Mr. Rogers, ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘SNL’: KC couple turns puppet love into thriving business

When Grace Townley was a young girl in Overland Park, children’s TV legend Fred Rogers was a close friend of her parents. So close that he was Grace’s godfather and she spent time on the set of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, a few miles west in Lawrence, Spencer Lott had set his career path in motion by declaring in kindergarten that “I want to be the next Jim Henson.”

Fast-forward to 2009. A mutual friend who knew of Townley’s Fred Rogers connection became a matchmaker when Townley and Lott were students at the University of Kansas. “He happened to say, ‘Oh, Spencer, he’s a puppet guy,’ and introduced us,” Townley said.

It was instantly a case of puppet love.

Townley, whose previous interests lay in other areas of the arts, became a puppet person, too, and the couple eventually married. Now Townley and Lott have opened Simple Mischief Studio, which might raise the Kansas City area’s rich puppet heritage to a whole new level.

“We’re going to try and bring some more productions, see how many things we can get made here,” Lott said. “We think that there’s a ton of potential here. We can be like an Atlanta, like a Chicago. There’s no reason that we can’t shoot things here, too. We’re definitely excited about pushing that.”

If this sounds like a fairy-tale fantasy for a young married couple operating out of a garage studio at their Lawrence home, then so be it. Their dreams have come true before.

Lott worked with local legends Paul Mesner Puppets (now What if Puppets) before going to puppeteering heaven in 2016 — a gig on “Sesame Street.” Among other roles on the children’s show that Henson and his Muppets helped make famous, Lott played the letter K and a head of cabbage named Kyle. Then, in 2019, he originated the role of Samuel, Julia’s neurotypical older brother, as part of the “Sesame Street” autism initiative.

As Lott was sharing the stage with Big Bird, Kermit and friends, Fred Rogers re-entered his and Townley’s lives.

They led the team that recreated Daniel Tiger and other puppets from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” for the film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” starring Tom Hanks as Rogers. Lott was the lead puppeteer and Hanks’ tutor; he and Townley worked on the fabrication of the puppets.

Lott said Hanks did most of his own puppeteering, including the voices. “But any time you don’t see him directly, it’s usually me,” he said. “I was kind of his puppeteer double for close-ups and stuff like that.”

Hanks was easy to work with and genuinely curious about the puppets, Lott said.

“We’d finish a take when he was puppeteering, and the director, Marielle Heller, would come over and say, ‘How did that feel, Tom?’ And Tom would go, ‘I don’t know. Spencer’s the only one who knows how it’s supposed to look. If Spencer’s happy, I’m happy.’”

Lott imitated Hanks’ voice as he told the story. Voices are, after all, a big part of his craft, which has proved profitable since he started doing shows at libraries, birthday parties and the like when he was 12 or 13.

“I discovered I could make way more money doing one puppet show than my friends could working at the golf course,” Lott said. “And I was getting good feedback. People were like, ‘You could try to do this thing.’”

Townley’s path to puppets was less direct. She is the daughter of Roderick Townley, who has written more than a dozen books in genres including poetry, young adult fiction and adult fiction, and Wyatt Townley, a former poet laureate of Kansas. Grace’s background includes sculpting, illustrating, painting and writing.

The couple lived in New York when they married in 2016 but eventually decided to return to their roots.

“We drove cross-country with a cat and a baby to move here,” Townley said. “It was quite an experience.

“We kind of figured out that being in the Kansas City area we would have so much more creative freedom in terms of the cost of living and just the overall pace and the space we could have and the space our toddler could have. It just felt like the right move.”

Townley handles the business side of Simple Mischief Studio, which has worked on projects with clients including HBO Max, Nickelodeon and TriStar Pictures, as well as the still-under-construction Rabbithole children’s museum in North Kansas City.

Simple Mischief, which began operations earlier this year, continues a long tradition in Kansas City. The area traces its puppetry origins to Hazelle Hedges Rollins, who for much of the 20th century was the world’s largest exclusive manufacturer of marionettes and puppets.

Among many local products who have gone on to big things is Matt Vogel of Kansas City, Kansas, known for doing both Kermit the Frog and Big Bird.

In addition to Mesner/What if Puppets, the Kansas City area boasts the StoneLion Puppet Theatre, Puppetry Arts Institute and Nativity Puppets at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Lott said. “It’s great. And we all know each other, and we know what the other one is good at. And we try to support each other.”

In addition to working with clients from coast to coast, Simple Mischief is developing its own slate of shows, perhaps even one based on the writing of Roderick Townley.

“I don’t know if we can say anything about it, but that’s something we’d be very excited to do,” Lott said.

Meanwhile, he also can continue freelancing his puppeteering skills. In addition to “Sesame Street,” Lott has performed at Radio City Music Hall and has credits on “America’s Got Talent,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and the Apple TV+ series “Hello Tomorrow!”

This spring, he operated a puppet for a skit on “Saturday Night Live” when Aubrey Plaza was host. Lott flew to New York to do two sketches, but one was cut in rehearsals. His big moment came during a spoof of “Avatar.”

“It was this dragon creature that sweeps across the stage for 2.3 seconds,” he said. “It did get a laugh, which means I can die happy.”