The Pocket Park Kids, directed by Anika Larsen (Almost Famous the Musical; Tony nominee, Beautiful: the Carole King Musical) and written by Anika Larsen & Orlando Bishop, is an environmentally conscious show for children and families that brings the United Nations' Global Goals to life. In preparation, Tanya was selected to attend Al Gore's Climate Reality training alonside producer Jennifer Garvey-Blackwell and Anika Larsen.

Evolve created the puppets for this production almost entirely from recycled materials, including magazine collage, repurposed fabric, brown grocery bag paper mache and other environmentally friendly techniques. The show ran Off-Broadway at Theatre Row in NYC.



Willow (Rose Armendariz, L) greets Honey the Parakeet (performed by Yanniv Frank, R, who also operated Evolve's puppets in UTC61's Exagoge). Photo by Shintaro Ueyama.



Honey (R), his mate Hummy (L) and their babies (C). The adult birds featured finger-controlled eyelids and beaks, flapping wings and turning heads. Their feathers are meticulously assembled magazine collage. Photo by Barry Weil.



Yanniv operates Sister Squirrel push-toy style, at the end of a broomstick. Photo by Shintaro Ueyama.



Sister Squirrel's legs scurried furiously as she ran, driven mechanically by the puppet's wheels. Her head and tail were spring-loaded to bobble as she moved. She's covered with repurposed fabrics and magazine collage. Photo by Shintaro Ueyama.





This colorful spider dropped from a tree with the aid of an actor-operated crank mechanism (visible in upper left of second photo). It could then be marionetted by its strings to animate its body and legs. It's covered in magazine collage with African-style paper beads (using discarded Lion King playbills) for the legs. Photo by Barry Weil.





This large paper-mache turtle has repurposed fabric for legs and tail, and layers of carefully assembled magazine collage on both sides of its shell and its face. Pushing, pulling and rotating the tail makes the head move on three axes, and the legs are sprung for realistic movement. Photos by Tanya Khordoc.



These large bees were made as African-style paper beads using discarded Lion King playbills. They were mounted on a cluster of wires that could be rotated to create the effect of a swarm. Photo by Tanya Khordoc.