An accomplished painter, sculptor and printmaker, Joanne Bigham entered the world of puppet theatre by chance. She spent six years on the road with children’s entertainers Sharon, Lois and Bram as an “elephant keeper", props person and designer and later wrangled Ella and CC Copy Cat for Skinnamarink TV, wildly popular with the under-six TV crowd. Open Door Designs was born when a friend asked Joanne to make a puppet theatre that could be taken to libraries and schools. Since then the business has continued to thrive and grow with the introduction of several free standing portable puppet theatres and a variety of puppets. In 2007 Joanne opened the Open Door Designs' retail store, located in Toronto which features her designs and a number of other Canadian puppet builders.