Bob Baker Marionette Theater

The script for every puppet show ever performed at Bob Baker Marionette Theater is music. We house an archive of over 6000 records that Bob Baker collected, and which have formed the soundtrack for every show. As we continue to expand our educational programming, we will provide enhanced educational workshops and curriculum as part of our field trip program for Title 1 schools, in partnership with musical artists such as Money Mark, Lazaro Arvizu, Jr., Becky Stark and Kate Micucci.

BBMT requests support for Cultivating Creators, the theater's official apprenticeship program. Through our puppeteering and fabrication workshops, the program will prepare young people for creative careers in and beyond puppetry, including animation (via character design), fine art (via woodworking and sewing), and TV/Film animation and special effects (via sculpting and mold making), to name a few. Cultivating Creators will focus especially on training women and people of color, groups vastly underrepresented in these technical careers.

An LA2050 grant will support the launch of a county-wide Marionette Mobile run by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater to bring self-contained, COVID-compliant puppet performances to every corner of Los Angeles. Each show will serve to connect intergenerational communities through the art of puppetry– and focus on the emotional and healing impact puppets can have on children and young adults.

With funding from LA 2050 we intend to establish the Academy of Puppetry and Allied Arts which will provide lifelong learning through the many entry points that puppetry offers, with a specific focus on school age K-12 groups. Included in this program are musical & literary resources directly from our archives, programs and classes that explore puppetry through the intersection of art and technology, as well as professional mentors available to advise students in our theater’s storefront, a hub dedicated to direct engagement with the community.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is LA Historic Cultural Landmark #958. Having recently faced eviction at our home of 55 years, the outpouring of support when our company thrived instead of closing down was enormous, and we want to use LA2050 to create an active sharing resource where historic organizations and threatened institutions can use our new space in Highland Park to explore sustainable, innovative ways in which history is not only preserved but feasibly carried forth into the future.