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Park Slope's Puppetworks theater will close after decades of marionette magic
By
Jessica Gould
Published Apr 10, 2026
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By
Jessica Gould
Published Apr 10, 2026
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It’s curtains for Puppetworks’ longtime theater in Park Slope, but the team behind the marionette mainstay say the show will go on — just somewhere more affordable.
“The PUPPETWORKS, INC. is searching for a new Home,” a note on its website says. “After 40 years in Park Slope, our building is being sold to a developer, but we will continue, still in Brooklyn, to present the Classics of Children’s Lore, in what has become a unique and rare event, a fully staged Marionette performance.”
Manager Terry Smith said the current theater will close by Oct. 1 but talks are underway about a new location at Industry City.
“They want us,” he said Friday. “I think it will work out favorably.”
Smith said the building’s owner has connected the team with a realtor who is helping them scout spaces at no charge.
“They’ve been good,” he said of the owner. “There are a lot of sympathetic people.”
The closure marks the end of an era for the puppet theater on Sixth Avenue, which has entertained generations of Brooklynites since 1991. Marionettes perform classics like “Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella” and “Hansel and Gretel.” Adults typically fill the benches while kids sit cross-legged up front.
For many, it’s their first experience at a theater, and the puppeteers offer guidance about when and how to clap. Puppetworks is a frequent school-trip destination, as well as a neighborhood institution.
A performance of Hansel and Gretel at Puppetworks.
The theater was so well known that at one point the Brooklyn Paper ran regular puppetry reviews on Puppetworks productions.
Smith said he could only speak briefly because the team is busy with rehearsals ahead of its next production, "The Tortoise and the Hare," which runs April 11 and 12.
The website advertises shows through the summer, including "Pinocchio," which starts next weekend.
According to the theater’s website, artistic director Nicolas Coppola was inspired to become a puppeteer when he saw his first marionettes show as a third grader at P.S. 200 in Brooklyn*.* Coppola’s seamstress mother and tailor uncle helped him create his first cloth marionette, the website says, and he eventually became a professional puppeteer, part of a traveling troupe before landing at the Sixth Avenue spot.
Smith said the group is still scouting locations, but doubts it will remain in Park Slope. “It’s too expensive,” he said.
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brooklyn
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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