More from Ann & George Neff

The guiding hands of the Incredible Puppet Company belong to Dr. George Neff, Professor Emeritus and former director of the puppetry program at Rowan University, and his wife, Ann Szabo Neff, an independent puppeteer who began her career with the New York City Parks Commission. They met at a puppet festival.

Dr. Neff's Incredible Puppet Company began touring original musical puppet productions in 1980. Shortly thereafter Rowan University honored the group with the status of Company-in-Residence. There George Neff collaborated with award-winning playwright Joseph Robinette and Charles Strouse ("Annie", "Bye, Bye Birdie") to bring E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web" to the puppet stage. The show is performed with puppets and live actors. The Company has also performed Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" with full orchestras on stage. Their current major work is "The Rainbow Crow," a Lenape Indian legend featuring a computer generated shadow sequence.

Ann's latest passion is for toy theatre. She and Dr. Neff will perform Robert Poulter's "The Cure - a Gothic Melodrama" at the Midwest Puppetfest, July 05, Trenton MO.

"The Cure" takes place at a health spa run by vampires who promise eternal youth but whose fee takes a bite out of more than your wallet.

P. S. Attached is a photo, (not my best - but the dress was nice), of two members of the Rowan Opera Company chorus, who sang in Der Fledermaus by Strauss, this spring. The opera was done in a '40's Hollywood style, and we were tapped to be Mr. and Mrs. Louis B. Mayer, at whose studios - MGM - the second act party was held. The husband shaved off the beard for the event. Many people did not recognize him! including his daughters. It had been about 30 years since he had been clean-shaven. But it is almost all grown back now.

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