Lead Artists.
Zach Bramel
Playwright, Puppet Director
Zach Bramel is a playwright, puppeteer, and theater educator from Kentucky, whose goal is to foster independence, critical thought, curiosity, and community through the arts and through play. He currently works as a teaching artist for Commonwealth Theatre Center, and as a Free Play facilitator for Children At Play Network at Bernheim Forest.
He has been the writer and artistic lead on over seven puppet plays, most of them performed in collaboration with Squallis Puppeteers, and has played a supporting and collaborative role in many more plays over the course of his 20 years in theater arts. Bramel has worked with North since 2014 to co-create and co-produce many projects, and Bramel worked with North and Martin to co-create “CREATURE: A Puppet Frankenstein Adaptation,” and to premier a workshop versions of the first vignette from this project, “Energy Is Neither.”
Bramel has helped create puppet shows, out-of-school programs, and classroom drama curriculum for a wide range of audience—from the very young (birth-to-5) to adult, for neurodiverse and neurotypical audiences, and for citizens and families resettled through Kentucky Refugee Ministries. As a professional Free Play facilitator, Bramel has helped create Free Play experiences for children in and around Louisville—from the Portland branch of the Free Public Library, to Bernhiem Forest, and in many of Louisville’s Olmsted Parks, including Iroquois Park, Victory Park, Tyler Park, and Elliot Park.
Bramel was awarded a Kentucky Arts Council playwriting grant (2019 Emerging Artist), and shares with the Mary Shelley Electric Co. a Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant for “CREATURE.” He lives in Louisville with his family.
Katherine Martin
Director
Katherine Martin is an equity Actor living in Louisville, Ky. She received her degree in Theatre from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles in 2006. In 2010 she moved to New York City to study improv and physical comedy, and was a company member of The American Mime Theatre, a unique medium produced by a particular balance of acting, movement, pantomime, design and playwriting.
Now living in Louisville, Martin has appeared with numerous local theatre companies, including Visiting Edna (Bunbury Theatre), The 13th of Paris and Qualities of Starlight (Theatre 502), Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and The BFG (StageOne), Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus (Kentucky Shakespeare), Times Stands Still and Clybourne Park (The Liminal Playhouse), as Yitzhak in Hedwig and The Angry Inch (Pandora Productions) and in Coyote Ugly as Scarlett (Alley Theater). She also appeared in Mary Shelley Electric Company’s CREATURE: A Puppet Frankenstein Adaptation and is a co-creator with them on Energy Is Neither.
With Stage One Family Theatre she worked as an artist educator through their Disney in Schools Program, spending 6 months with a group of kids and teachers to put on a full Disney Jr. musical. She has also continued her physical training through yoga, dance and Lecoq mask workshops locally and in Minneapolis.
Knowing that the spirit of collaboration, risk taking and play are so integral to the creative process, Martin is aware that a creative space must first feel safe and free of judgment. She also believes that in theater there must be space for consent first and foremost, as there can be physical contact during shows, and it is imperative that boundaries are set, for without comfortable trust-setting there is no space for freedom and discovery.
Deva North
Designer, Puppet Builder
Deva North is a designer, puppet builder, and fiber & textile artist.
With an emphasis on synergy and community involvement, North’s work includes quilts, tapestries, all-age puppet performances, handmade interactive oddities, and collaborative art exhibitions in natural settings such as Parklands Of Floyds Fork (Woodland Garden permanent creekbed mosaic) and Bernheim Forest (2019 ReCONNECT art installation). North, along with Bramel, was awarded a 2018 Jim Henson Foundation Grant for her puppet and mask fabrication for CREATURE: A Puppet Frankenstein Adaptation. She received a 2021 Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a 2022 Artist Professional Development Grant from the Great Meadows Foundation. She has made puppets and masks with students at Frazier History Museum, Mercy Academy of Louisville, and Redmoon Theater of Chicago.
Rooted in a belief that art begets art, North hopes that the work she makes as a part of the Mary Shelley Electric Company will foster mentorship, promote skill sharing, and provide supportive space for experimentation, failure, and introspection.