Celebrating 10 years, local puppet group wants to make the art form mainstream

When Heidi Rugg co-founded Puppets Off Broad Street in 2015, she had in mind a simple mission: to spread her passion for puppetry around Richmond. 

Ten years later, the ever-growing nonprofit organization is introducing Richmonders young and old to the art of contemporary puppetry. Rugg’s strategy? Accessible events and inclusive, varied programming. 

“Getting your brain cells together with other people is really important for this medium,” Rugg said. “There are limited opportunities to do this at a higher level in college. Most of the learning is happening with informal apprenticeships, like a folk tradition. People pass learning directly to people to people to people.” 

In 2024, Puppets off Broad Street introduced a workshop series called The Puppet Collective, which is open to the public. One Tuesday per month, puppeteers and puppet novices alike meet at Artspace to learn, play, and explore all things puppetry. Recent workshops have focused on lip syncing, needle felting, and building shadow and hand puppets. 

“It’s low pressure, very open to all levels,” said board member and freelance puppeteer Genna Beth Davidson. “We’re not really trying to push anyone to master any skills. It’s more, take a stab at this. We’re introducing people to different styles and giving them hands-on practice.”  

From December 27 to January 3, Puppets Off Broad Street will hold its eighth annual RVA Winter Puppetfest. There will be 10 family-friendly puppet performances, each around 45 minutes long, performed at ArtSpace in the Stratford Hills Shopping Center. 

For Rugg, who also runs Barefoot Puppet Theatre, the affordability of puppet shows is top of mind. She hopes the price point of RVA Winter Puppetfest is appealing to Richmonders who might be tightening their budgets but don’t want to sacrifice art and entertainment. Tickets to the RVA Winter Puppetfest are $8 per show. 

“There are a lot of things you can take your kids to, but not everybody in town can afford $35, $45, $50 tickets to take their kid to go see this giant touring production of whatever is in town,” Rugg said. “So puppetry, because it is often portable, is an avenue for bringing theater to people at a better price point. It’s not some giant thing you only do as a special treat once a year.” 

Davidson expects most of the RVA Winter Puppetfest shows to sell out. “We sold out most of the shows last year,” she said. 

In addition to puppet shows, there will be a puppet exhibit for attendees to browse. The exhibit will showcase the work of local puppet builders, with a spotlight on the work of the late Terry Snyder. 

Snyder, who passed away in 2015, worked for many years at Virginia Rep and founded Applause Unlimited, a Richmond puppet theater company. 

Although Puppets Off Broad Street is becoming increasingly known around the city, it was a long struggle to get to this point. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the organization hard. 

“We’d really just hit our stride making stuff happen with our camp programs and developed a lot of consistency,” Rugg said. “Then we had to shut down.” 

After a couple of years in pandemic limbo, Rugg pulled more people into the Puppets Off Broad Street team and expanded the board. “Coming out of COVID we really needed more big energy,” Rugg said. 

Davidson is one of the people brought in to provide that energy. Equipped with an MFA from the only Puppet Arts graduate program in the country, she joined Puppets off Broad Street in 2024. “I was looking for mentorship and a chance to do more puppetry. I thought Heidi was being really smart in a lot of the avenues for developing the art form and community in Richmond.” 

To save on overhead and to widen its footprint across the city, Puppets Off Broad Street works with a wide range of arts venues to present shows and other programming, including Artspace, Henrico Theater, Triangle Players, Firehouse Theatre, and the Comedy Sports Improv Theater in the West End. 

“We’re really interested in finding spaces all around town where we can do more presenting,” Rugg said. “We’ve been north of the river, south of the river, east, and west. That’s kind of our plan.” 

Firehouse Theatre often hosts Puppets Off Broad Street’s “puppet salons,” which present shows from a variety of local and touring puppeteers. The next salon, “Blood from a Turnip,” will take place at Firehouse Theatre on February 15. 

Passionate puppeteers themselves, Rugg and Davidson want Richmonders to experience not only the joy of attending puppet shows but of creating and performing shows too. For them, there’s nothing like the rush of putting on a puppet show. 

“Performing a show that has been developed and tested a number of times is like navigating down a river with the audience as your passenger,” Rugg said. “When you know the river really well, you know the tricky bits and the parts you can relax into. You can more easily anticipate the reaction of the audience to any given scene. You can flow.” 

“First performances are exhilarating. Everything is very fresh at that moment,” Davidson said. “Then once you've been performing a show for a while, it starts to feel like a well-worn sweater.”

Puppets Off Broad Street recently announced plans for Next Stage Puppet Lab, which will provide Richmonders the opportunity to develop their own puppet shows. The lab will take applications from the Richmond public. Those accepted will receive guidance and resources on everything from voice performance skills to building puppets and sets. 

Rugg says aspiring puppeteers often need to wear many hats: performer, artist, technician, and event coordinator.

“Puppeteers basically run events,” Rugg said. “When we go into a theater, or into a library or a school setting or whatever, sometimes you’re touring with your own lights. You’re setting up the whole event.” 

According to Rugg, puppet artists sometimes feel like outcasts. This is one reason she feels community support is so crucial to growing Richmond’s puppetry scene. 

“When you get people who are into puppets in the same room together, suddenly all those people feel normal. They’re like, oh my gosh, I’m not weird. This is a thing. There are a lot of people who are interested,” Rugg said. “It’s really exciting when you get around people who are interested in the medium because we so often work in isolation. And that has many challenges, challenges everyone in the gig economy is facing: accountability, time management, all these other things. It’s nice to be able to have people you can relate to on that level.” 

“Better puppetry comes from puppeteers working in community with one another,” Davidson said, “even if they’re not developing a show together. Having a space to connect.”

If the main goal of Puppets Off Broad Street is to expand the puppetry scene in Richmond, it seems the organization is succeeding. The 50-seat venue at Artspace has been right for the RVA Winter Puppetfest, but Davidson knows that Puppets Off Broad Street will soon need to expand to bigger venues to keep up with local interest. 

“We feel momentum,” Davidson said. “Puppetry seems to grab people and they become obsessed.” 

For Rugg, that was the plan all along. 

“I’m very much interested in continuing to live here in Richmond and retire here in Richmond,” Rugg said. “And when I retire, I want to see lots of puppet shows.”