Since 1973, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre has practiced a radical idea in South Minneapolis: art made by a community, for a community, with puppets the size of houses. Its Avalon Theatre stages intimate puppet works for adults and families — hand-carved, hand-built, unmistakably handmade in a digital age.
But HOBT’s masterpiece marched outdoors: the MayDay Parade and Festival, born in 1975, when thousands built giant puppets in open workshops and paraded them down Bloomington Avenue to Powderhorn Park — a spring rite of renewal that defined Minneapolis’s creative soul for generations and inspired community celebrations nationwide.
Today the theatre carries that spirit forward with new works and community residencies. In Minneapolis, the puppets are big because the feelings are.
