Center for Puppetry Arts

The story

In 1978, a local puppeteer named Vincent Anthony took over an old 1920s Midtown elementary school on Spring Street and convinced Jim Henson to help launch it. Kermit the Frog cut the ribbon alongside Henson, officially opening what would become the largest institution in the United States dedicated entirely to puppet theater. What started as a local crusade to take puppetry seriously as an art form grew into the premier archive for physical television and film history.

Don't expect polished, whirring animatronics here. You're walking into a shrine to hand-stitched felt, carved foam, glass eyes, and rod mechanisms that spent years under burning studio lights. In 2015, the center opened a dedicated wing housing the world's largest collection of Jim Henson artifacts—somewhere between 500 and 700 retired characters from Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show, and Sesame Street preserved behind glass. Up close, you can see every subtle stitch on Miss Piggy, the delicate weathering on Skekses from The Dark Crystal, and original armatures from Labyrinth. Beyond Henson, the global gallery spans shadow puppets, Asian marionettes, and stage craft from across centuries.

The collection keeps expanding; the Henson family gifted the center the iconic 12-foot statue of Kermit dressed as Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, which guarded the gates of the historic Hollywood studio on La Brea Avenue for 25 years. But the center's best-kept secret isn't just static museum cases—it's the evening programming, like the Xperimental Puppetry Theater (XPT) and adult show series, where local and visiting artists swap wholesome daytime storytelling for dark comedy, adult satire, and avant-garde staging.