sesame Street” and created “The Muppet Show.”

Though she never operated puppets on those shows, Jacobson did assemble background characters and learned from watching on the set. She often took home Henson archive videos for study.

“I’m a complete puppet geek, ever since I was itty-bitty,” Jacobson said. She grew up in the New York City suburb of Westchester and earned her master’s of fine arts degree in acting at the University of Iowa.

She and other graduate students there experimented with writing for puppetry, and she became something of an expert on Japanese and Indonesian puppets. Her husband’s family is from Sioux City, Iowa, and they moved to Omaha in 2006.

Destiny may also have played a hand in the selection of 10-year-old Samantha Sullivan to operate Sandy. Samantha’s grandfather, Tom Fellman, is a puppeteer as well, operating stringed marionettes.

“It runs in the family,” said Samantha’s mom.

Jacobson sees it as a great opportunity to involve a younger performer with puppetry.

“Samantha is so excited and eager to be involved,” Jacobson said. “And the energy of a 10-year-old is great to match with an enthusiastic dog who loves to be around people. There’s a playfulness you wouldn’t always find in an adult.”

Larson said he had used real dogs in the Rose’s two previous productions of “Annie,” which is based on the mop-top orphan from the comic strips.

“Over the years, we’ve done more with animal puppetry in shows like ‘Where the Red Fern Grows’ and ‘Old Yeller,’ ” Larson said. “Kids really like life-size puppets, and you can do things with the puppet you can’t with a live dog.”

Like predictably control when and where the animal moves.

Samantha, a student at Swanson Elementary School, is the daughter of Charlie and Louri Sullivan of Omaha. She said her active imagination has helped her decide how to make Sandy run, jump or grab food.

“You have to think of how a real dog would react and move,” she said.

Lizzy Fleissner and Ashton Taylor alternate in the title role. Danielle Smith is nasty old Miss Hannigan, who runs the orphanage, while Michael Harrelson and Leanne Hill Carlson are Rooster and Lily, who hatch a swindle. Michael Wilhelm plays Daddy Warbucks, and Wendy Eaton is his secretary.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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