50 Years Forward: A Campaign for Puppet Showplace
Ensure that Puppet Showplace thrives for 50 more years to come!
By donating to Puppet Showplace, you can help share awesome puppetry, champion artistry, and welcome everyone.
Since 1974, Puppet Showplace been delighting audiences and supporting artists here in Brookline Village. This little 100-seat theater reached 20,000 people last year through puppetry! New works created at Puppet Showplace's Incubator and Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers have reached well over 50,000 audience members in at least 6 countries and 18 U.S. states.
Board of Trustees Match
The Puppet Showplace Board of Trustees has offered a Giving Challenge Match — the first $10,000 of giving will be doubled for all gifts from Nov 15 – Jan 15!
Did you know? 50 Years, 50%.
It's a milestone year — Puppet Showplace is 50 years old! Please consider making a special 50th anniversary gift this year in an amount that feels significant to you. If you've been touched by Puppet Showplace, you can help invest in the theater's strength and vitality for 50 more years to come!
As a nonprofit theater with a social mission, Puppet Showplace relies on support from donors like you! Only 50% of our annual costs are covered through sales of tickets, education, private events, memberships, and merch. Half of our funding come from donations — from supporters like you!
In fact, 1 in 3 dollars that Puppet Showplace spends...
...on everything from paying puppeteers and staff, to heating and cooling our theater, to buying art supplies, soap, and toilet paper...
...comes from an individual — not a foundation or a grant, but a person or family, just like you!
Many ways to give:
Puppet Showplace accepts gifts in many forms through the Donate button above. First, select your donation amount; then choose your donation method:
Credit/debit card
Bank ACH transfer
Venmo
PayPal
Google & Apple Wallets
Mail a Check — select "Mail a Check" on our Givebutter page
To give via Donor Advised Fund (DAF) — select "Mail a Check"
To make a Gift of Stock — Please contact business@puppetshowplace.org; we are happy to email with your broker with the relevant details. Learn more about your potential tax benefits when donating stock →
Small contributions make a big difference — especially given monthly!
$30 Be a Good Neighbor: help one parent and child enjoy affordable access to the theater this weekend through our Card to Culture program.
$60 Be a Family Friend: pay it forward and pick up the tab for a family of four who uses WIC, SNAP (food stamps), MassHealth, and other forms of support.
$125 Be an Access Expander: Invest in the growth of our Pay-What-You-Can shows — which recently expanded to once monthly!
$250 Be a Classroom Champion: sponsor one classroom to attend a subsidized field trip that brings the cost within range, with tickets as low as $0.
$350 Be a Youth Supporter: cover the cost of a scholarship to our Vacation Week Summer Programs.
Donors at the $500+ level have the option of sponsoring a specific artist or show:
$500 or $50 monthly — Be a Patron: sponsor one of the 300+ performances Puppet Showplace presents each year!
$1,000 or $100 monthly — Be a Benefactor: sponsor an entire weekend at the theater!
If you are interested in sponsoring a specific show or weekend, let us know when completing your donation and someone will be in touch! Patrons and Benefactors will be acknowledged during the curtain speech of their chosen performance(s), as well as in our program and on our website.
Your gift matters — but don't take our word for it!
““We would not be able to attend puppet shows as often (or possibly at all) without the assistance of Card to Culture. We are very appreciative of the program and I have utilized it to enrich my children’s lives. It has a huge positive impact on my family and my children’s relationship with the arts.””
““As a single parent working multiple jobs and paying high rent, the Pay-What-You-Can option made a huge difference to be able to attend this show AND invite others who might have not been able to attend otherwise — as well as invite others who might be able to pay more than the regular ticket price to help subsidize the show for others!””
What a big difference you can make:
If you've ever wondered how your gift adds up to make a big impact, here are a few examples of the the funding needed to make an even bigger difference:
$12,000: Be an Affordable Access Advocate
Covers the annual cost of our $3 Card to Culture program, for which demand has grown by 300%. This program offers $3 tickets to all of our shows for families who use SNAP (food stamps), WIC, or other forms of assistance, and is used by about 5% of our audience.$10,000: Be a Field Trip Guardian
Supports field trips for 1,200 children who attend low-resource schools. "Puppet Show Place you always put a big smile on my face and thank you for doing that," wrote one child, Darian, in his thank you note to us.$5,000: Be a Summer Supporter
Brings free outdoor shows to 500 people, and helps us add new locations. Last summer, we reached 800 audience members (2x as many!) last summer and grew beyond Brookline to reach Boston Common, Allston, and Mattapan. With more funding, we could say yes to all of the potential hosts — including the free summer meal programs and public housing authorities who lack budget to cover our artist fee — who invited us last year!$5,000: Be an Artist Investor
Covers the cost of all five artists' micro-grants in the Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers (CRBP), now in its 5th year and celebrating alumni success, with past CRBP artists presenting their works at La MaMa Puppetry Festival, the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, ArtsEmerson, and more.$2,500: Be a Language Patron
Helps to develop a bilingual series, which we're beta testing in January 2025 with bilingual offerings in the theater in Spanish, French, Russian, and Mandarin.$1,500: Be an Access Equalizer
Enables 150 people attend a Pay-What-You-Can show at a price that works for their family. We piloted Pay-What-You-Can pricing in our 23/24 season and rolled it out year round in 24/25...but to offer these more than once a month, we need your support! At these shows, it's common that 50% of the audience is attending Puppet Showplace for the first time.
