Bill Kassay has been in the performance industry for more than thirty years. He began in the business as a professional jitterbug dancer and has continued to evolve. He has been an actor, director, choreographer, producer, playwright, designer, and birthday clown. Bill is a recipient of the Jim Henson Award for puppetry and is thrilled to be a puppet trainer and the business manager for Imaginary Friends. Besides his work in show business, Bill also served his country honorably for twenty years and is an Army retiree with three tours served in Iraq. The way he tells it, “I gave twenty years to Uncle Sam. Now, I get the next twenty to do what I want to do”. In 2021, Bill received a BA in Theatre from the University of Maryland. Go Terps!

Cat Kassay is an industry veteran with production experience on Welcome to Shelltown and Exousia. She appeared at Dutch Wonderland during their puppet show and is very excited to join the Imaginary Friends team. In addition to her work in puppetry, Cat is a BSN nurse at Penn State Hershey, so when she isn’t providing healthcare or production assistance, she is most likely sleeping. Cat is also an Army veteran and the proud mother of two teenagers.

Mary Benson’s life as a puppeteer began in 1997 when she helped a friend in Camden, New Jersey who was performing improvised puppet shows for a few local daycare centers. She fell in love with the fascinating art of puppetry, and signed up for puppetry classes at Glassboro College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, New Jersey. The courses were taught by Dr. George Neff, who was the director of Dr. Neff’s Incredible Puppet Company, a professional puppet theater in residence at the college. After the classes, Mary joined their puppet company, learning the ropes (and strings!) of the art form, while performing shows for schools, libraries and festivals throughout New Jersey. In 1996, after moving to Lancaster, PA, Mary started her own puppet show and puppetry workshop business – Harmony Hill Puppet Theatre. She performs shows and leads workshops for schools, libraries, childcare centers, camps, churches, parties, and special events throughout Pennsylvania. During Dutch Wonderland Amusement Park’s 2023 season, and for Spring 2024, she performed in their Melody Meadow puppet show
series, performing Mayor Gladwyn Groundhog. Mary is a member of the Puppeteers of America, The Greater Philadelphia Area Puppetry Guild, and the National Capital Puppetry Guild.

Hailey Bendar has been a puppeteer since birth. She always had a fondness for puppets, but she decided to pursue the noble art when she was sixteen years old. In 2016, Hailey obtained a degree from the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts program, which focused on training its students in performance, design, fabrication, and production of puppets. It was here Hailey gained local, regional, and national partnerships and apprenticeships with world-famous puppeteers. Hailey’s connections only grew from here, having worked on the Emmy-nominated Apple television series Helpsters.  In 2023, Hailey was the lead puppeteer for Dutch Wonderland’s Melody Meadow puppet show series, performing as Brady Bunny and Sterling Skunk. Aside from puppeteering, Hailey is a teaching artist and arts educator.

Amanda Trimble has been performing since the age of seven. She began by singing in church and being a part of all of the church plays. Amanda then went on to perform in middle school plays and musicals. In her high school career Amanda was a part of “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Oklahoma,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “Kiss Me, Kate”. Amanda really shined when she was one of two freshmen to be cast in “Much Ado About Nothing.” She also was cast in “Don’t Drink the Water.” Her big break was when she landed the role as Abigail Williams in “The Crucible”.

Amanda was President of the Drama Club and her senior year organized a fright night where  she and a bunch of others adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe for the stage. After high school, Amanda took a break from theatre, but still would find herself being pulled back. So after many years and two kids later, Amanda found herself performing at Dutch Wonderland as a costume character and character host. She then was crossed trained by many amazing people and they taught her puppetry. Amanda has now fallen in love with anything and everything puppets! She is so excited to see what her future will look like, as she knows it will definitely be performing.

Jay Westwood is a wordsmith, performer, and puppeteer with a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University. For the past several years, Jay has accepted dozens of theatrical contracts from Emmy-award-winning companies such as RWS Entertainment Group, Front Porch Theatricals, Arcade Comedy Theatre, Mirage Entertainment, and Pittsburgh CLO, and has had the privilege of performing across the northeast at various theme parks and resorts, such as Six Flags Great Escape in Queensbury, New York, Idlewild & SoakZone, Kennywood Amusement Park, the Mall at Robinson, Gaylord National Harbor in Washington D.C., Dutch Wonderland, and Hersheypark. More recently, Jay has assisted in directing and maintaining the entertainment at Idlewild & SoakZone, Hersheypark, The Denver Zoo, Kennywood Amusement Park, Gaylord National Resort, and Dollywood Amusement Park. In addition to serving on a number of writing projects for RWS Entertainment Group, such as the creation of brand books,
pop-up events, and cruise ship productions, Jay utilizes their writing and editing talents to produce a plethora of different genres of content and copy.

Ben Stansbery has been a passionate puppeteer for most of his life, performing onstage for the first time at the age of 7 and graduating with a degree in Puppetry/Creative Arts from West Virginia University in 2015. Since then, he’s performed for clients such as Madcap Puppets, Hershey Gardens, Hershey’s Chocolate World, and the Center for Puppetry Arts’ XPT showcase. He often pairs puppetry with his love for the playfully spooky; contributing puppet segments to the annual Blobfest celebration, late night horror host show Cinema Insomnia, and the upcoming season of the Hallow Ian Horror Hour. Ben is positively elated to join the cast of Imaginary Friends, and hopes the show will inspire audiences to let their imagination guide them to new creative heights!

Nate Kassay is a musician, composer, and storyteller currently living in Virginia. He graduated in 2023 from George Mason University with a Bachelor’s in Music. While attending GMU, he composed for a short film titled ‘We’re Only Strangers,’ directed by Jennifer Vu, which received a Regional Student Emmy Award within the capital area in the Winter of 2023. Nate has also composed for many smaller projects, including another Bill Kassay-production: SHELLtown.

Sebastian Newlin fell in love with performing arts at an early age.  He is an actor, a singer, an instrumentalist, a puppeteer and a beatboxer. In high school, he focused on theater and continued to develop and broaden his skills. Some of his favorite roles have included Musical Comedy Murders of the 1940s, Spelling Bee, Flora and Ulysses, The Wedding Singer and Into the Woods. Most recently, he collaborated on the devised theater project Where Else, an immersive Community Based Theatre Project where he incorporated his puppetry into the show. As a military kid, Sebastian had the opportunity to live in several European countries such as Germany, Albania, and Ukraine where he was able to work with people from all over the world. This spring, Sebastian received his BA in Theatre with a minor in Musical Theatre from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.