Monica Leo didn’t plan to become a professional puppeteer. Instead, she started out as a toy maker who, in the course of her work, made several puppets. “And I happened to have a neighbor,” said Leo. “She came over one day and she said, you know, we should do some puppet shows with those puppets.”

While the neighbor eventually stopped doing the shows, Leo was hooked. She went on to co-found Eulenspiegel Puppet Theater as a touring company in 1974, and would later find a permanent home in West Liberty, Iowa, in 1995.

Over fifty years later, she’s still managing the theater, though the arts economy is looking cloudier. In May, the Trump administration directed the National Endowment of the Arts to cancel some of its grants, and the administration’s 2026 budget proposal cuts funding to the NEA altogether.

“We are really uncertain about some of our funding sources, especially things like the National Endowment for the Arts, which, of course, funds all the State Arts Councils,” said Leo. “We'll have to figure out how to make up that difference.”

To listen to the rest of Leo’s story, use the media player above.