The Denver Puppet Theater is not just another roadside attraction. The brainchild of artist Annie Zook and her husband Dave, it represents a happy confluence of their dreams.
Annie had been putting on puppet shows for years at shopping malls, libraries, local museums and kids’ birthday parties.
“This involved a lot of schlepping,” she said, “and I decided I was getting too old for that.”
Her dream was to have a permanent puppet theater. As for Dave, Annie explained, “On our vacations we liked to drive country roads in the Midwest, stopping off at roadside attractions. Dave always thought it would be fun to own a tourist trap.”
They started looking for a combination of a theater, living space and roadside attraction. They found their dream home in a ramshackle old building on 38th Avenue just west of Federal.
“It was flooded, it stunk, and the windows were boarded up, but we could see past all that,” Annie said.
It was also big enough for them to live in, although during renovation they camped in the courtyard. The puppet theater finally opened in October 1996, but by then their vision had evolved.
“We wanted it to be part of the community,” she said. “A kind of family farm in the city.”
They now offer a mixed bag of activities, such as a family improv group and a craft area where kids can make puppets. There’s a recording studio managed by their son, and a hair salon operated by their daughter-in-law. There’s also space for town hall meetings, and the courtyard, which has been turned into an oasis where people can hang out and eat lunch from the coffee shop, where Dave serves as barista, baker, and “carrier of heavy objects.”
Despite this heady bouillabaisse of activities and services, the puppet shows remain the central focus of Annie Zook’s attention. They’re pretty much a one-woman operation. She writes the scripts, builds the sets, makes the puppets, pulls the strings, does the voices and operates the lighting via a box that she works with her feet.
Her scripts are reinterpretations of traditional fairy tales. The shows grow and change based on feedback she gets during and after each performance.
“I’m listening to their comments,” she said. “I’m also listening for a certain rustling that tells me when they’re losing interest. I try to have something crazy happen every 10minutes.”
As hectic as it can be, Annie Zook feels blessed to be doing what she does.
“Our roadside attraction is a dream come true,” she said. “If I had to do it all over again, I’d turn around and do it in a minute.”
Don Morreale is a Denver resident and frequent YourHub contributor.
