"There's grins ear to ear, people are happy singing along, they're laughing, they're clapping, I mean the beautiful thing about live theater is every show you can kind of just feel it," said co-executive director Alex Evans.
A hundred new puppets were created for the theater's first new show in 40 years, "Choo Choo Revue!" The new show comes as the non-profit enters a new era with a $7 million capital campaign to purchase the building and make necessary renovations. Co-Executive Director Mary Fagot says it's all about growth and a sustainable future.
"We said, you know what, we better start working now towards figuring out how we purchase this building because that's the only way that we know that we will be here forever. And that's why our campaign is called In LA to Stay Forever," Fagot said.
She calls the theater a cultural treasure of LA that's been saved countless times by the community that continues to show up.
"Really from the get-go, we had some principal support from major foundations in Los Angeles. The Perenchio Foundation came on board, the Kohl Family Fund. And once we had that kind of foundational support... It was amazing how the arts organizations in Los Angeles showed up for us," she said.
Now that most of the funds for the building have been raised, they are shifting their focus to funds for renovations to make this the West Coast center for puppetry arts.
"We really want to grow how we're creating new work developing fabrication, developing puppeteers. Really build back this art form that might have been on the brink of being lost."