Snuff Puppets

Snuff Puppets is an experimental puppet theatre company based at the Footscray Drill Hall in Melbourne’s west. For 34 years we have made wild, joyful, large-scale puppet art and taken it to 30+ countries — reclaiming public spaces, connecting communities, and sharing the transformative power of art with people who rarely get access to it.

We address a fundamental inequity: that high-quality arts experiences are too often gatekept by geography, income and background. Our response is to bring spectacular, ambitious work directly to public spaces — free or very low cost by design — so cost is never a barrier. Through our People’s Puppet Project, we also deliver hands-on puppet-making and performance workshops with young people and communities experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.

With 34 years of community-embedded practice, a Footscray home base, and a demonstrated global reach — 1.4 billion online views, 613,000 YouTube subscribers, tours across Europe, Asia and the Americas — we are uniquely placed to bridge world-class artistic ambition with genuine local accessibility.

Our current priority is organisational survival. Creative Victoria has cut our operational funding to zero from mid-2026, threatening our capacity to employ artists, maintain our home and deliver free public work. Philanthropic support will directly fund core operations, enabling us to continue producing and presenting work that is free and accessible to the communities of Melbourne’s west who need it most.

We believe extraordinary art belongs to everyone. Your support helps us keep it that way.

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