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    Debby Lee Cohen, Who Helped Prune Plastic From Schools, Dies at 64

    Her successful campaign against foam lunch trays in New York City led to similar city and statewide bans — and taught a group of fifth graders how to take on City Hall.As an artist who liked to play with scale, Debby Lee Cohen created monumental pieces, like the giant puppets she designed for Manhattan’s annual Village Halloween Parade, as well as miniatures, like the tiny forest she once made for a work by the interdisciplinary artist and compose Meredith Monk, with whom she often collaborated.A decade and a half ago, she became a plastic activist when she learned the scale of waste in New York City’s public schools.Her daughter Anna, then in second grade at a school in the East Village, had announced that she was boycotting lunch after seeing an exhibition on climate change at the Museum of Natural History that included a diorama of polar bears atop a mountain of what she recognized as her school’s lunch trays. It was then that Ms. Cohen learned that school lunches were served on foam trays — and that the city’s more than 1,800 public schools were using and throwing out at least 800,000 of them daily.Ms. Cohen, an artist, animator, performer, puppeteer and environmental activist whose campaign to eliminate foam trays from New York City’s public schools paved the way for similar bans in the city and state — and who taught students how to advocate for themselves at school and at City Hall — died on April 7 at her home in Manhattan. She was 64.The cause was colon cancer, said her sister, Ellie Cohen.The interdisciplinary artist and composer Meredith Monk, left, and Robert Een wearing costumes designed by Ms. Cohen in a performance of Ms. Monk’s “Facing North.” Ms. Monk and Ms. Cohen collaborated frequently.T. JunichiIn 2009, after her daughter’s school lunch boycott — which she solved in the short term by making her daughter’s lunches herself — Ms. Cohen looked for organizations that were dealing with the tray issue. There were none. But she found like-minded parents who were also working to reduce the staggering amount of plastic waste in their children’s schools, and they banded together to push for citywide action.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Mark Dodson, Voice of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Gremlins’ Characters, Dies at 64

    He voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt in “Return of the Jedi,” as well as Mogwai in both “Gremlins” films.Mark Dodson, who voiced strange puppet creatures in “Star Wars,” including Salacious B. Crumb, the cackling monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt, and “Gremlins” films, died on Saturday. He was 64.His death was confirmed in statements on social media by his agent, Peter DeLorme, and the Evansville Horror Con, the Indiana fan convention where he had been scheduled to appear over the weekend. No cause of death was given.Mr. Dodson’s career began in 1983 on “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” when he voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the court jester of Jabba the Hutt that was known for its maniacal laugh.In a 2020 interview, Mr. Dodson explained how he had gotten the role by accident.He was auditioning for Adm. Ackbar, a leader during the Clone Wars, but was so nervous that he asked for a break to compose himself, and was overheard using a deranged voice that the casting director thought was perfect for Crumb.That led to Mr. Dodson to voice several of the Mogwai in “Gremlins,” the 1984 comedy-horror film about a young man who accidentally unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town on Christmas Eve.“Let’s say I did get Ackbar — I never would’ve gotten the ‘Gremlins,’” he said. “The ‘Gremlins’ came because the ‘Gremlins’ were made by the same guys who made Salacious. That’s why it came up, ‘They look a lot the same. Wouldn’t it be great for the Gremlins to have that same voice! Who is that guy?’”Mr. Dodson continued working in both franchises, voicing characters in the 1985 television movie “Ewoks: The Battle for Endor” and “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” in 1990.He voiced a scavenger in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015) and appeared as an uncredited zombie in George Romero’s “Day of the Dead” (1985).Mark Dodson was born on Feb. 1, 1960, in St. Louis, according to IMDb.He also voiced characters in several video games, including “Star Trek Online,” “Ghostrunner,” “Bendy and the Dark Revival,” and “Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga,” once again as Crumb. More