The Harlem Doll Palace * - Alva Puppet Theater

Puppetopia 2025

Photo by: Richard Termine

HERE **
145 6th Ave
New York, NY
https://here.org/shows/puppetopia-2025/

HERE’s Puppetopia, a two-week puppetry state of mind, returns for its fourth annual edition. Curated by HERE Co-Founder Barbara Busackino and Dream Music Artistic Director and star Alum Basil Twist, the festival presents original work. We’re kicking off Puppetopia 2025 with THE HARLEM DOLL PALACE, with more exciting shows to be announced soon—stay tuned! Welcome to Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum! Behind the pink door of a three story Harlem brownstone lies a world created by Lennon Holder Hoyte – affectionately known as Aunt Len. The dolls from her “dollection” seek to keep Aunt Len, their beloved museum founder, alive before the outside world can invoke its realities of life, ashes and dust. As Harlem deteriorates around her beloved doll museum, the dolls recreate their journeys to the museum in an effort to keep Aunt Len’s memory alive. Enter the world of The Harlem Doll Palace. Remember, an appointment is necessary for admission.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant (2023) and Production Grant (2024)
** Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Presenter's Grant (2025)

May 21 - June 1, 2025
Wednesday - Friday at 7pm
Saturday at 2pm and 7pm
Sunday at 2pm

$37

Variations On (the) Water * - Lake Simons

Puppetopia 2025

HERE Arts Center
145 6th Ave
New York, NY
https://here.org/shows/puppetopia-2025-variations-of-water/

Join Lake Simons in a poetic solo puppet performance that invites the audience to imagine and co-create a story. Variations On (the) Water, a solo rendering of the larger work, Raft Project (My Shapes Are In Turmoil). A lyrical embodiment of the sea exploring its movement, vastness, poetry, and ability to saturate, flow, carry, drown, and nourish. Weaving puppetry, objects, dance, clown, and music. A full length wordless puppet theatre work by Lake Simons and John Dyer.

* An exploration of Raft Project, which received a Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant (2025)

May 28 - June 1, 2025
Weds - Fri at 8:30pm
Sat at 4pm and 8:30pm

$37

Rhynoceron - KT Shivak

Puppetopia 2025

HERE Arts Center *
145 6th Ave
New York, NY
https://here.org/shows/puppetopia-2025-rhynoceron/

From Chicago to NYC—Shivak’s life-sized rhino puppet transforms before your eyes in a tale of beauty, extinction, and obsession. The world premiere of a puppetry show that traces the true events surrounding the arrival of a one-horned rhinoceros to Renaissance Europe, sparking an obsession that continued for hundreds of years. Through acts of hunting and collecting, Shivak’s life size rhino puppet transforms in front of our eyes from a natural inspiring wonder to an object of human greed. Shivak and Company hail from Chicago where this show was created with support from The Chicago International Puppetry Festival and High Concept Labs, this show mark’s their New York Debut.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Presenter's Grant (2025)

May 21 - 25, 2025
Weds - Fri at 8:30pm
Sat at 4pm and 8:30pm
Sunday at 4pm

$37

Faust

Heartbeat Opera

Baruch PAC
55 Lexington Ave 25th St
New York, NY
https://www.heartbeatopera.org/faust

A lonely scholar makes a bargain with the devil, and all hell breaks loose. Heartbeat Opera’s distinctly American adaptation tells the story of Faust and Marguerite — a man who wildly misuses his regained youth, a young woman whose potential for life and love is cut tragically short, and the ravaged community left in their wake. Retelling one of the most popular operas of all time, we ask what happens when the soul hasn’t evolved along with the mind? When voracious ego rules us, and reckless forward motion is all?

May 13 - 25, 2025
Tues - Sat at 7:30pm
Sunday at 2:00pm

From $36.50

Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?

SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St
New York, NY
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35583/production/1233285

Nina Conti – the virtuoso ventriloquist, BAFTA nominee and British Comedy Award winner – is back in New York with the Best Reviewed Comedy Show of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024! Nina presents an unparalleled, unscripted brand new show that delves deep into who we are, hijacking faces to spark a bold, hysterical reality warp. It was also the Best Reviewed Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024. Nina Conti (and Monkey) has regularly sold out shows all over the world with her widely acclaimed performances: in London’s West End, off-Broadway in New York, at Sydney’s Opera House, across the UK on tour and more – all without moving her lips! Best Review Comedy Show – Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024

May 15 - June 1, 2025
Thursdays through Saturdays at 9pm
Sundays at 5pm
Tuesday, May 27 at 7pm

General Admission $59

We Wiggle Dolls IX: A Puppet Slam

We Wiggle Dolls

Rubulad
Revealed to buyers day of show, or DM the venue.
Brooklyn, NY
https://withfriends.co/event/23369472/we_wiggle_dolls_ix

We Wiggle Dolls: A Puppet Slam is back at Rubulad Wednesday May 21st! This edition will feature a live-scored crankie ghost story from The Convulsionistas, the clown stylings of Humanette Honks, bizarre marionettes from Anti-Menagerie and more! Resident performer TJ Jacobs of Basically Good Puppet Theatre will host this edition. Be sure to arrive at doors and explore outside during intermission to witness even more exciting modern puppetry! ig: @wewiggledolls

We Wiggle Dolls IX: A Puppet Slam
Wednesday, May 21st
7:30pm doors // 8:00pm show

PERFORMERS:
- The Convulsionistas
- Anti Menagerie (@smitheressence)
- Michelle Finston (@mishishinkowa)
- Basically Good Puppet Theatre (@basically_good)
- Humanette Honks (@humanettehonks)
- Chemical X + Muna (@mu_cube & @gtoviz )
- Liz Crawford

May 21, 2025
7:30PM

$24 Presale, $28 Full Price

PUNCH Puppet Slam: WILLY WONKA!

Drama of Works

RUBULAD
[location secret - please email for address]
Brooklyn, NY
https://www.dramaofworks.com/willywonka

Drama of Works hosts and curates PUNCH Puppet slam - where we take a play, historical event, movie or story and retell it in order with a number of different puppet artists, creating a weird collage of an experience. Our next installment tells the tale of that wacky, mischievous factory owner Willy Wonka. Watch as puppet artists drown kids in chocolate, shrink them into the TV, torment them with golden geese, blow them up like a balloon ready to pop - and more!!! Featuring Kell Selznick & Adrienne Gomez, Crooked Square Puppetry, Marcelo Bottaro, Esme Roszel, Hailey Bendar, Zlata Godunova, Ricky Downes, Anthony Sellitto-Budney, Kate Brehm, and Drama of Works! PUNCH is supported by the Puppet Slam Network!

June 4, 2025
Doors @7pm, Show @7:30

$18 in advance/$20 at the door

Hand In The Hole 5: The Whole Fist

Coney Island USA Burlesque at the Beach

Photo by: Willa Folmar

Coney Island Circus Sideshow
1208 Surf Ave
Brooklyn, NY
https://www.coneyisland.com/burlesqueatthebeach

Hand in the Hole 5: The Whole Fist!
Hand in the Hole combines performance artist Glenn Marla's two favorite things: puppets and showgirls/show queers and plops it right in their favorite place Coney Island! This is a special year, our 5th year of hands and holes! The whole fist! It's going to be epic!

June 14, 2025
9pm

$25

Puppet Celebrity Meet & Greet Fundraiser

Vape Kid Jr.

Brick Aux
628 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY
eventbrite.com/e/puppet-celebrity-meet-and-greet-a-cool-zone-fundraiser-tickets-1370537838569

Meet your favorite celebrity mutants from 1980s cult classic tv show Vape Kid’s Cool Zone! And Beyond!
Get autographs, lap dances, handshakes, improvised songs, unique auction items, personalized toasts, and q and a with puppet mutants including Courtney, Sonny, Letter S, Officer Opportunity, and Ethel. Black tie event, with bow ties available on site as needed. Come play with puppets!
Fundraiser for the FULL THEATRE NEWLY REVISED VAPE KIDS COOL ZONE THE LOST EPISODE featured at THE BRICK from JULY 3-6 and JULY 9-12!

June 14, 2025
7PM

$14.64

Cool Zone: The Lost Episode

Vape Kid Jr.

The Brick
579 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY
https://www.bricktheater.com/

Hey kids! Do you remember “Vape Kid’s Cool Zone?” A Fascist brainwashing program disguised as a public access children’s TV Show? Follow America’s Darling- a 5-foot sentient puppet named Courtney as he learns what it means to serve his country?.

July 3 - 6, 2025
TBD

TBD

BOOP! The Musical

Puppetry on Broadway

Broadhurst Theater
235 W 44th St
New York, NY
https://tinyurl.com/2s3mr5xu

Betty Boop longs for an ordinary day off from fame in her black-and-white world. What she finds is an extraordinary adventure of color, music, and love in New York City!

Actor's theater that includes puppetry. Puppetry by Philip Huber.

March 11 - September 28, 2025
See website for performance times

From $59

Little Shop of Horrors

Off-Broadway

Westside Theatre Upstairs
407 West 43rd St
New York, NY
littleshopnyc.com

The world's most ravenous plant has returned to its acclaimed, sold-out run at the Westside Theatre! Winner of the 2020 Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is “wildly exuberant” (The Hollywood Reporter), and a New York Times Critic's Pick. Get tickets now and enjoy a taste of what we’ve all been craving: live theater!

Tuesdays & Thursdays - 7:00pm
Fridays - 8:00pm
Saturdays - 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Sundays - 2:00pm & 7:30pm

Starting at $59