James Ortiz ’10 Wins Drama Desk Award for Puppetry

James Ortiz ’10 (acting) is a designer, performer, playwright, and director best known for his award-winning production The Woodsman, which earned him an Obie for Best Puppetry in 2016.  

His puppetry has again earned him distinction, this time a Drama Desk Award for his inventive dinosaurs in The Skin of Our Teeth, which played at the Lincoln Center Theater from April 1 to May 29, 2022.

The dinosaurs are featured in Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning allegorical comedy from 1942 about the history of mankind, told through the 5,000-year-old Androbus family facing the end of the world courtesy of a glacier headed to destroy their NJ home.

AmericanTheatre.org placed Ortiz on its 2020 list of Six Theatre Workers You Should Know, in which director of Public Works Laurie Woolery describes Ortiz as “a hidden treasure of the American theatre,” adding, “James is a passionate and innovative theatremaker. He is the perfect collaborator because he possesses a reassuring ‘anything is possible’ attitude… coupled with the talent and ingenuity to turn a dream into reality.”

Paige Gilbert ’14 appeared in The Skin of Our Teeth as Gladys, one of two children in the Androbus family.