Chuck Chesney

Chuck Chesney (born August 17, 1964) is a American puppeteer, puppet maker/designer, actor and voice actor. He was born in and is currently based in,.

Biography
Chuck Chesney was born August 17, 1964 in, the son of marionette performer Neil Chesney. His brother Adam Chesney also works with the Muppets.

At the age of 19, Chuck was hired by Sesame Place. As the years progressed, he would end up performing Bert and Big Bird at the park. In 1987, Chuck, then 22 years old and attending, attended a Muppeteer's workshop. Chuck ended up auditioning for and then performing the role of Cordial in the television film The Muppets & The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and a year later in 1988 he performed additional characters in the Kermit's Magic Hour pilot. Both projects were made for at  in, ,.

Chuck later performed in multiple Muppet projects throughout the 1990s, including performing Kermit the Frog to a vocal track recorded by in the 1996 Muppet USA Mall Tour and performing full-body Muppet characters such as Plaza Sésamo ' s Abelardo Montoya in his guest appearance in Kids for Character: Clubhouse Tunes. In addition to his Muppet work, Chuck remained active as a freelancer, including performing Barney the Dinosaur for the first two Baby Bop spinoff videos Baby Bop Says Hello! and Baby Bop's School Day, as well as providing the voice of Wilbur in The Rescuers on the Case (taking over the role from the late ) and programming animatronic heads for Fuse Special Effects's costumes for Redwall live shows.

Currently, Chuck does various puppetry work as well as working at in  and Freelance Puppets NYC in  as a puppet designer & maker. He designed "Devino", the New York Creature Shop-created, Muppet-like mascot of MatsuMedia. Chuck mainly specializes in full-body Muppet characters.

Personal Life
In 2011, Chuck married stage actress/dancer Barbara de Rijke in at. The two met while working on the Kids for Character specials and began dating in 2007.

Chuck is a born-again Lutheran Christian and theistic evolution creationist who converted in 1998 after volunteering at in Manhattan's Upper West Side. He considers himself to be part of the (ELCA), and has volunteered his original characters at member congregations of the. When asked in 2019 how he can rationalize performing puppets for "pro-science works" as a creationist, he replied "It's totally okay for some people to believe in the Big Bang and evolution and some people to believe in God's creation of the Earth and intelligent design, and it's also okay for some people to think of God as real and others to believe Him to be just a myth, because believing and acting differently from the others is how Christianity and religion began in the first place."