About

Snuff Puppets are a puppet company based in Melbourne, Australia.

We combine the elements of puppetry, live music, visual and physical theatre to create a unique and idiosyncratic performance language; engineering puppet/audience collisions to leave both parties breathless.

We create theatrical experiences that are visceral and accessible.

All that is taboo in our society we tackle, with a vulgar, irreverent, gratuitously violent and comic sensibility.

We call upon the laws of cartoon humour to take the place of gravity and conjure up the spirits of the dead to keep the living in line. Our anarchic sense of fun and our splendid sense of tragedy unites to portray the foibles and flaws of human nature.

We arrive like a circus, parading through the town using our outdoor and roaming performances to entice audiences inside the theatre. We have expanded our possible audience to include performances at pubs, nightclubs, street events, festivals and rock concerts.

Essential to our work are the trademark Snuff Puppet elements: a blackly dangerous humour, an incisive political satire, shamelessly handmade visual aesthetic; populist, free, joyous conflagration of art, audience and artist.

Our collection

Snuff Puppets Collections (1992)

This collection is held by Snuff Puppets, a puppet company based in Melbourne, which aims to combine the elements of puppetry, live music, visual and physical theatre to create a unique and idiosyncratic performance language; engineering puppet/audience collisions. The collection includes puppets created by the company and works (including drawings and prints) created during the process of designing and producing the puppets.

Themes: Shaping cultural and creative life