(left, Luna's directing team: Linda, Christine & Karl) More from Nicole's interview with Linda Wingerter, Luna's writer and co-creator:
How did you know it would work best as a puppet show?
With visits to the aquarium to come up with ideas I fell in love with the animals, especially the stingrays, and was very inspired by the reactions of children seeing these animals for the first time. I watched a little boy delighted to have a sea lion chase a penny he held up to the glass. I knew I wanted to have that spirit on stage, and the only way to do it was to have puppet animals and a real child actor. As the project grew, I was lucky to find the best collaborators I could hope for, including Jen McClure, a top notch props artisan from Yale University; Christine Poland, an incredible dancer and choreographer; Karl Gasteyer, an amazing director who is great with kids; and Tashia Levy, a brilliant stage manager and consultant. All of them added so much more to the original vision. And once our puppeteers began rehearsing, Jen and I would build puppets, watch the performers figure out how to use them, see Christine's ideas of how to dance with them, and Karl's directing expertise to express the storyline, then make modifications. It's been the most productive collaborative project I've ever been involved with.
