The red velvet curtains of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater do not just separate an audience from a stage; they shield a vanishing medium from the crushing weight of digital apathy. For decades, the theater operated on a loop of nostalgic favorites, cycling through shows like The Nutcracker and Hooray LA! while the world outside traded string-puppets for CGI. But in May 2026, the theater broke its forty-year cycle of revivals with the premiere of Choo Choo Revue. This is not a simple expansion of the repertoire. It is an aggressive, high-stakes pivot intended to prove that a mid-century art form can survive as a modern commercial and cultural powerhouse.
The stakes are higher than a simple opening night. After nearly collapsing during the pandemic—a crisis that required a desperate $365,000 community lifeline to survive—the theater has transitioned from a fragile historic landmark into a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a 2024 revenue of $3.94 million. Choo Choo Revue is the first major production since the passing of founder Bob Baker in 2014, making it the definitive test of whether the institution can innovate or if it is destined to become a museum for a dead man’s dreams.
The Forty Year Freeze
To understand why a new show matters, you have to look at the stagnation that preceded it. Bob Baker was a titan who built a world of 3,000 marionettes, but his genius created a shadow that was difficult to escape. For four decades, the theater relied on "heritage" programming. While these shows were beloved, they functioned as a closed loop. The internal mechanism of the theater was geared toward preservation, not creation.
The move from the original downtown location to Highland Park in 2019 was the first crack in that shell. The new space, a repurposed 1920s silent movie house, forced the company to adapt its technical rigs and audience interactions. Choo Choo Revue represents the completion of that transition. It is the first time the current generation of puppeteers, led by Executive Director Alex Evans and a cohort of artisans who learned at Baker’s feet, has had to answer the hardest question in the industry: What does a Bob Baker show look like when Bob Baker isn't here to draw it?
Engineering a Fantasy on Rails
The production of Choo Choo Revue was a five-year marathon of fabrication and choreography. It features over 100 new marionettes, a staggering number for a single production. In an era where most live entertainment is trending toward "immersive" digital projections, the theater chose to go in the opposite direction. They doubled down on the physical.
- The Technical Build: Each puppet is a bespoke machine of wood, wire, and fabric. The "cicada jugband" and "singing mushrooms" mentioned in the show's billing are not just costumes; they are complex mechanical entities that must survive 100+ performances a year.
- The Sensory Pivot: On August 1, 2026, the theater scheduled a "Sensory-Friendly" performance, a move that signals a departure from the "hallowed hall" mentality of traditional theater. They are actively re-engineering the environment for inclusivity, acknowledging that the future of the medium depends on accessibility, not just tradition.
The "train" motif of the show is more than a kid-friendly theme. It is a structural device that allows the puppeteers to cycle through various vignettes—rolling hills, dazzling deserts, and mountainous peaks—without the need for traditional scene breaks. It mimics the fast-paced, episodic nature of modern media while grounding it in the tactile reality of 1960s craftsmanship.
The Financial Reality of Puppetry
Critics often view the Bob Baker Marionette Theater through a lens of whimsy, but the numbers tell a story of cold, hard business survival. According to ProPublica records, the theater's revenue jumped from roughly $1.1 million in 2019 to nearly $4 million by 2024.
| Fiscal Metric (2024) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue | $3,944,723 |
| Program Service Revenue | $1,802,781 |
| Contributions & Grants | $1,920,294 |
| Total Assets | $4,314,468 |
This financial profile shows a theater that is no longer living hand-to-mouth. However, it also reveals a heavy reliance on contributions (48.7% of total revenue). Choo Choo Revue is the engine meant to shift that balance. By creating a "blockbuster" original show, the theater aims to increase program service revenue, moving toward a self-sustaining model where ticket sales and touring commissions—like their recent appearances at Coachella—drive the bottom line.
Why the Human Element Still Wins
There is a counter-argument to the theater’s expansion: why bother? In a world of VR and 4K streaming, the sight of a person visibly holding strings might seem archaic. But the "visible puppeteer" is exactly what makes the Bob Baker method work. Unlike the Muppets, where the performer is hidden, Baker’s shows put the human and the puppet in the same physical space.
This transparency creates a unique psychological bond with the audience. You see the labor. You see the sweat. When a puppet sits on a child's lap in the "criss-cross-applesauce" seating area, the barrier between fiction and reality doesn't just blur; it vanishes. Choo Choo Revue leans into this by featuring "dancing luggage" that interacts directly with the crowd. It is a direct challenge to the screen-based entertainment that dominates the 2026 cultural landscape.
The Weight of the Strings
The danger for the theater lies in its own success. As it becomes a $4 million-a-year operation with sensory-friendly shows and festival appearances, it risks losing the "scrappy" soul that Bob Baker cultivated in a run-down scenic shop in 1963. The transition to a professionalized nonprofit requires a level of bureaucracy that can often stifle the very imagination it seeks to protect.
However, the fabrication shop at the Highland Park location remains a hive of manual labor. They still make wooden shoes. They still sew glitter gloves. The theater is not just selling a show; it is preserving a supply chain of specialized knowledge that exists nowhere else in Los Angeles. If Choo Choo Revue succeeds—and early ticket sales suggest it will—it proves that the "Place Where Imagination Dwells" isn't a static monument. It's a living, breathing, and occasionally profitable, machine.
The train is leaving the station. The strings are tight. The puppets are ready. Whether Los Angeles is ready to keep supporting this analog rebellion is no longer the question. The question is whether the rest of the world can afford to let it go.
Tickets are $25. The show lasts an hour. The impact, if they’ve done this right, will last another forty years. Go see the mushrooms sing while they still have someone to pull the strings.
