A missing dog draws Valarie into a neighboring world full of creatures she's never seen before — that's the premise of Valarie: A Puppet Show, opening Friday for a five-performance run in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Built from butcher paper, cardboard, a wire axle, a bungee cord and foam, the title puppet is the centerpiece of a story about displacement, adaptation and what it means to find your way home changed.
The production comes from Blue Silk Productions, a Colorado devised-theater collective, according to onstagecolorado.com. Cinco wrote and directed the show, BroadwayWorld reports. The stage story follows Valarie as she is drawn into a neighboring world. The story explores displacement, adaptation and what it means to find a sense of home in an unfamiliar world, according to a description from artscomplex.com.
Cinco has described the piece as a surreal, high-fantasy show, and the source material tracks: the production explores what happens when someone is displaced into an unfamiliar culture and must learn to navigate its community, language and collective action, according to coloradotheatreguild.org. Rather than lean on dialogue, the story is told through handmade puppets, choreography, lighting, projections and sound, the same onstagecolorado.com report notes.
Built in a Garage, Refined at a Union House
Valarie marks Blue Silk Productions' second major devised work, growing directly out of the collective's earlier puppet show, Blue Silk, which was developed through a residency at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and presented twice in Philadelphia and twice in Colorado, including its 2025 Denver Fringe Festival premiere. Williams, who also runs a puppet studio in Colorado Springs, serves as Valarie's puppet director and puppet builder alongside Cinco, who also builds puppets in addition to writing and directing, per broadwayworld.com.
The rest of the creative team includes Johnny Bartlett as technical director, Kit Mathews as projections designer and Bryse Taylor as sound designer, with puppeteers bringing the show to life on stage. The production leans into a deliberate contrast between old-school craft and new technology: it combines handmade puppets with modern stage tools including four projectors, projection mapping that transforms surfaces and characters, and a Kinect sensor that generates reactive projections, including an aspen forest whose leaves appear to move around the performers as they cross the stage.
One puppet, a creature named Ursian, began as nothing more than a large sheet of paper before being redesigned so it could scoop Valarie into its arms — a small detail that captures how much the show evolved during its development process. That process unfolded in stages: the puppets were built during the first two weeks in Williams' Colorado Springs puppet shop, the show moved to Champa Arts Studio in Denver after that, and the full puppeteer ensemble joined during the third week of development, according to Blue Silk's account relayed by onstagecolorado.com.
A New Denver Grant Program Backs the Work
Valarie was devised during a month-long residency in Denver this September as part of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts' 2026 Arts Complex Creates: New Works Incubator, and Blue Silk Productions received a $25,000 grant through the program to produce the show. Blue Silk also received five weeks of residency time as part of the award.
Denver Arts & Venues, which supports Valarie through the Arts Complex Creates initiative, launched the program in 2026 to provide funding and access to the city-owned Denver Performing Arts Complex. The agency describes the effort as one set to amplify and diversify the city's cultural offerings by giving artists access to its stages, according to artsandvenuesdenver.com. In total, seven partners in the program's inaugural cohort will receive $190,000 in combined funding, with recipients chosen through an application-based process rooted in accessibility and inclusivity, the agency said.
The residency also built in a public-facing component: four free community workshops covering the devising process, music, puppetry and projection mapping, giving Denver residents a hands-on look at how the show came together before it ever reached the stage.
Weekend Shows and What Comes Next
Valarie runs Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27 at the Studio Loft inside the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, 908 14th St., with five total performances scheduled. The performances mark the show's premiere. Blue Silk previously found support through the Cannonball Festival via the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
Williams has said puppetry can be many more things than the Muppets, and she wants Colorado theaters to recognize the form as a legitimate storytelling tool rather than a novelty act.
