LOS ANGELES — Audiences in Highland Park are all aboard for the first new show at Bob Baker Marionette Theater in 40 years.
While the longest-running puppet theater in California has been entertaining crowds of all ages for over six decades, until now it’s been with classic shows and beloved characters.
“This dodo bird, she is from 1958,” Alex Evans pointed out in the backstage workshop.
Evans has been hanging around the theater a long time, too — 20 years or so — since he first started as a 19-year-old intern.
“[I] had no background in puppets or marionettes, but saw a show and was blown away,” he said. “I asked Bob if I could help out. And Bob said yes. And then I’ve been tangled up ever since.”
Now in the role of artistic director, he said creating the all new Choo Choo Revue was a big responsibility, knowing he had to keep the company’s long LA legacy on track.
“The theater means something different to so many different people,” Evans said. “The only kind of guiding principle was like, ‘oh, does it make us laugh’ with faith that is going to make the audience laugh and feel joy.”
The process took several years, he said, starting with gathering a host of talented, creative people in one room to focus on a theme — a train ride through the Pacific Northwest.
“And we just like sketched for days and days and days,” he said.
Fleshing those sketches out involves a lot of steps and a lot of people — about 100 artisans sculpting, painting, costuming and stringing. It takes about 300 hours to create just one new puppet, Evan explained. And for this show, they built about a hundred of them. And while they didn’t want to travel too far from the old traditions of puppetry, they did experiment with some new technologies.
“There’s 3D printing in the show,” said Evans. “There’s all sorts of funky, weird electrical mechanisms that kind of make the puppets do things.”
(Spectrum News/ Tara Lynn Wagner)
The company faced some upheaval over the past few years. After spending more than half a century in their original home in Westlake, the building they’d always been in was sold in 2018, forcing them to relocate. A year later, they moved into the former York Theatre in Highland Park, a 100-year-old building they are currently trying to purchase.
“We never want to get into the space again where there’s a danger of the theater going away,” said MJ Thompson, communications director for BBMT. “So we want to ensure the future.”
They launched a major capital campaign to raise $5 million for the purchase plus, and Thomspon said they’re almost there — only about a quarter of a million to go.
“Our community has really rallied behind us,” Thompson said.
And like the little puppet theater that could, Evans said they plan to keep on chugging until they arrive at their fundraising destination.
“LA is runs through the veins of everything here,” he explained. “Having a stable base within Los Angeles, it means the world… It means that these puppets will live on for my grandkids, which like truly gives me goosebumps.”
He knows the only way to make sure that happens is to own their own space — no strings attached.