Meet the Production Team: The Team Behind Flying Leap's May Day Rally Project

In celebration of International Workers' Day this year, Flying Leap Productions had the honor of collaborating with SEIU (Service Employees International Union) on a vibrant, community-centered project for May Day Rallies in Chicago and Seattle. Our team was commissioned to lead workshops and build large-scale puppets that would march alongside workers, activists, and community members, bringing artistic expression to these powerful demonstrations of solidarity.

We're thrilled to introduce the remarkable production team who made this collaboration possible, each bringing their own expertise in production, design, and leadership to support this important work.

The Production Team

Adriana Tapia Gomez

Adri Tapia-Gomez, a Mexico City native, is an artist, producer, and dancer based in Seattle, Washington. Throughout 15 years of classical training, she has performed in Miami and the greater Seattle area in productions such as The Nutcracker, La Bayadère, and Les Sylphides, amongst others. In 2021 her training shifted to new styles such as afro dance, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Since then, she has focused mainly on amapiano dance and has traveled to New York, Portland, Dallas, Ghana, and South Africa to further her training in various afro styles. She attended The George Washington University where she obtained her bachelor of arts in political science and French literature, language, and culture.

Adri believes in liberation through arts education in which she encourages people to show up fully and authentically, using dance as a tool for self-expression and connection. She currently works as an artist mentor and teaching artist for Arts Impact and Arts Corps, bringing arts infused learning to schools throughout Washington, as operations manager for Afro Dance Seattle, and as an event producer for a variety of arts organizations within the Seattle area.

Kim Thai

Kim Thai (she/her) is an interdisciplinary mindfulness writer and teacher. As an Emmy-award storyteller and a proud Queer kid of Vietnamese refugees, she has uplifted marginalized voices across different mediums for almost 20 years. Her personal essays on identity, healing and social justice have been published in New York Magazine's The Cut, Newsweek, Buzzfeed and more. She is a certified yoga and meditation teacher and currently a student in Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh's Plum Village Buddhist tradition, exploring how we can liberate ourselves from oppressive systems and release embodied trauma through mindfulness. She is currently working on a memoir/mindfulness book on how to reclaim power and joy in the world regardless of what identities you hold. You can follow her work by subscribing to her mindfulness newsletter Just One Breath, where she invites us to see how every moment is an opportunity to transform the world around us.

Corey Janus

Corey Janus is a creative producer, director, and interspiritual minister devoted to the power of story. With a track record in award-winning documentaries, reality TV, digital, and branded content, Corey transforms bold ideas into resonant, high-impact productions. Across every medium, Corey's mission is to spark meaningful connection—through story, play, and soulful expression—igniting deeper truth, curiosity, and human connection.

Lucy Wirtz

Lucy is so excited to get involved with Flying Leap! She is hoping to bring what she has learned through stage managing during her time at UCLA and beyond as well as skills developed working with the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and other companies in the Chicagoland area. When she's not working, she enjoys doing improv, cooking, listening to records, and playing mahjong.

With Gratitude

Flying Leap Productions extends our deepest thanks to this extraordinary team of artists whose creativity, skill, and dedication brought our May Day collaboration with SEIU to life. Their contributions not only resulted in towering puppets that captured attention at the rallies, but also facilitated meaningful engagement with union members and the broader community.

The integration of art and activism has long been a powerful force for social change, and we're proud to have worked with this production team who understand the importance of visual storytelling in movements for worker justice. We look forward to future collaborations that continue to bridge art and advocacy, creating work that resonates with communities and supports movements for positive change.

Meet the Puppeteers: The Team Behind Flying Leap's May Day Rally Project

In celebration of International Workers' Day this year, Flying Leap Productions had the honor of collaborating with SEIU (Service Employees International Union) on a vibrant, community-centered project for this year’s May Day Rally in Seattle and Chicago. Our team was commissioned to lead workshops and build large-scale puppets that would march alongside workers, activists, and community members, bringing artistic expression to these powerful demonstrations of solidarity.

We're thrilled to introduce the remarkable puppeteers who made this collaboration possible, each bringing their own expertise in puppetry to support this important work.

The Puppeteers

Jess Kaufman

Jess Kaufman (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg, producer and all-around theater artist making thoughtful, playful, ambitious theater for families. Her work invites young people and families to cross boundaries, in theaters and site-specific performance spaces. As a queer, Jewish artist, she is particularly interested in the intersection of social justice and identity. Jess was a 2019-2020 New Victory Theater LabWorks Artist, a 2020 NYFA "Emerging Arts Leader", and a 2021 New York City Artist Corps grant recipient.

Logan Gabrielle Schulman

Logan Gabrielle Schulman (they/them) is a New York-based interdisciplinary theatrical director, educator, installation and social practice artist. A radical Jewish and genderqueer creator, their work revolves around mournfully neglected grief practices in America, the usurpation of contemporary communication via technological mediation, and building community through the shared experiences of live performer and audience (in an age where we find ourselves further and further away from each other).

Recently directed works include Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (Sarasota Orchestra), Sontag's A Parsifal (Hangar Theatre), Sunday in Sodom (The FutureNow Festival), The Wives (Cellunova Theater), Waco Boy Club (The Drama League), A Children's Ceremony [TYA] (Temple of the Stranger and Flying Leap co-production), Click Clack Moo [TYA] (Orlando Rep/TheaterWorksUSA), KEEPING ON (breathing) (Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum), The Fog [TYA] (Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota Art Museum), Time, Collapsed (Old City Jewish Arts Center), and Welcome to the Shiva House (Arthur Ross Gallery, Melbourne Fringe Fest).

Outside of their directing practice, they are currently a Solomon R. Guggenheim Teaching Artist, a company puppeteer with the Central Park Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and an associate producer with Flying Leap Productions.

Averly Sheltraw

Averly Sheltraw is a visual artist and a fabricator for The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival Studio. Recent puppet projects she worked on include Stand By (The Glue Factory Projects), The Little Mermaid (Drury Lane), See What I Wanna See (Out of Box Theatrics), Florencia (Metropolitan Opera), The Matchbox Magic Flute (Goodman Theatre), Into the Woods (National Tour), Goliath (Manual Cinema), and Akutagawa (The Koryū Nishikawa Troupe). Averly graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in art and mathematics.

Emilie Wingate

My Name is Emilie Wingate, and I am a Chicago-based fabricator with a focus on creating hyperrealistic animal puppets. I primarily work at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and with Rough House Theater Company as a fabricator. I have been fabricating puppets since 2012, with the life-long goal to integrate my love of animals and art into my daily life.

Nina D'Angier

Nina Castillo-D'Angier (she/they/siya) is a literal world-builder who makes and holds space to safely explore vulnerability through production design; interactive immersion; and the art of ritual griefwork. Moonlighting as Nina Nightingale, she is one of fewer than 100 silhouette portrait artists in the world and daylights as a professor for The Theatre School at DePaul University. Their multidisciplinary, diasporic work as a queer Filipinx-American is informed by a desire to indulge curiosity and bring mindful connection to everyday interactions, whether that be with strangers, objects, or the many things that we consider familiar.

Shay Jones

Shay Jones is a poet, writer, herbalist, seamstress, and performer in Chicago. Shay spreads joy and light through her work, whether she is sewing butterfly wings, mixing herbal remedies as Spicetique, bringing music and words to life on stage, or sharing her powerful words in poetry and prose.

Jacklynn Kelsey

Jacky Kelsey is a nonbinary soft sculptor, costume designer, and puppeteer based in Chicago. Motivated by a belief that play is necessary for life, Jacky treats the multimedia collaborative potential of puppetry as a playground. Their puppets were recently shown at the Chicago Cultural Center's 2025 "Potential Energy" exhibition. In 2022 they designed sculptural dance costumes for Hedwig Dance's META | MOR | PHOS in collaboration with Bauhaus Dessau. In 2023 they created Fidget, a surreal show about giant restless hands, in participation with the Chicago Puppet Studio's eight month "Puppet Lab" workshop. They designed and performed for Little Fears as part of Steppenwolf's 2025 Lookout Project. They remain active in the local physical theater and puppetry scene, working with theaters such as Roughhouse, Manual Cinema, and Steppenwolf.

Agnotti Cowie

Agnotti (they/she) grew up in Logan Square, Chicago and is passionate about the intersection of social justice, community dialogue, and performing arts. They facilitate workshops employing a variety of pedagogical techniques such as InterPlay, Theatre of the Oppressed, clowning, puppetry and devising. They received a degree in Theatre and Sociology from Beloit College, spending a year abroad in Ireland and Hungary doing cross-cultural research and performance. After several years of working for Opera-Matic as a performer, they stepped into the role of Co-Director in 2021. They have taken their work around the globe, facilitating workshops in Vietnam, India, Chile, Australia, Indonesia, and Germany.

August Boyne

August Boyne is a musician and puppeteer residing in Chicago, Illinois. Since graduating from University of Illinois-Chicago with a degree in music performance, August has played in countless ensembles and styles. In 2018, he artistic directed and composed music for "Perennial Growth", a full-length sci-fi ballet about a plant that assimilates all life on Earth that premiered at the St. Louis Fringe Festival.

As a member of the 2023 Chicago Puppet Lab, August began his development as a puppeteer and expanded his skill set in electronic music composition. With this opportunity, he debuted "Fidget" with collaborator Jacky Kelsey, a puppet piece about two giant hands coming to life and exploring their purpose through a vivid sensory experience.

Since then, August has continued to expand his artistic range, participating as a performer and composer in the Chicago International Puppet Fest, Rough House Theater's "House of the Exquisite Corpse", in addition to being a core organizer for the upcoming People's Puppet Festival.

Joshua Krugman

Joshua Krugman (he/him) is a poet, composer and theater-maker of Latvian-Jewish descent who grew up on the banks of the kwinitekw/Connecticut River. His poems have appeared in a variety of periodicals, two chapbooks, and several pamphlets and broadsides. His compositions have featured in theater performances in major venues and festivals and in a concert devoted to his works. He has collaborated extensively with Bread & Puppet Theater.

With Gratitude

Flying Leap Productions extends our deepest thanks to this extraordinary team of artists whose creativity, skill, and dedication brought our May Day collaboration with SEIU to life. Their contributions not only resulted in towering puppets that captured attention at the rallies, but also facilitated meaningful engagement with union members and the broader community.

The integration of art and activism has long been a powerful force for social change, and we're proud to have worked with these puppeteers who understand the importance of visual storytelling in movements for worker justice. We look forward to future collaborations that continue to bridge art and advocacy, creating work that resonates with communities and supports movements for positive change.

Meet the Board: Jess Kaufman

Flying Leap Productions is thrilled to announce the addition of Jess Kaufman to our Board. As a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and all-around theater artist specializing in thoughtful, playful, ambitious theater for families, Jess brings over a decade of creative expertise that will help guide our organization into its next chapter.

We asked Jess a few questions to get to know her better:

What made you interested in joining Flying Leap’s Board?

As the founder of Flying Leap, I'm excited to serve as a board member so I can learn how to best steer the company, and set us up for longevity beyond my time as Flying Leap’s leader. It’s thrilling to have such experienced board members in Carla, Eve, and Amanda, and I know I have a lot to learn from them! I think together we’ll be able to chart a course to make a lot of good art, bring it to a lot of kids, and create something that will last beyond us. 

What is a skill or experience you are excited to bring to Flying Leap

I've had a lot of education in producing and management, both in grad school and through fellowships. I think a lot of artists don’t get to learn this stuff in school, and it’s really powerful to walk into a room and say, oh I know how to build this budget, or I have the confidence to talk to that funder. I worked hard to learn those skills, but I’m also aware of just how lucky I am to have had the chance and the mentors. One of my goals for Flying Leap is to help our artists develop those skills so they can produce their own work, too, if that’s something they want.

What is a difficult subject you think it’s important that we talk about right now?

It’s so hard for people to talk to each other right now. I think the thing we aren’t talking enough about, or at least not in a productive way, is just how hard it is to talk to someone with different values or beliefs. We’re set up to be divided, and I see it in my artistic work, my political work, and my personal life, and it’s heartbreaking and terrifying. Division is a tool of oppression, and I hope that our work encourages families to raise kids who are curious and open minded and ready to talk about the tough stuff, even when it’s difficult or uncomfortable.

Jess’s bio: Jess Kaufman (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg, producer and all-around theater artist making thoughtful, playful, ambitious theater for families. Her work invites young people and families to cross boundaries, in theaters and site-specific performance spaces. As a queer, Jewish artist, she is particularly interested in the intersection of social justice and identity. Jess was a 2019-2020 New Victory Theater LabWorks Artist, a 2020 NYFA "Emerging Arts Leader", and a 2021 New York City Artist Corps grant recipient. 

Recent work: The Garden, inviting babies and their caregivers into nature in NYC public parks; Beyond the Wall || Más Allá del Muro (US/Mexico), building 15 foot tall puppets with kids living at the US/Mexico border wall (artbeyondthewall.com); ASSEMBLE, a guerrilla audio performance piece secretly staged in a Brooklyn store (projectassemble.com); Mathilda and the Orange Balloon (UK/US), a Deaf and hearing accessible play about identity adapted from the popular picture book.

A frequent guest lecturer and conference presenter, her credits include: Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, Creative Interruptions London, NYU Forum on Educational Theatre, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, Theater and Dance for the Very Young Conference, TYA/USA Festival, and guest lectures at universities across the US, UK, and Europe. Her writing about theater has been published in ArtsPraxis and Theatre and Performance Design, and she co-edited Embodied Cognition, Acting and Performance (Routledge, 2017). She is on the theater faculty at Lucy Moses School.

MA Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London); BFA University of Miami; Certificate, Moscow Art Theatre (Russia). 

We can’t wait to see Jess’s continued impact on our board, organization, and beyond!

Meet the Board: Amanda Zamora

Flying Leap Productions is thrilled to announce the addition of Amanda Zamora to our Board. As the Founder & Principal of Agencia Media LLC and a pioneering force in community-first media, Amanda brings over 20 years of journalism and storytelling expertise that will help guide our organization into its next chapter.

We asked Amanda a few questions to get to know her better:

What made you interested in joining Flying Leap’s Board?

On a personal level, I am a theater kid at heart and know first-hand how experiencing art, music and performance sparked so much possibility in me and helped me navigate some very challenging issues as a child. I grew up to be a journalist who has spent the better part of my career working to make the media more responsive to the real needs of communities. I appreciate how Flying Leap does this, helping more people have access to the arts, and utilizing those experiences to foster stronger connections in families and communities.     

What is a skill or experience you are excited to bring to Flying Leap

I am excited to apply my experience as a founder and consultant to help Flying Leap chart a strategic course forward. They have big dreams, and I want to help them ensure they have a plan for making those dreams real!

What is a difficult subject you think it’s important that we talk about right now?

For anyone who loves our democracy and sees America's role in the world as a champion of human rights, these are very troubling times. I think we need to continue confronting the harm we cause by "othering" our neighbors — whatever their race, religion, nationality, immigration status or gender identity — in dehumanizing ways. The threats to those deemed "other" is absolutely overwhelming right now, but we can't let those threats paralyze us. It's important to lean into our communities, focus on areas where we can have a personal impact and take action. I'm focusing my own energy on supporting publishers serving Latino and immigrant communities, and plugging into these issues more where I live in Austin, Texas.

Amanda’s bio: Amanda Zamora is Founder & Principal of Agencia Media LLC, a consultancy that partners with organizations to drive narrative change and civic engagement, especially with and for communities of color. She has more than 20 years of experience as a journalist, storyteller, editor and disruptor in the news industry, most recently as founding publisher of The 19th and co-founder of the Latino Media Consortium. She is most interested in building capacity for community-first media, and co-creating narratives that heal, inform and empower.

We can’t wait to see Amanda’s impact on our board, organization, and beyond!