What's it like being an emergency room doctor for puppets on the set of Broadway's The Lion King? Katrina caught up with the constantly on-the-go Pamela Pierzina to find out
by Katrina Woznicki

Who: Pamela Pierzina
Job: Repairs puppets for Broadway's The Lion King
Age: 41
Salary: $1,500/week

8:00 "I roll out of bed and go jogging in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I have to keep fit for my job doing repairs for two hundred puppets. A French major in college, I fell into this line of work after I got a job at a prop company that supplied photo shoots. If I have a lot of time, I can fix anything, but often I have only a minute.

10:00 "I just bought my apartment, so I browse in nearby shops for vintage mid-century-modern, like a purple shag rug and a leather-and-chrome dining-room set.

12:00 "I take the subway to Times Square. It's nice to clock in at the same place five or six days a week. I used to travel nine to ten months a year - from Germany to Dubai to the Philippines - with Sesame Street Live, fixing their costumes. Shopping for parts and supplies in foreign languages is a challenge.

1:00 "I work in the puppet shop, eight floors above the stage, fixing the pieces, some of which are motorized."

5:00 "I could be running the rest of the night, so I go to a gourmet cafeteria a few blocks from the bustle of Times Square and sit down to a big plate of chicken and mashed potatoes."

7:00 "An hour to showtime. I put on a belly pack with a hodgepodge of supplies and tools. To work in the dark backstage, I put a tiny flashlight in my mouth to free up my hands. One of my worst moments was when a mask slid off an actor and fell to the floor during his death scene. There was nothing I could do to help, so he simply exited."

7:30 "I do last-minute checks of the pieces to make sure nothing's out of place. I go over the tail of one character to see that it isn't frayed, which might cause the actor to trip."

8:00 "I strap on my walk-talkie and watch the opening number from backstage. The whole cast, including actors on stilts, moves around the theater. When I'm sure all is well, I head for the shop to work on fine-tuning back-up puppets."

9:20 "My walkie-talkie crackles: The hand has fallen off one of the costumes. I race downstairs from my workshop to the stage and tape the hand back on. It'll hold for the rest of the show. Tomorrow, I'll fix it."

11:00 "I join friends at a nightclub and stay out till three or four a.m. I'm not married and have no children or pets, so my time is my own. I don't know if I'll ever get married. I don't feel forty-one; I just feel happy, with a full life."