She Ran a Theater Alone Until It Nearly Broke Her – Liz Dapo

Sometimes the dream you fought for turns into the thing you have to survive. Liz Dapo's story is about what it costs to hold something together alone—and what becomes possible when you finally set it down.

Liz Dapo is a professional puppeteer, voice actor, and fabricator who has worked with Jim Henson projects, SNL, and National Geographic. None of that prepared her for what happened when she became artistic director of a small puppet theater in D.C.—one week before the pandemic shut everything down.

Over the next four years, Liz inherited a company with $2,000 in the bank and 600 puppets, rebuilt a board from scratch, and held 17 roles at once—directing, performing, designing sets, doing sound, maintaining the building, writing new shows. She was sleeping four hours a night in the theater. She herniated two discs. She crashed her truck from exhaustion. And then a colleague sent a text that said she was bad at her job.

This is a conversation about what happens when the thing you love most becomes the thing that's tearing you apart—and what it takes to stop, walk away, and find a gentler place to land. Liz is still in the middle of figuring out what comes next. That's part of why this one matters.

HIGHLIGHTS

00:01 — KiKi introduces Liz and the art of reinvention

03:14 — Growing up on a Colorado ranch as the family outlier

06:03 — Pushback and defiance: how being told no shaped her path

09:19 — From carpenter to puppeteer: the Little Shop of Horrors moment

11:44 — London, grad school, and staging Shakespeare in a cemetery

17:28 — Why puppets give adults permission to play again

22:04 — The invisible labor behind bringing a puppet to life

24:18 — Which characters reflect who Liz is in the moment

28:32 — Taking over a theater one week before the world shut down

33:49 — Seventeen jobs, 100-hour weeks, and sleeping in the theater

37:14 — The text that broke it: resigning in five hours

44:39 — Finding a gentle place to land and learning to collaborate again

52:08 — Forgiveness, saying yes, and being a work in progress

59:10 — Liz's closing: give yourself time and give yourself grace

Resources

Liz Dapo — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-dapo-72009447/

Albie's Elevator — WHYY/Big Howl (Instagram Reel): https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8wg_FTxhMC/

Monkey Boys Productions — Puppets, props, creatures, costumes, and SFX for TV, film, and stage: https://www.monkeyboysproductions.com/

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.