Local Professional Ventriloquist Performers for Hire:
Diana, Professional Ventriloquist
Diana L. Smith, also known as Diana Rockwell, is a professional ventriloquist performer based in Kansas City, KS and formerly Lawrence, KS. Her event and party puppet ventriloquy truly shows her love of puppetry, which began as a small child when her mother purchased a puppet making book at a Montgomery Ward book sale. Needless to say, it never left her side. Her fascination with the book led her to create characters mostly made from wooden spoons or cut-out cardboard faces glued to popsicle sticks. She even built a puppet theater out of a cardboard box. After reading an English folk tale called “Johnny Cake,” she performed her first original puppet ventriloquist show called “The Buttermilk Ghost” where the runaway pancake was now a ghost that haunted breakfast time instead. Today, she continues to perform original puppet shows suitable for all kinds of audiences. She started out performing as a ventriloquist for mature audiences only, and now she focuses on material that is best fitted for family crowds.
Her interest in becoming a professional ventriloquist performer peaked as an undergrad. She was a painting major creating works based on books, movies and media from her childhood, such as reworking images from the Goosebumps book, Night of The Living Dummy. That project inspired her to do some research on ventriloquism. She searched YouTube for videos of successful ventriloquists such as Kevin Johnson, Terry Fator, Jeff Dunham, Nina Conti, and eventually stumbled across the one who became her all time favorite: Dan Horn. In the end, she never completed the painting series she started, but pursued an entirely different art form instead. Now, it is all she ever wants to do.
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See an Example of Her Work as a Professional Ventriloquist Performer: