MONTEVALLO – Leah Craft of Hartselle, a senior theatre major at the University of Montevallo, is currently working as an intern in the Jim Henson Creature Shop in New York. Other interns in the studio are students from Parsons School of Design and the Pratt Institute, both high-profile design schools.

In addition to patterning costumes for puppets and repairing Sesame Street® characters from around the world, Leah has had the opportunity to meet guest stars, observe master puppeteers like Carrol Spinney (Big Bird) at work and design and build her own puppet to be featured on an upcoming episode of Sesame Street®. In a letter to Emily Gill, assistant professor of theatre at UM, she said, “Got invited to lunch today. Realized halfway through I was the only one at the table without an Emmy. Awkward!”

Craft was also an attendee and frequent drop-in visitor to master puppeteers in Prague as part of the UM Theatre trip to the Prague Quadrennial in 2011, where she was also an invited participant in the USA Student Exhibit.