Karen Prell with Red Fraggle
Karen Prell (born July 31, 1959) is a Puppeteer famed for her work for the Henson Organization. Her most famous character being Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock. Early in her career she performed Deena Monster from Sesame Street. Other productions worked on for Hensons include The Animal Show, The Ghost of Faffner Hall, Mother Goose Stories, Muppet Family Christmas, The Tale of Bunny Picnic, The Muppet Show, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Labyrinth, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island and The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.
American by birth Prell lived in the UK for nine years, with her then husband, puppeteer Mike Quinn. Prell worked a lot on productions for Quinn and David Barclay's company Ultimate Animates. Projects included The Great Bong and The Slow Norris.
Whilst in England she adapted the classic children's book The Secret Garden for the Little Angel puppet theatre, Islington, which was directed by Nigel Plaskitt.
Her career has also involved animation for movies such as Ant Bully, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, working for Pixar, Tippet Studios and DNA Productions.
Prell is an extremeley talented individual in a number of areas, especially puppetry. Recently she has returned to working in this field.
“Karen Prell ... is an excellent puppeteer... She is a very creative person with a good sense of humor. I can highly recommend her work.” Jim Henson, 1981