Meghann Jordan (owner of 5000 Puppets) is a puppet builder and musician based in Denver, CO. Meghann has been building puppets professionally for ten years. In addition to custom puppets, she also enjoys making puppets for educational purposes. Most recently, she created a line of emotional therapy puppets great for use in play therapy. She also fronts her band, Addie Tonic, and loves to combine her two greatest passions to make fun music videos starring her creations. You can find videos on the Addie Tonic YouTube Page starring the Meghann5k puppet she built with the help of puppet company, Swazzle, out of Los Angeles, CA.
Meghann grew up in Athens, GA surrounded by musicians and raised on the Muppets and Sesame Street. Jim Henson was a huge influence on Meghann and her passion for using puppetry to teach kids in a fun and interactive way. Great writing and the incorporation of music to help kids learn was fascinating. She also loved the cartoon/plushie aspect of the characters. Some of her favorite Muppets growing up included Fozzie Bear, Grover, and Telly Monster. After completing her Bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Georgia, she decided she wanted to learn how to make her own puppets. She got books and supplies and started figuring it out. She moved to San Francisco, CA in late 2009 in search of like-minded puppet enthusiasts. She found a Muppet-style puppet building workshop taught by Michael Earl (four-time Emmy Award winner and puppeteer for Mr. Snuffleupagus and many other characters on Sesame Street for 30+ years). The first Muppet-style puppet she made, Zenith, was born. At that point, she could barely sew and needed some extra help, but Zenith turned out to be (and still is) one of her favorite characters.
The first commissioned puppets Meghann made were for the Good Computer Kids Podcast- a podcast created by Louisville, KY teacher Russ Hockenbury for his technology class. She made five characters for his project including Good Computer, Drop, Pi-Rat, Vi-Russ, and Lynx. In 2012, Meghann launched her own line of nutrition puppets including songs and videos to help teach kids about the importance of good nutrition. She found friends in Berkeley, CA and joined a puppet community called PuppetPlex. They shared the same passions of teaching important topics through puppetry and music. Through this group, she was commissioned to make three GMO food puppets- Fishy Corn, Fishy Tomato, and Fishy Soybean for the GMO Right to Know campaign.
Links:
Addie Tonic video for “Captive”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaflEew2DME
5000 Puppets IG: https://www.instagram.com/5000puppets/
5000 Puppets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/5000puppets
Addie Tonic links: https://linktr.ee/addietonic