The Harlem Doll Palace

Aunt Len, Playwright

Alva Rogers, the Artistic Director of ALVA PUPPET THEATER, is a dramatist, puppeteer, and multidisciplinary artist. The company’s most recent work, Topsy-Turvy, was presented at The 2024 Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Gala at the request of Creative Trailblazer honoree, Solange Knowles and The Museum of Modern Art in 2023. Her work with Rodeo Caledonia High Fidelity Performance Theater ignited an early career as a performance artist and film actor (School Daze, Daughters of the Dust). Later, she concentrated more on writing, earning MFAs in Musical Theatre Writing (NYU/Tisch) and Playwriting (Brown); she also holds an MAT in History (Bard).

Director, Puppeteer: Ninon

Ash Winkfield (xe/xem/xyr) is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in theater and the puppetry arts. Winkfield specializes in new and devised work presented in New York City, and has toured domestically and internationally with Basil Twist (Rite of Spring, Sister’s Follies, Book of Mountains and Seas), The Walk with Little Amal (NYC, Toronto, US Tour), and most recently Yaa Samar Dance Theater’s world premiere of “Gathering”. Winkfield is passionate about creating work that speaks to the emotional experience of humanity in the face of injustice. 

Learn more at www.AshleyWinkfield.com

Doll Collector, Puppeteer: Army Talking Doll, The Missus

Mecca has starred in off-Broadway productions of Pinocchio with New York Children’s Theatre, Sesame Street: The Musical with Rockefeller Productions and TREE HAUS with the New York Drama Company. Akbar also toured in PACKRAT with Concrete Temple Theatre. She trained at New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in Chelsea Manhattan, as well as the British Academy for Dramatic Arts’ Midsummer Shakespeare program at Oxford University. Mecca is a rotating marionettist at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park and freelances as a puppet builder. She is also a traveling Product Specialist with Toyota. 

Puppeteer: Brown Nurse Doll, Sarah

Thalya I. David (she/her)is a Haitian-American actress from Florida with a BA in Fine Arts at Broward College. In 2017, she moved to New York to continue to pursue an acting career and received her BFA in Acting at Marymount Manhattan College(2020). She worked in Love and Information at the  Live Arts (MMC off campus production) , Man-I-Festo  (on campus and at Manhattan Repertory Theatre). Started puppeteer with  Maria Camia’s Healing Shipment (2022-2023). She has the pleasure to work with Alva Roger’s Harlem Doll Palace (2023) IG: basiiiq

Puppeteer: Grace Kelly Doll, Early

“Part celestial creature, part sophisticated human” is how Charlotte Lily Gaspard has been described by Faerie Magazine when contemplating the ethereal artist and her work in one of their features. Shadow puppet artist, educator, entertainer, and "bona fide fairy princess" (DUMBO Living), Charlotte’s mission is to activate imaginations and celebrate playfulness wherever she goes.

Charlotte is the founder, artistic director and "fanciful mastermind" (Broadway World) behind Midnight Radio Show, a shadow puppet sci-fi fairytale theater company based in Brooklyn, NYC. Charlotte and her collective are known for devising innovative avant-garde enchantments, infused with puppets, poetry, music and dance, for the stage and beyond.

Midnight Radio Show is pleased to announce "The Origin of Puccini the Cat", an illustrated children's book based on Charlotte's shadow puppetry and silhouette artwork, is now available from Cool Grove Press. 

More at:www.MidnightRadioShow.org

Puppeteer: Izannah Walker Doll, Hannah

Marcella Murray is a New York-based theater artist from Augusta, Georgia. She is a playwright, performer, collaborator, and puppeteer. Murray’s work is heavily inspired by the observed ways in which people tend to segregate and reconnect. Her work tends to focus on themes of identity within a community and (hopefully) forward momentum in the face of trauma. 

Along with David Neumann, Murray recently co-created Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Obie Special Citation for Creation and Performance) which opened at Abrons Arts Center in January of 2020, and Primer for an Impossible Conversation, a digital theater piece which premiered in 2021 at MCA Chicago. They are currently developing a third piece with the support of UNC Chapel Hill's Center for Performing Arts. Murray is a co-curator of the Object Movement Puppetry Residency. In 2022, she was an Artist in Residence at LaMaMa ETC with her original piece Other Atlantas, as well as a participant in the Experiments in Opera Writer’s Room. Murray is a guest professor of Theatre at Sarah Lawrence College.

Music, Lyrics and Scoring

Bruce Monroe, a DGA member, has been writing with Alva Rogers since they first met at the Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU (including the musicals Sunday, Mermaid, and nightbathing). A Seattle-based composer, lyricist, librettist, orchestrator, dance arranger, music director, and conductor, he has also scored independent films and audio/video series for Battleground Productions (credits on imdb.com). He is married to Seattle Times arts writer, and novelist, Moira Macdonald.

Sound Design

Dave Pascal is a Seattle-based musician, producer, and sound designer. He performs as a bassist in theater orchestras, studios, music venues, and on tours. His work as a composer, producer, sound designer, and music director includes Emmy-winning TV projects, award-winning educational multi-media, and theatrical productions around the U.S.

Lighting Design

Stage Manager

Destynie (stage manager) is honored to be returning to the Harlem Doll Palace and Dixon Place! She first came on as a stagehand back in December 2023 and returned in May 2024 for Topsy Turvy at BAM’s Trailblazers Gala. Destynie is delighted to expand her production knowledge (including LaGuardia Arts training, freelance work with The Atlantic Theater Company, and a Film and Video Arts degree) to include the world of puppetry. She would like to thank all who support her!