About Little Wing Puppets

Since 2006, Little Wing Puppets have toured their fun and inspiring puppet shows to thousands of children in every state and territory of Australia, as well as overseas. Their work has grown out of a love of the art of puppetry and telling a good story. Young people are always invited inside the theatrical experience rather than simply looking in. 

Artistic Director, Jenny Ellis

Jenny has been performing and making puppets for over 20 years. Jenny tells big, heart-warming stories brought to life with a single set of hands. She has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Puppetry from the Victorian College of the Arts. Jenny was a Researcher for the NSW Minister for Education from 2003-2005 and has a Bachelor of Social Ecology majoring in environmental education. Her show, The Mermaid's Daughter with Company Gongoma won the Melbourne Fringe Festival Award for The Best School Holiday Program 2008. In 2011 Jenny was mentored by master shadow puppeteer Richard Bradshaw as part of the national Jump Mentoring program. She was also awarded a major fellowship by the Mike Walsh Foundation to research contemporary puppetry in Europe in 2012.  In 2013, Jenny received the Australian Children’s Theatre Foundation’s Joan and Betty Rayner commission to create Spike. Jenny graduated from the Helikos School for International Theatre Creation in Italy in 2014. 

Jenny is also a passionate teacher. She has undertaken many teaching residencies as part of the Victorian Government’s Artists-in-Schools program and has also directed many large-scale festival projects involving hundreds of people, including the France to Freycinet Festival in Tasmania, 2012, and for two consecutive Upwelling Festivals in Western Victoria, in 2015 and 2016. 

Co-Writer, Anne Brooksbank

Anne has written a number of scripts for children and has won two AWGIE Awards for children’s screenwriting. In 1985 her script entitled On Loan was produced for the Winners television series by the Children’s Film and Television Corporation. The produced film won a Media Peace Award, and she subsequently adapted the script into a novel which was reprinted eleven times by Penguin and is still widely borrowed from school libraries. Since then, she has gone on to write five more books for children and young adults. Her book Mother’s Day was listed as Highly Recommended in the Family Therapists’ Association Awards in 2006. Sir Katherine was listed as a Notable Australian Book in the Children’s Council Book Awards in 2008. Father’s Day was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Children’s Literature in 2012.

Director, Jacob Williams

Jacob is a multi-award winning graduate of The Victorian College of the Arts from Melbourne, Victoria. Jacob began his career in Tasmania with Terrapin Puppet Theatre and has since gone on to perform and collaborate with some of Australia's leading theatre companies. He was Head Puppeteer on King Kong-Live on Stage for Global Creatures for which he won both a Helpman and Green Room award. Jacob is the co-artistic director of the award-winning company Lemony S Puppet Theatre, whose work has toured nationally and internationally. Jacob is currently performing in the role of ‘Kong Captain’ for King Kong on Broadway, New York.

Co-Director, Clare Bartholomew

Clare has been performing, writing and producing new work in Australia and overseas for 17 years. She teaches clown master classes, has been a clown doctor working in children’s wards for 15 years.  Clare is also co-producer of the highly successful cabaret/comedy act Die Roten Punkte. Her work has received seven Green Room Award nominations and winner of Best Cabaret.

Composer, Thomas

Thomas ‘Soup’ Campbell writes tunes, DJ’s and is a sound engineer. He has worked and toured extensively with various artists including MISO, Joelistics, The Cumbia Cosmonauts, and Editor. 

Puppet Maker, Lauren Redpath

Lauren loves working with the weird and wonderful. She is graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts where she specialised in Props and Puppet Making. She has worked many times with Little Wing, and other companies including Global Creatures, Polyglot, Oz Opera and Bunk Puppets. She is currently undertaking a Post-Graduate Diploma in Visual Art at the VCA.

Scenic Artist, Dayna Morrissey

Dayna is a production designer and scenic artist in the theatre and film industries. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007 with a Postgraduate Diploma in theatre design. Her work includes; Persona (Fraught Outfit) Speaking in Tongues (Griffin Theatre Company); Beyond The Neck, The City, Faces in the Crowd and This Wide Night (Red Stitch); Devine and The Lost Stories of the Magdalen Asylum (2010 Melbourne Fringe, Peepshow Inc.); Heracles High Five (Meat Market, Arts House & A-is-for-Atlas); Shadow Boxing (Tower Theatre Malthouse, The Groundswell Division); Smashed by Lally Katz, (VCA Directors season).

Production Manager, Jeremy Lavender

Jeremy joined Little Wing Puppets in 2015.  Jeremy co-developed Trinket the Robot, and has managed Little Wing tours in Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. He has worked as an artist on many residencies with Little Wing including two Upwelling Festivals, a Bunraku puppetry residency with students in the Bass Coast Region of Victoria and the development of a shadow puppet show with the Wugularr Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory for the Walking with Spirits Festival 2016. Jeremy has co-facilitated two month-long Creative Learning Partnerships making masks with the students of Langley Primary and Redesdale Mia Mia Primary and Bunraku-style puppets with Mother of God School, Ardeer.