What to Know
- The Bob Baker Marionettes present “Enchanted Toyshop” in Highland Park
- June 22 through Sept. 14, 2024
- $25; children ages 2 and under admitted free
Sweet stores packed with puzzles and stuffed animals and colorful games and gewgaws and baubles still capture our fun-loving fancies, even if it has been years since we sat down to play with a toy.
For the tender tools of childhood, the playthings that helped imagine bigger worlds, help to form some of the more fanciful elements of the road we end up taking into adulthood.
The Bob Baker Marionettes understand the adorable allure of a realm of toys; after all, the theater, which began near DTLA but has been in Highland Park since 2019, is also a realm of imagination.
That realm will encompass an “Enchanted Toyshop,” the closing show of the beloved troupe’s sweet 60th season.
The uplifting extravaganza has an upbeat start date: June 22, the first Saturday of summer.
Behold “hundreds of handcrafted marionettes and beautifully designed intricate set pieces” in the production, which can trace its ebullient origins back to 1958’s “Fantasy on Strings” show, five years before Bob Baker officially founded his festive world of puppets.
But while the “Enchanted Toyshop” has some charmingly vintage roots, something special is in store: Three new numbers will debut, a trio of vignettes that will become a part of the “Choo Choo Revue” in 2025, a brand-new show for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
In fact, it is “the theater’s first new show in over forty years,” something sure to intrigue the generations of fans who have been at every event.
“Thanks to a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, audiences are directly invited into this creative process with free events throughout the month of June, including behind-the-scenes tours every Saturday in June, a dublab set with Money Mark on June 9, and journey through the history of American string music with multi-instrumentalist Frank Fairfield on June 14,” shares the theater.
Guests are also welcome to share their thoughts on the new numbers well before “Choo Choo Revue” debuts.