Hi, my name is Naomi Guss! Or, as I’m better known as: the lady behind the screen. I live in Melbourne, Australia, hence “Puppets in Melbourne".

Most people would tell you that they got into puppetry as a kid. Or because of The Muppets. Nope, not me. I didn’t really see much of the Muppets/Sesame St and I never saw puppets as a kid. I started off doing ‘plain’ theatre, as a backstage technician and got into puppetry mainly from doing it at university.

I really started to dig it when I left uni, and with two graduates we created our own company: Sticky Apple Legs. We produced our first show in 2003, and in between work and other things I started making more and more puppets at home.

After about seven years of trying different types of puppets, I settled on shadow puppets as my specialty. I like them. They relax me, and I’m actually good at making them. However, I still like doing other types of puppetry, and for that I have School of Puppetry, where I get to dabble in other areas without committing to them full time. There you can find patterns, tutorials and other things for a variety of puppet styles. You can read more about how School of Puppetry got started here.