Puppet Kaos - where Kelvin Kao plays with puppets and tell random stories

This has been seen on other blogs, and I’m passing this on.

According to The New York Times article Forget Citigroup, Puppet Show Needs a Bailout, a theater that has been continuously operating since 1961, Bob Baker Marionette Theatre is in financial trouble and struggling to stay open. And our current economy doesn’t help either.

I first learned about the theater when I saw some info on a screening (which I couldn’t make) and then I heard a story about Bob Baker and the theater on the local public radio station KPCC. The story I heard was that the puppet theater has been enchanting the audience for several decades, especially when people weren’t bombarded with hundreds of TV channels and the internet. I grew up in Taiwan and also was probably too young to witness its golden era, but it was certainly a story that made me go “ah, I wonder what it’d be like to be there.” Okay, I should probably get to the point:

It would be sad to lose this landmark.

Now, Bob Baker is trying his best to work out deals with the bank and so on, but the fact is, money needs to be raised. Let’s help the theater stay open. I mean, do it to preserve more tradition of puppetry and keep a landmark.

Here’s how to donate, according to Mary.

Tax deductible donations can be made to “The Academy of Puppetry and Allied Arts.” Send your check to 1345 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026 or call 213-250-9995 to make a donation by credit card.

Comments(2)

Hm, for some reason this flyer actually fits my current color scheme very well.

The theatre company that I used to perform with during my college years, Lapu the Coyote that Cares, is putting on a new show. The students in the group write, produce, direct, and perform their own scripts every quarter (UCLA is on quarter instead of semester system). It was my creative outlet and my college years certainly would be very different without it. In fact, Bottle Monster, Bobby, and Moostifer had all appeared live in one of the LCC show. Anyway, they are putting on a show this Wednesday and Thursday and I’m going to check it out.

Interested? (And around UCLA area?) Here’s some info:

Date: Wednesday, December 3 and Thursday, December 4
Time: Door opens at 6:30pm, show starts at 7:00pm
Location: Northwest Campus Auditorium (next to Sproul Hall)

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