I responded to a call from former Broadway performer and Augusta, Georgia–based actor Russell Joel Brown, who was seeking a puppet maker to create a Bunraku-inspired Grinch puppet for his annual holiday production, Russell Joel Brown: Home for the Holidays, presented at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia. The production serves as a fundraiser for Paine College and features a live nine-piece band and an 85-voice choir.

Working closely with Brown, I designed and fabricated a lightweight, 12-foot-tall Grinch puppet that he performed while dancing to the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." The puppet was built on a modified aluminum hiking backpack frame to distribute the weight comfortably across the performer's body while maintaining stability and mobility. Although monumental in scale, the completed puppet remained lightweight enough for an energetic stage performance.

To create a lifelike connection between performer and puppet, I engineered an internal mechanism that synchronized the puppet's head movements with Russell Brown's own head movements. This allowed the character to move expressively and naturally throughout the performance, enhancing the theatrical illusion while maintaining the visual language of Bunraku puppetry.