Puppet Up! Returns to the Montalban this Summer

Brian Henson’s Puppet Up!, LA’s celebrated improv and sketch comedy show, will play for a limited eight performances only from July 31 to August 9, 2026, at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre in Los Angeles. Tickets are available now at puppetup.com.

This is no ordinary puppet show.

Puppet Up! is a night of outrageous, off-the-cuff comedy for adults ... featuring 80 of the MISKREANT puppets brought to life by a cast of world-class puppeteers from The Jim Henson Company. Created by legendary puppeteer and award-winning director Brian Henson and directed by Patrick Bristow (“Ellen,” “Seinfeld,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”), Puppet Up! is never the same show twice.

Based on suggestions from the audience, Patrick and his team of expert puppeteers create a hilarious two-shows-in-one: the improvised puppet action projected live on screens above the stage, with the puppeteers racing around below in full view of the audience. The show also features recreations of classic pieces originally created by Jim and Jane Henson, and Frank Oz, that haven’t been seen by live audiences in decades.

For over twenty years, Puppet Up! has toured around the world, spinning top-notch improv comedy and a motley crew of Jim Henson puppets into comedy gold. The show has been acclaimed by critics and beloved by adult audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, San Francisco Sketch Fest Comedy Festival, and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as audiences in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Toronto, and more.

Entertainment Weekly said, “It’s nearly impossible to spend the show’s two hours doing anything but laugh. Grade: A.”

Time Out said, “Puppet Up! combines top puppeteering talent with music, jokes and shenanigans. It’s not just about watching the puppets either—you’ll be mesmerized by the sheer skill of the puppeteers on full display, who are coming up with songs on the fly while manipulating puppets on stage. If you’re a Jim Henson buff, this show is not to be missed: you’ll see recreations of Henson classics with a twist. In case ‘uncensored’ wasn’t enough warning, make sure you leave the kids at home for this one.”

The Los Angeles Times said, "You cannot imagine the mayhem that erupts when an uninhibited house takes its cues from the gifted lunatics onstage. As uproariously uncensored an adult entertainment as you could hope for without lap dancers!”

Brian Henson said to the Times, “We were trying to find some other really funny tones for puppetry that sort of differentiated from the Muppet tone and sensibility [led us to try new things.] My dad was a great ad-libber; Frank Oz is a great ad-libber, and that always pluses up the comedy.”

Henson went to a Groundlings show, and suddenly everything clicked. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could teach the puppeteers to do the magic ad-libbing? And director Patrick Bristow was right that as soon as you added a live audience, it sort of upped the stress level of the performers and sharpened up the comedy and sharpened up the entertainment value.”

Bristow, who is an alumni of The Groundlings, said, “Because it’s puppets and it’s uncensored, the audience is definitely more uncensored themselves … and regarding a lot of the risqué or the edgier humor that happens, the puppets get away with much more. The puppets, by virtue of just being these rascals — and it being heightened and one or two degrees away from reality — they get away with murder – literally.”

San Francisco Chronicle said, “The magic of first-rate Henson-style puppetry and the ribald joy of comedy.”