Nick Barone has always had an interest in puppetry. He built his first puppet when he was just 5 years old. He soon began writing short stories and making home movies featuring his hand-made puppets. During summer vacations, Nick attended various art classes in New Jersey and Philadelphia. While still a teenager, Nick was contracted to paint sets for local theater companies.

Eventually, Nick moved to Hollywood, California where he became a set painter for the television industry. He got a second job teaching puppet making classes at Michael’s Arts and Crafts. The President of Michael’s was so impressed with Nick’s puppets, he took one for display at the corporate headquarters in Dallas, TX. Nick soon became a lead window dresser and store display coordinator for Michael’s Pacific South West Region.

Nick made a few puppets for a public access TV station in Oceanside, CA, there he learned of the San Diego Guild of Puppetry. Nick worked with various puppeteers at The Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater in Balboa Park, San Diego, CA for almost 10 years where he developed his skills and learned to work with puppets on stage and in front of a live audience. It was in San Diego where Nick built his first puppet show, Jack and the Beanstalk. People really liked Nick’s puppets, so he started building puppets for sale. At first, his puppets were sold only to local puppeteers, but soon he was selling them to puppeteers and theater groups across the country. One of his most challenging experiences was building an entire cast of puppets for The Marin Theater Company’s production of ‘The Puppetmaster of Lodz’. Nick has also constructed costumes and puppets for Nickelodeon Productions and built miniature sets and performed puppets for the Emmy Award winning video,"The Mousecracker" by Snapdragon Video Productions.

After moving to Northern California, Nick stopped building puppets for others in order to concentrate on writing and building his own puppet shows.

Through the years, Nick has also taught puppet building workshops to amateur and professional puppeteers at National and Regional puppetry festivals. Although Nick uses a variety of puppet styles in his performances, he became recognized for his moving mouth puppets. Nick Barone is a staff member of PuppetFest MidWest and is the current Moving Mouth Puppetry Consultant for Puppeteers of America.

Nick now spends his days traveling around the San Francisco Bay Area entertaining audiences of all ages with his original stories and beautifully hand crafted puppets. When he’s not out performing, he can be found in his workshop writing stories, building puppets and creating new puppet shows to entertain the child in all of us.


Nick is a member of the following puppetry organizations: Puppeteers of America, UNIMA-USA (the USA branch of the international puppetry organization), the local San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. Nick is the "Moving Mouth Puppet" consultant for Puppeteers of America. Nick carries performer's liability insurance through Puppeteers of America.

Nick and his puppets were featured on The Carol Duvall Show on HGTV and in the San Jose Mercury News.