Rendering courtesy Carson Brown
There’s a spectacular belated birthday present for Bob Baker, the late local puppeteering legend who would’ve turned 95 this month: a new location for his displaced namesake marionette theater.
After vacating its longtime Westlake space last fall, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater has announced its new home at 4949 York Boulevard in Highland Park.
The decades-old puppet theater has been hosting pop-up performances around town, with Christmas shows at the Pasadena Playhouse and an ongoing installation at the Southern California Children’s Museum, but come this summer, the marionettes will be fully settled into the new locale.
The Highland Park location will have over 40 percent more space than the Westlake one, with 10,000 square feet dedicated to performances and programs. Expect to see more film, music and conversation series; expanded summer camps and workshops; a deeper dive into the Bob Baker archives; and entirely new marionette productions.
Rendering courtesy Carson Brown
The theater says its “preview season” at the new site is slated for the summer, with sneak peek events as early as March and a grand opening in the fall. According to the L.A. Times, the buildout will occur in two phases: the theater in 2019, followed by—depending on fund-raising over the next years—rooms for workshops and small performances, plus a library and a Bob Baker museum.
The original Bob Baker Marionette Theater—which since 1963 was located at the tangle of 2nd Street and Glendale Boulevard, underneath the 1st Street Bridge—closed its doors on November 23. The theater had originally been set to temporarily shutter in 2018, with plans to reopen in the same spot as part of a mixed-use development in 2020. However, those plans eventually changed, and the theater vacated the longtime location.
Though the new setting may leave behind some of the brick-and-mortar history, expect plenty of familiar touches to be preserved from the old puppet theater. The Highland Park venue also brings along a little history of its own, too: The Art Deco building opened in the 1920s as the York Theatre, serving as a movie theater and, most recently, a Korean church, according to The Eastsider.
The spot seems particularly perfect for kids, as it’s right across the street from York Park, a former gas station turned adorable playground. For adults, it’s next door to vegan beer garden Hinterhof and within a block of Café de Leche, the York, the Hi Hat, Ramen of York and Block Party. And for kids and adults alike, we see post-show trips to nearby Donut Friend becoming a tradition.
Expect to hear more about the theater’s upcoming plans during Bob Baker Day, a free series of performances and pop-ups at Los Angeles State Historic Park this Saturday. In the meantime, the theater—now a registered nonprofit—is accepting donations, including the chance to get your name on a chair for $1,000.