About PUPPET LAB

The Twin Cities’ celebrated incubator program for emerging puppet artists

Puppet Lab is a 6-month developmental laboratory program for emerging artists who are exploring the field of puppetry. Puppet Lab was founded by Alison Heimstead in 2010. It is now home-based at Open Eye Theatre, and led by Co-Artistic Directors Oanh Vu and Sofia Padilla.

Puppet Lab establishes a formalized process for emerging puppet theater artists to advance their artistic development – to test and create new works within a supportive and challenging workshop environment. This program gives artists the time and space to test ideas, learn from others, and receive and respond to critical feedback. 

The lab culminates with each artist creating an original short (30 – 40 minutes) work which is presented in a two week festival of public performances at Open Eye Theatre, supported with professional marketing, lights, sound, and documentation.

  • PUPPET LAB FESTIVAL

    April 10 - 19, 2026

    Led by Co-Artistic Directors Oanh Vu and Sofia Padilla

    PUPPET LAB is a 2-week festival of radical, genre-expanding, boundary–pushing puppet work, the culmination of a 6-month development residency for emerging puppetry artists.

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Puppet Lab Co-Artistic Directors

  • OANH VU (she/her)

    Oanh is an artist and educator who first encountered puppetry through Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop’s puppetry intensive and mentorship program. Since then, puppetry has become her passion as she transitioned into a career as a puppeteer. Oanh has trained with master puppeteers through the Chicago Puppet Festival,Tom Lee, Rough House Puppets, the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference and Manual Cinema. Locally, Oanh has created and collaborated on a wealth of new puppet works that have been shown across the Twin Cities. As an educator, Oanh has worked for 13 years with the Science Museum of Minnesota.

  • SOFIA PADILLA (she/her)

    Sofia Padilla is a Mexican Theater Artist, Director, Designer and Puppeteer who has participated in over forty national and international theater productions. For television, she was the First Assistant Director of Sesame Street in Mexico City for the 2016 season “Listos a Jugar”. Currently, she works as a touring member of Bread and Puppet Theater and as the Artistic Co-Director of Paradox Teatro, which she founded in 2017 with Davey T Steinman. Paradox Teatro has received three grants from The Jim Henson Foundation to develop two different projects: "Migraciones / Migrations" (2019 Production Grant) and “Speechless / Sin Palabras" (2021 Workshop Grant and 2023 Production Grant).

Questions?

If you have any questions about PUPPET LAB, please contact the Co-Artistic Directors, Oanh Vu and Sofia Padilla.

This program is made possible by generous support from the Jerome Foundation with additional funding from the Henson Foundation & the Minnesota State Arts Board.

This activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the State’s general fund and its arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.