Bob Baker Marionette Theater's STAR TREK Halloween benefit sells out

Writer’s Note: This piece was originally written before the event sold out. But it’s a really cool event and I still want to share it with our audience — just in case more tickets become available in the future. Or so that y’all can keep the theater on your radar for future programming.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is going where no puppet has gone before — and fans didn't waste any time getting tickets. The nonprofit L.A. puppet theater's live read of the Star Trek: The Original Series Halloween episode "Catspaw" is officially sold out, according to the event's page on the theater's website.

The benefit takes place Saturday, October 17, 2026, at the theater's 4949 York Boulevard location in Los Angeles, with doors at 7:30 PM and the show at 8 PM.

The voice cast draws heavily from the alt-comedy and podcast world: Jon Daly (Fallout, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Alice Wetterlund (Resident Alien, Silicon Valley), Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me, Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory), Vic Michaelis (Very Important People, Murder in a Small Town), Eric Edelstein (Twin Peaks, Jurassic World), Jonah Ray (Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Meltdown), Seychelle Gabriel (Get Shorty, The Last Airbender), Brandon Johnson (Rick and Morty, Ingrid Goes West), Alyssa Limperis (Dexter, What We Do in the Shadows), and Chris Nichols.

Event art comes from Nic Cowan, a Los Angeles–based illustrator known online as @undeadguy. Cowan's own résumé has some genre-adjacent puppet pedigree: he played Adam in the 1993 cult film Surf Ninjas, and has since worked as a puppeteer, art director, and illustrator.

The reading is the theater's annual fundraiser, with proceeds supporting its ongoing mission to preserve, educate, and innovate at the intersection of puppetry and the allied arts. The theater itself has deep L.A. roots, according to the website, founder Bob Baker staged his first puppet show in 1930, apprenticed at George Pal's animation studio, and in 1963 co-founded the theater with partner Alton Wood in a former scenic shop near downtown L.A. Designated an official Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2009, the theater has entertained more than a million children and relocated to its current Highland Park home after Baker's death in 2014.

Source: Bob Baker Marionette Theater