Tatyana Gessen is an actress, theater director, writer, producer, and documentary filmmaker. She was born, raised, and started her career in the former USSR, continuing and expanding her knowledge and education in theater production, film making, and puppetry after moving to the United States.

Earning her Masters of Fine Arts in Theater and Film from Moscow Art Theater School, she went on to act in Moscow theaters for more than a decade performing various works by many great playwrights such as Chekhov, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Shakespeare, and Moliere. After relocating to the United States, she studied filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.

Her passion for theater still served as a driving force as she advanced in her filmmaking career, and she began making documentaries about theater. Her 2005 documentary, Unprotected Senses, about ground-breaking Russian-Jewish theater director Kama Ginkas, won an Accolade Competition Award.

It was through filmmaking that Tatyana was introduced to the world of puppetry, when she was commissioned to make a documentary film about the 2019 International Puppets Festival being held on Sakhalin Island.

Since then, she started to involve puppetry in her Lumina Theater Company productions, got involved in classes and workshops with Puppet Showplace Theater in Boston, and advanced her education in the rich history of the artform as her fascination with puppetry continued to grow.

Looking to find a unique way to continue this foray into puppeteering, Tatyana is working on a new project where she will be producing an original puppet production of Shakespeare Richard the Third play with puppets made from a creative material—vegetables.