Shushanik and Suzi
Photo credit: Knar Babayan
who had just left the Muppets studio to begin their own work. They were the creative team behind the Miss Piggy and Kermit calendar. Do you remember Miss Piggy‘s Guide To Life? Bruce and Deborah were on the team that created that. So when they hired me, they had just gotten the contract to create the sets, costumes and props for the new Cabbage Kids magazine and eventually for the display windows in the Cabbage Patch flagship store on 5th Avenue, across from the NY Public Library. As the seamstress (which is a title I hate—I was the stitcher. That is what we were called in costume shops), I was the one to sew all the tiny costumes Deborah designed. Tiny jackets, the stitch length set to scale, little hats and matching everything. Berkshire resident Ellen Maggio worked with Bruce and Deborah making all the props for these projects. Ellen had migrated out of the Muppets world also. Deborah was a genius, and together she, Bruce, and Ellen would come up with solutions to questions like, “What does a Cabbage Patch Kid dressed as a pirate use for a sword?” I was the worker bee, generating finished pieces that they then used in the photography studio sets for the magazine or the window displays.
Writing with Mom and Julia “My dad probably took this. You can imagine how grateful I am that he did. Oh how I wish I had that swimming suit again.” - Suzi
30 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 THE ARTFUL MIND
Where did this job with the Muppets lead to? Suzi: This job led me to more costume shops with the confidence that I could sew almost anything, except velvet. I stunk at velvet then. The last Broadway show I worked on was Phantom of the Opera, with the original cast. I was stitching magnificent lace to glorious brocade for an actress who would