What to Know
- Skirball Puppet Festival at the Skirball Cultural Center
- Sunday, April 28 from noon to 5 p.m.
- $20 adult; $15 senior/student; $13 children ages 2 to 17; advance tickets are sold out but walk-up admission may be available
We're not trying to pull at any strings when we say that April just might be the puppet-iest month.
This could be seen, in some quirky quarters, as a controversial suggestion; after all, National Puppet Day is on March 21, a fitting occasion for the start of springtime in the Northern Hemisphere.
But, around Los Angeles at least, you'll find a plethora of plucky puppets hither and yon come April, from the free Bob Baker Day, which just frolicked at Los Angeles State Historic Park on April 21, to the Skirball Cultural Center's pupp-ular Puppet Festival, which will make merry on the final Sunday of April 2024.
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That's April 28, and while advance tickets to the sunshiny Skirball-ebration are now sold out, walk-up tickets may be available on the day of the party.
And it is a party: Puppet performances — the Bob Baker Marionettes will be there, of course, as well as Blackstreet USA Theatre and The Zuppeteers — festoon the five-hour schedule, as well as appearances of an offbeat and delightful variety.
You may want to move to the upbeat music of the Top Shelf Brass Band or learn about the "art of puppetry" with Rogue Artists Ensemble's Shadow Lab.
The Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry will be in the house, too; in fact, every month is Puppet Month for the guild, a group that offers a line-up of eclectic get-togethers and goings-on throughout the calendar.
The 2024 theme is "A World of Dreams," a nice notion that also fits the just-opened Maurice Sendak exhibition inside the cultural center.
