Ronald Binion-Biography
Recently Ronald has been working with a Non-Government Organization called No Strings International. This NGO uses puppetry to deliver life saving messages to children in the developing world. He has been a lead puppeteer in films that have been shot in New York on Disaster Preparedness for South East Asia , and films on HIV/AIDS for Africa .
In addition to performing in the films Ronald also travels to countries like Indonesia , the Philippines , and Kenya to train local aid workers in the use of puppetry in conjunction with presenting the No Strings films.
Ronald Binion started his artistic life as a teenager while living on the north coast of California . While performing in community theater he and his brother also created their own small works of theater using puppets.
At 18 years old Ronald took on the challenge of building the large man-eating plant “Audrey 2” for a local production of Little Shop of Horrors.
In 1991 he left Humboldt County and trained at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta , Georgia where he worked and trained for 3 years as a resident puppeteer and for a year as the head puppet builder.
While at the Center for Puppetry Arts Ronald performed in over 1,200 performances of shows using the entire spectrum of puppetry, from shadow puppets, to marionettes to the more familiar hand and rod Muppet-type puppet. He also performed on a national tour of the CPA’s production Dinosaurs.
In 1995 Ronald moved to New York and began working for the Muppets as a designer and builder of puppets.
At the Muppets Ronald worked on television shows and films including: Muppet Treasure Island, The Animal Show, Muppets Tonight, Elmo in Grouchland, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.
In 2000 Ronald built and performed the character Eeyore on the Disney Show The Book of Pooh which was a pioneering show in that it fused Muppet-type puppets with a style of puppetry known as “table-top puppetry”. Also this show was shot entirely in a green screen environment and the sets and backgrounds were rendered with computer animation.
He has been nominated for an Emmy award for his work on the Disney Channel show The Book of Pooh, and the Nickelodeon show Wubbulous world of Dr. Seuss.
In 2002 he worked in Los Angeles on the Comedy Central show Crank Yankers where he was the lead puppeteer.
On Crank Yankers Ronald performed countless characters, but most notably the character Special Ed.
Special Ed gained more notoriety when he was beaten up by Eminem during the 2005 MTV Music Video Awards.
After Crank Yankers, Ronald went to Reykjavik , Iceland to become the Puppet Producer and perform the character Pixel on the Nick Jr. show LazyTown.
Ronald is also a performance coach at the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference in Waterford , Connecticut .
Ronald has produced many of his own works of theater puppetry at the O’Neill Theater Center, and was the invited Guest Artist of the conference in 2007 where he produced a show called Crossing Boundaries-Cradle to Grave. A show that dealt with the alarming practice of targeting children for marketing messages.
Over the recent years Ronald has worked on pioneering new children’s television shows in India , China , and the Australian show The Upside Down Show which ran on Noggin.
His work has recently been seen in the national ad campaign for NIKE shoes which uses puppet versions of NBA stars.
Ronald currently resides in Los Angeles , California
contact:
Ronald@transformedpuppet.com
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NIKE commercial,
December 2010