Milestones In Memoriam
Patricia “Patty” Platt February 19, 1923–December 3, 2018
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Albert Almoznino March 3, 1923–April 7, 2020
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sraeli hand shadow artist Albert Almoznino was discovered by U.S. audiences when he first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. He went on to perform in Las Vegas and at Radio City Music Hall. Almoznino was born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1948, where he became an art teacher. He was known as a painter and maker of stained glass. He was the author of The Art of Hand Shadows, published by Stravon Educational Press (1970) and republished by Dover Publications (2002).
Thieri Foulc April 23, 1943–May 22, 2020 T 38
hieri Foulc served as the chief editor of the World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts (WEPA), published in French in 2009 (
https://wepa.unima.org/en). The titanic final editing involved working with more than 300 authors on more than 1,000 articles. It was a challenge, which he mastered with a refined sensibility.
Myrna Peterjohn June 26, 1936–December 30, 2019 M
yrna Peterjohn was an accomplished musician and music teacher. She married in 1961 and moved to California in 1965. In 1978, Myrna took a puppetry class with Mimi Holtzman, which opened up a whole new world of the arts. She worked with hand puppets, shadow puppets, and marionettes
at Platt was a talented puppeteer, artist, storyteller, and author of children’s stories. She passed away at the age of 95 in Salt Lake City, but most of her life was in San Diego, California. In 1958, she was a charter member of the San Diego Guild of Puppetry. In the 1960s she opened her own home theater, “The Puppet Playhouse” in Ocean Beach, California, which she operated for 17 years. Pat directed the 1966 National Puppetry Festival in San Diego and served on the board of Puppeteers of America. She especially loved making pup- pets out of gourds. She had a long, productive friendship with Lewis Mahlmann of Oakland’s Fairyland Puppet Theater. They would often perform each other’s shows. She is remembered for her loving nature, her effervescent personality, and her keen sense of humor. —Contributed by Tom Jenson
and was a long-time member of Puppeteers of America and the Orange County Puppetry Guild. She is survived by two daughters, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
Aesop 620–564 BCE T
he enduring, inspirational stories of Aesop are more than 2,500 years old. All the information about Aesop is speculation, including his dates, where he was born, what he looked like, what stories he told. The stories attributed to him have launched hundreds, maybe thousands of puppet shows. His animal characters, speaking as humans, are among the earliest examples of talking animals, a through line that includes Peter Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and Kermit the Frog. When I was preparing a puppet version of Aesop, I asked a Greek expert at the University of Pennsylvania Museum two questions: What is the correct way to pronounce his name? Is the theory that Aesop was Black correct? The Greek scholar of ancient Greek culture said, “His name is essentially the Greek word for Ethiopian: aethiop. Use a long ‘e’ sound, and the ‘s’ is actually a ‘th’ sound. When you say it that way, the relationship to Ethiopia is quite clear.” The explanation convinced me that those legendary ancient stories were very likely told by a man of color. Herodotus, Aristotle, and Plutarch all reference Aesop’s fables and mention that he was a slave (but no mention of race), perhaps from Samos, or Sardis, or Phrygia. After William Caxton introduced the printing press to England, his second published book, after the Bible, was Aesop’s Fables, printed in 1484. It was the first printed English edition of hundreds of later versions. We can’t be 100% certain that Aesop was Black (it was an awfully long time ago), but there is a long, unjust practice of not crediting important contributions by people of color. —Contributed by Steve Abrams
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