Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium:
Session 3  –  Find a Good Reason to Sell Out

Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium 2026

Artists often regard their creative talents as a gift that they are called to share, whether they receive financial compensation or not. As a result, it can be difficult for artists to negotiate equitable compensation for their work within a money economy that tends to commodify their creative output. This symposium series examines the benefits and drawbacks of different funding sources including government funding, commercial ventures, and strategies community supported artists use for audience building.

Session 3: Find a Good Reason to Sell Out

In the United States, commercial success is often treated as the measure of artistic success. Yet not all works speak to a broad general audience, and not all audiences have the economic capacity to support the art that is most meaningful to them. Children’s theater is particularly difficult to fund through ticket sales alone. Still Elizabeth Hyde Stevens has identified one artist who figured out how to balance the demands of commercial production with artistic innovation by finding a good reason to “sell out.” Her book, Make Art, Make Money traces the career of Jim Henson as a model of entrepreneurship that other creative professionals can follow. The artists on this panel will discuss commercial strategies they have pursued to support their art and consider what constitutes a good reason to “sell out.”

Moderator:
Paulette Richards

Panelists:
Toby Olié (The Enormous Crocodile)
Yngvild Aspeli (A Doll’s House)
Sophie Krog (The House)
Andrew Kim (Thingamajig Theatre Company)

About the Symposium: Named in honor of Little Theatre of Chicago director Ellen Van Volkenburg, who coined the term “puppeteer” in 1912, the festival’s annual symposium brings together puppetry enthusiasts, scholars and festival artists from Chicago, the U.S. and internationally for free discussions around the intersection of puppetry with other disciplines and ideas.