By Jill Osterhout
Sun Staff Writer
Going from Broad Street to Broadway has been quite the journey for one Norwich High School graduate.
As a young child, Anney McKilligan says she was exposed early on to the performing arts. Living in Unadilla first and later moving to the Norwich area, she was involved in the Tri-Town Theatre in Sidney and Orpheus Theatre out of Oneonta. McKilligan says her mother was an actress and director and she too, was inspired to follow the same path. “I was always a show-off,” said McKilligan.
“Not having a lot of options in Norwich at the time, I often traveled to places close by so I could get the experience I wanted,” said McKilligan. Following graduation from Norwich High in 1993, McKilligan headed off to the Big Apple where she would begin her studies at New York University.
While at college, she studied acting and hoped to one day be a director/designer. Becoming a puppeteer, she says, was something that just sort of happened. Known in the performing world as “Anney Fresh,” her first job was being a puppet wrangler on the set of “The Lion King” on Broadway. “It was being on the bottom of something big,” said McKilligan.
Over time, Anney’s experience as well as her credentials grew. She began creating, designing and puppeteering for numerous television shows and stage performances. McKilligan’s work can be seen most recently in the show “Johnny and The Sprites” on the Disney Channel, where she works in puppet construction and as a puppeteer.
Other areas in which her work as a puppeteer and in puppet construction can be viewed include “Dingo Ate My Video” on VH-1 Wireless series, the MTV Movie Awards, “Finding Nemo (on Ice)” for Disney, “Blue’s Room” on Nickelodeon, “Crank Yankers” and “Chappelle’s Show” for Comedy Central, “Little Shop of Horrors” for Jim Henson Co., “Bear in the Big Blue House,” “Shrek,” “Jack’s Big Music Show,” “Sesame Street International,” “Rugrats” and more.
Over the years, McKilligan has been nominated for daytime Emmy awards for costume design and styling. Her nominations came from her work throughout Season Four, Jim Henson Co. as Lead Wrangler and Puppeteer in 2002 and 2003 and her work on The Book of Pooh, seasons one and two, where she worked as lead wrangler and puppeteer in 2001.
Most recently McKilligan not only was nominated but actually won a 2007 daytime Emmy for costume design/styling for her work as a puppet constructor on “Sesame Street” seasons 37 and 38 for Jim Henson Co.
