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Bob Baker Marionette Theater

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ABOUT
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #958. With over 300 performances a year, utilizing over 2000 handcrafted puppets, the Theater caters to birthday parties, school groups, weddings, and community functions of all sorts. After 50 years of magic, having entertained over one million children of all ages, we are proud and excited for 50 more years of pulling the strings of family fun!

(Bob Baker Marionette Theater, video by OhMore TV)

In 1930 Bob Baker, a six-year-old Los Angeles native, saw a puppet show and dedicated the rest of his life to puppetry. His company’s work spanned decades of creative projects across Los Angeles, from puppetry and design on Disneyland’s Main Street, to countless contributions in film and television including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Bewitched, Escape to Witch Mountain, and more. The Bob Baker Marionette Theater continues his legacy of fostering imagination and creativity in all aspects of life and art.


SUPPORT OUR FUTURE
Bob Baker Marionette Theater now as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization will transition our current operation into an institution to educate kids of all ages across Los Angeles and beyond, to celebrate imagination and creativity, and to rejuvenate appreciation for handcrafted puppetry and entertainment. As a nonprofit organization, we are owned by the community and exist to serve the community. Though Bob Baker was the founder of our organization, we exist now to celebrate, expand, and educate people on Bob Baker’s work and the concepts of puppetry and performance as a whole.

The final day the Theater in its current location will be open to the public is Friday, November 23rd, 2018 (the day after Thanksgiving, which is the same day the Theater opened 55 years ago). One day later, on November 24, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater will open Bob Baker's Nutcracker presented at the Pasadena Playhouse for 5 weeks. For the first time in its history, this tradition will have a new home to share the holiday joy and imagination that generations have come to know and love.  Performances will run through December 30. Tickets are now on sale at www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

(Photo by Lisa Whiteman)

You can support the bright future of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater which includes our soon-to-be-announced new location, designed from original and unrealized concepts by Bob Baker himself; incorporating all the beloved features of the current theater from the drywall to the chandeliers. While we are building out our new space, we will journey wherever imagination dwells as part of our "Imagination Dwells Here" program!

(Original concept drawing of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater by Morton Haack)

#ImaginationDwellsHere defines what we do and what it feels like wherever Bob Baker Marionettes perform and enchant! With #ImaginationDwellsHere, the Theater continues with residencies, performances, and pop-ups at the Santa Monica Pier, Dynasty Typewriter, Miracle Mile Toy Hall, KidSpace, the YARD Theater and more. The Bob Baker Marionette Mobile will launch as a traveling ice cream truck and puppet caravan.

In what is clearly a moment of a changing city, Bob Baker Marionette Theater will exist as an example where change doesn’t have to mean a loss of history and culture, this is an opportunity where culture can transition and not only adapt to change but grow within it. To support the Bob Baker Marionette Theater now is to support arts and culture in the fabric of an evolving city.

We are a living Theater, timeless in our presentation of culture, art, and craft. We are influenced by decades of design and centuries of craft, made by 1000’s of individuals from the founding members to the amazing current crew and future artists who will come to be part of the Theater - they are all encapsulated in the name “Bob Baker.” The Bob Baker Marionette Theater lives where imagination dwells. For 55 years, imagination dwelled at 1345 W. First St., and now it will dwell at the Pasadena Playhouse, Santa Monica Pier, soon at our new location, and also in the lives of children who take home the experience of seeing a puppet show. We are In LA to Stay and we couldn’t be more excited!

(Photo by Lisa Whiteman)

Organizer and beneficiary

Alex Evans
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
Alexander Evans
Beneficiary

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