Portrait of Toby Olié
Toby Olié

Ahead of the launch of the Artist Development Programme this summer at Central, we’re catching up with the artists who will be leading one-off training intensives as part of the Programme.

Toby Olié is a puppetry director, designer and puppeteer known for his work on productions ranging from War Horse to Spirited Away. We caught up to discuss his upcoming course Puppetry in Motion, his own artistic development, and what a career in puppetry can look like.


Where did your passion for puppetry originate?

My childhood was spent making things out of whatever cardboard boxes or toilet rolls I could get my hands on, and I remember seeing a book in my school’s library about puppet making with an egg-box dinosaur puppet on the cover. Thanks to Jurassic Park I was (and arguably still am) in my dinosaur phase, so went home and immediately started gathering the items to make the puppet that evening. I think I was around six years old and I’ve never really looked back. 

What followed was an onslaught of puppet shows being performed from behind the ironing board for my supportive (and thankfully very patient) family, and me asking my teachers to try and work puppetry into my art and drama work at school. Which I think for me is the crux of why I love puppetry so much as it is the meeting point between art and drama, sculpture and acting - not only creating a piece of art, but then working to bring it to life for an audience.

Rehearsals for War Horse (2007)
Photography from rehearsals for War Horse at the National Theatre (2007)

What have been the most meaningful moments of your career to date?

Studying puppetry at degree level at Central was so thrilling, and the fact the contacts I’d made during the course led to me getting involved in the development workshops of War Horse and going on to puppeteer Joey in the original production created such a springboard into the first few years of my career. To find myself in the middle of such a collaborative theatre-making process on such an ambitious show was an incredible learning experience, and the friends and colleagues I made along the way are still around me to this day.

Getting to puppeteer a central character in such a huge show was a massive career ambition realised very early on in my work life, so I really enjoyed diving into other aspects of puppetry like design and directing alongside my time in War Horse. Having made many cardboard puppets of Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid growing up, it was a thrill when designer Bob Crowley asked me to collaborate with him on a new stage adaption of Disney’s animated film and I got to make a larger than life Ursula that was a hybrid of actress and puppeteered tentacles.

I’ve been very lucky with the jobs that have come my way since, and the generous collaborators I’ve got to work with. I’m always trying to challenge people’s perceptions of what puppetry is capable of, so combining making puppets for other productions while instigating and directing my own projects is the exciting balance I’m trying to strike in my career now.

Ursula in The Little Mermaid
Photography from The Little Mermaid (2012) Walt Disney Theatrical

What would you say to someone thinking of taking your short course ‘Puppetry in Motion’ at Central?

Prepare for an intense but playful three weeks! The type of puppetry I thrive in is puppets with multiple operators, where performers have to share the role and actively listen and respond to each other to bring the character to life. When you get in the puppeteering zone it’s so liberating and often quite meditative - but it takes a lot of work to get there, so I’m really looking forward to un-picking the process and exploring the different ways people can connect through a puppet.

The course is going to be equal parts puppetry technique, and theatre-making with puppets, which is why I’m asking that applicants have already trained in some sort of theatre-making discipline. We’ll be generating a lot of fun things in a relative short amount of time, so a focused and collaborative work ethic is key - alongside knowing what your existing strengths and weaknesses are. I genuinely can’t wait to get started with everyone and be back at Central.

The Wolves in the Walls at Little Angel Theatre (2023)
Photography from The Wolves in the Walls at Little Angel Theatre (2023)

What kinds of opportunities are out there for someone looking to build a career as a puppetry designer, director, or performer?

One of the things I love about puppetry is the fact that it attracts people (or indeed they discover it) from so many different aspects of theatre and performance as it has so many facets to it. It encompasses design, construction, devising, movement, even directing, so offers a lot of ways in for those with an emerging interest. I know creatives who have trained as architects and even doctors before finding their way to puppetry and I think it’s that mix of knowledge and applied learning that makes it such an ever-evolving art form.

So I think anyone looking to build a career in puppetry should really think about the aspects (or aspects) of it they are passionate about and start giving it a go. There are no hard and fast rules about puppetry, it all comes down to taste, learning what you like and how to put it into practice with whatever means (no matter how limited) you have - and ultimately if an audience believes it, it’s working! You’ll find most of us who work full time in puppetry started out making or performing on our own or with friends, rather than waiting for training to feel like we’d arrived, and I’m still a firm believer in that a kind of cavalier attitude to learning.

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