The Burning House, an opera for marionettes presented by the Carter Family of the Northwest Puppet Center

Puppet theaters aren’t just for kids. Well, okay, a lot of them are mainly for children, but the best puppet shows have a lot to offer adults. Let’s face it, who didn’t like The Muppet Show?

Puppetry is an old, old art, and like most things was originally aimed at adults. The concept of “childhood” is fairly modern. So while the main focus of modern puppet theaters is entertainment for children and families, you can still find puppet productions with more adult themes.

Hand puppets, marionettes and rod puppets are the most common types used today, but places like the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta keep the ancient art alive. The center, “the largest non-profit organization in the U.S. dedicated to puppetry,” not only offers performances but maintains a museum. The permanent exhibit includes “includes puppets from various time periods and countries from around the globe. Be delighted and educated by the 350 puppets on display, including Chinese hand puppets, Indonesian shadow puppets and African rod puppets, as well as American puppets like the Skeksis and Fishface from Jim Henson’s fantasy productions, Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth, and “Pigs in Space” from The Muppet Show.”

In Rolling Meadow, Illinois, Opera in Focus presents opera performances by rod puppets. They offer “fully staged scenes from well known operas in performances that run about one hour in length… A demonstration of the operation of the puppets and a tour of the highly technical backstage area follows each performance.”

The Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts holds several performances every week all year long. “The award-winning productions that we bring to our stage cover the entire spectrum of this unique form of theatre, from children’s to adult productions, from traditional to cutting edge.” The theatre is committed to including adult puppetry productions in its repertoire.

In addition to traditional marionette puppet offerings, once a year The Northwest Puppet Center in Seattle stages “an elaborate baroque marionette opera. Hand-carved figures take the stage with chamber orchestra and singers on either side of the proscenium.” In 2011 they will present The Burning House, a Haydn opera created specifically for marionettes.

This of course just scratches the surface of puppetry for adults. Blair Thomas, founder of “Blair Thomas & Company… a Chicago-based theater company that creates and performs contemporary puppetry and visual theater locally, nationally, and internationally,” gave an interview to the Boston Globe about puppetry for adults.

“When an adult audience comes to see a puppet show, you’ve got all sorts of levels of interest or disinterest going on in the audience because a lot of people, if they’re theatergoers, they don’t really like puppets. They think they’re silly or [that] they don’t have the capacity to have any level of depth. And then there are people who have no issue with that and are ready to go into a visual world that the actors theater can’t provide. The task of the contemporary puppet artist is to be able to work with the appreciation of the theater that a regular theatergoing audience has and bring them into the spectacle world of puppet theater.”

If you’re also just as interested in puppet theaters for children as well as puppetry centers, museums, education and restoration, Puppeteers of America maintains a list of puppet centers all over the country, listed by state. It’s a terrific resource.