The Second City’s Amie and Ithamar Enriquez pause to talk partnership and puppetry

The Second City’s Amie Enriquez and Ithamar Enriquez are a Hollywood couple who bonded over a shared love of The Muppets, classic comedy and Garry Shandling, and have translated their passions and skills into thriving acting careers on stage and screen. 

Amie and Ithamar’s dynamic oscillation between personal projects and periodic collaboration really spoke to us because we are ourselves a married couple jointly steering SesayArts Magazine while charting individual pursuits and careers. So we jumped at the opportunity to interview them – couple to couple. The intersection of their careers with our arts magazine’s focus on family entertainment was immediately evident, and personal itches were further scratched by the discussion –  such as Scott’s love of comics by Ithamar’s role in WandaVision (Disney+) and Arpita’s love of theatre by Amie’s solo stage show Lightweight. The result was a sprawling, engrossing and laughter-filled conversation.

In fact, this felt more like a great Zoom call with old friends than a prearranged interview. Side-by-side on a living room couch, the couple settled in for our chat from their Los Angeles home. The source of their success was quickly evident. First, their combined talents span the domains of improv, writing, acting, directing, teaching and puppetry. Second, and just as important, they are creative and humble, insightful and amusing, and at ease in their individual and collective skins. 

In the first part of our discussion, they revealed their origin story as a couple, and explored the power of puppetry. The Enriquezes met nine years ago at The Second City Hollywood, when Ithamar directed Amie in a show. They bonded over their shared comic love of The Muppets, old comedians and specific shows. Burned in Ithamar’s memory is a throwaway reference made by Amie to the theme song of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Garry Shandling superfan Ithamar was already intrigued, but recalls thinking at the time, “well, that seals the deal for me. This is going to be an amazing relationship!” 

In addition to their shared background in improv, Amie and Ithamar are both professional puppeteers who, “already such big fans of the Muppets and of Jim Henson,” trained at the famed Jim Henson Company. The two were dating when they made it into the program, but their admissions were based on the merits of their individual auditions. The company “put out an audition notice for improvisers, so that they could teach puppetry to improvisers, and then, puppeteers to teach improv, and they kind of threw us all together in the same class.” The experience was at once “really fun, really challenging, and something that we both love doing,” affirms Ithamar. Being on Charlie Chaplin’s old lot turned made an already fantastic experience a “really magical time” for the two lovers of vintage Hollywood comedy.

Since that time, and despite their shared talents, the two do not work together as much as they might like – “especially now that theatre is no longer a possibility here,” thanks to the pandemic. Amie concedes that the lack of collaboration is “sometimes purposeful. Because I know how difficult that can be for a couple. It’s not like I don’t trust Ithamar, but I just didn’t always want to mix our personal lives and professional lives. You can butt heads, and I want to avoid that.” 

A nodding Ithamar concurs, but emphasizes the couple’s strong and continuous behind-the-scenes collaboration: “unofficially, we do work together a lot, in that, whenever I get an audition, Amie’s my unofficial acting coach. She’s very good at picking out certain notes of recording jokes. And she’s also my therapist, in a sense. When I don’t get a role or something, she kind of brings me back down.” “He hasn’t received my bill yet for the therapy,” deadpans a smiling Amie. Ithamar laughs before touting his role as collaborator: “I would like to think that I help her, too, whenever she’s working on a project. So we definitely bounce a lot of ideas back and forth.” 

In our interview, the couple’s natural chemistry and mutual respect are so evident that the unlikeliness of seeing them perform together smarts a little. Fortunately, their hilarious segment “Learn Something New with JoJo and Blue” on The Second City’s monthly Zoom-delivered Really Awesome Improv Show for kids has compensated for this gap. Before the pandemic, The Really Awesome Improv Show was a weekly live stage show at The Second City Hollywood, where Amie was a cast member for several years. Now, it is performed on a digital platform at the start of every month. (In SesayArts’ estimation the show’s title is not hyperbole. The performers succeed admirably in making the segments and the overall experience interactive and child-centred, despite the digital environment. Plus, the online format affords opportunities for Second City performers from different cities in Canada and the US to perform together. So, yes, it is “really awesome”!) 

In the show, Amie and Ithamar bring to life the exuberant and misguided puppets JoJo and Blue. “Oh yeah,” laughs Amie, when we remind her of the segment. “I guess I forgot about that because, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s so fun and playful for us. It really doesn’t even feel like we’re working on something.”  In each episode of “Learn Something New with JoJo and Blue”, a child offers to teach puppets JoJo (voiced by Ithamar) and Blue (voiced by Amie) something they are passionate about. The expert child quizzes the two puppets, who – invariably – offer wildly incorrect, funny answers, which the child corrects. Through the dialogue, the appreciative and impressed JoJo and Blue learn interesting new facts. 

The topics, which are chosen by the child experts themselves, have ranged from animals to Minecraft to outer space. And the simple premise provides wide scope for good-natured laughter. “It’s really fun for the puppets to get all these answers wrong,” chuckles Amie, while noting how seriously the kids take their duties. “The detail!” she marvels. “These children are so bright. It just blows my mind!” Asked if they have ever truly been stumped, Amie and Ithamar howl with laughter: “Yeah, we’ve been stumped almost every single episode. Thank goodness, we have to be wrong!”  

Amie describes JoJo and Blue’s voices as “amplified, more ‘character voices’ than our own voices. We definitely bring a little bit of chaos to these puppets, while keeping in mind that children are watching”. Ithamar likens his own personality and puppet to what Jim Henson was to Kermit, and Frank Oz was to Fozzie Bear: “for me, my puppet is just me, turned up a little bit more. Sort of like a smartass who comes out, because that’s what I use in real life as a defense mechanism. It’s like one of my favorite quotes by Larry David when people ask about his character on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He says, ‘that’s not me, but that’s what I would love to be’.” The puppet gives Ithamar a wonderfully fun chance to be “this little monster version” of himself. And, much like the real Amie and Ithamar, their puppets “fight, but they’re still really supportive of each other. And we’re able to find our little quirks in there”. 

Amie lights up when describing the challenges of puppetry. Maneuvering a puppet while acting, interacting and improvising is complex: “there’s so much to think about, especially when you’re doing it on camera so physically. Your body is contorted into some real funky positions. Your shoulder gets tired pretty fast – puppets aren’t very light!  And then to use your voice and make sure it carries into the new platform, now that we’re using it on the laptop.” But with that said, it’s always “ fun day” when she and Ithamar can “put on our puppets, which we both love, and interact with each other and with the kids in real time. It doesn’t feel like work at all.” 

Their humility does not diminish the effort that yielded multiple episodes, all taped in one day, of “Learn Something New with JoJo and Blue”. The couple are not seen as themselves until the segment ends, in order to preserve the illusion of the puppets. “So the camera rolls . . . and then to have us pop into the screen… I mean their faces go like this,” Ithamar says, demonstrating the children’s wide-eyed wonder. “They get so excited. Oh my gosh! And then, that gives us so much energy.” These reactions remind the couple of their own favorite segments on Sesame Street – when Grover or Kermit would have a one-on-one conversation with an earnest child. “It’s just the best!” Ithamar beams.

As it happens, The Really Awesome Improv Show Online is on a temporary hiatus, precluding the ability to watch “Learn Something New with JoJo and Blue”. Look for information on when the show will resume on The Second City’s website, likely in time for summer vacation. 

© Arpita Ghosal and Scott Sneddon