At the puppet theater he lovingly ran for more than a decade, William Fosser put up the poinsettia and wreaths every year at Christmas and welcomed children and adults for the annual holiday run of Puccini’s “La Boheme.”
On the tiny stage, which he meticulously constructed to look like Paris in the 1830s, his handmade puppets — the women clad in lace-trimmed dresses, the men in miniature tailcoats — sang soaring arias about love and loss.
It was one of Fosser’s favorite operas, performed at his favorite time of year. He adored Christmas; even his license plate read, “One Noel.”
Now, eight years after Fosser’s death at age 77 of congestive heart failure and pneumonia, people say it is a bit of a miracle that his little puppet theater, in the basement of the Rolling Meadows Park District headquarters, is still open year-round, performing two shows a week.
This December, the theater marked its 20th year. Brothers Justin and Shayne Snyder, 31 and 33 respectively, still decorate the theater just as the old master would have done. And they continue to stage the annual holiday production of “La Boheme” as, Justin Snyder says, “a tribute to Bill.”
Fulfilling a promise they made to Fosser just before his death, the brothers have kept the theater going out of dedication to the obscure art of puppet opera and in homage to the man they came to love like a father.
Theirs is a story about the magic of accidental families, and about unexpected gifts that can continue long after the giver is gone.
“We always feel Bill’s presence at the theater,” said Justin Snyder. “But I think we feel it even more so at Christmas.”
The oldest of three boys growing up in a working-class family on the West Side of Chicago, Fosser loved the holidays. He spent every Christmas festooning the family’s home with elaborate decorations.
He was an outgoing, energetic child whose severe asthma and allergies sometimes prevented him from playing outside. Instead, he channeled his energy into creative pursuits. Among them was a makeshift theater he set up in his parents’ basement, where he staged puppet shows and charged a penny for admission.
When he was 7, he saw his first opera, Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” at the Lyric Opera. “I had already been working with puppets, and that night I went to the opera, it coalesced,” he told the Tribune in 1992. From that moment, puppet opera became his passion.
As a teen, he worked at the Kungsholm Miniature Grand Opera, which performed full-length puppet operas, in the old McCormick mansion on Ontario Street that is now home to Lawry’s the Prime Rib. As an adult, he established a successful career in set design, with credits including the movies “The Sting,” “Ordinary People” and “Backdraft.”
But he continued to dabble in puppetry. It wasn’t until December 1993, when he was 65, that he mustered the courage to open his own theater, called Opera in Focus, in Rolling Meadows.
The theater was “his heaven on earth,” said Fosser’s brother, Tom, 75.
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With decades of professional experience behind him, Fosser created beautifully detailed sets and constructed puppets that, by his own design, had movable wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles, and could be operated with rods from below the stage.
Instead of tackling full-length operas, Fosser showcased highlights of the most famous performances and used high-quality recordings of the best opera stars. Reviewing Fosser’s inaugural performance of “La Boheme” in 1993, the Tribune called it “the sweetest little opera of the season.” The Sun-Times described it the following year as “a lush production of fantastically detailed puppets,” on a “splendid gilded stage.” Audiences reacted with similar enthusiasm.
But by the late 1990s, his already-fragile health began to fail. He feared what would happen to his theater after he was gone.
“He was desperate to find someone who could either take over the company or a museum” that could take the puppets, said Dave Herzog, the regional director of the Puppeteers of America.
In the winter of 2000, Justin and Shayne Snyder, then 18 and 20, answered an advertisement for an apprentice puppeteer. Justin was an amateur musician who had recently graduated from high school. “I thought working at a puppet opera sounded cooler than flipping hamburgers,” he said.
He didn’t drive, so his brother chauffeured him to the theater. It so happened Shayne was a talented artist who had experience making masks and miniatures.
“We had always been these weird art kids,” Shayne said. “I was at a point in my life where I felt lost. I didn’t know how to proceed as an artist. … Justin too was at a crossroads.”
At the theater that day, the brothers were awe-struck by the artistry of the sets and puppets.
As for Fosser, he looked at the Snyders and wondered if his prayers had been answered. The two other puppeteers at the time were, like Fosser, getting old and struggling with their health. “Bill really thought that there was some divine intervention that (the Snyders) showed up,” said Leo Rizzetto, 82, a friend. “They showed so much interest and so much talent. He said it was like it was pre-ordained.”
The Snyders saw it from the opposite perspective. “We felt that God sent us the puppet opera,” Justin said.
Over the next six years, Fosser taught the brothers everything about his theater: how to build puppets using molds and polyester resin, how to create background sets and how to work the puppets in a way that made them move with agility and grace.
Fosser paid each brother $25 a performance. “But I don’t think any of us did it for the money. It was more of a labor of love,” said Justin Snyder.
Fosser was close to his two siblings and half-dozen nieces and nephews. But he never married or had children. He viewed his fellow puppeteers as part of his extended family, and every year he invited them to an elegant holiday dinner.
His home in the Edison Park neighborhood was always beautifully adorned with holiday decorations. The wreath on the front door, Fosser always said, was the one from “Home Alone.” (Fosser was a set designer on the film.)
Going around the table at dinner, each guest read a page aloud from the story of the nativity. The readings culminated with the opening of a specially built cabinet that held an elaborate Nativity and the placing of a tiny baby Jesus in the nativity’s manger.
For the Snyders, the carefully orchestrated ritual and perfectly decorated home was nothing short of magical.
“For the first time in our lives, Shayne and I felt that we were where we belonged,” said Justin Snyder. “Around Bill, we never had to worry about … trying to fit in or be normal. We felt we could be ourselves.”
When Fosser died in February 2006, he left the puppet theater to the Snyders. He had talked to the brothers, and they promised they would care for his theater like it was their own.
But his death came as a shock. Many assumed that, after Fosser died, the theater would be shuttered. Even the Snyders wondered if they could continue without their mentor.
Those fears were compounded a year later when Paul Guerra, who created all the puppet costumes, passed away. About the same time, the only remaining longtime puppeteer, William Harder, retired.
To make a living, the brothers have day jobs. Justin carves cemetery headstones for a monument company in Chicago. Shayne fills orders at a toy company in Addison. They live with their mother in Justice.
But twice a week, every week, they continued to stage the puppet opera.
There were challenges along the way. Attendance dipped at the beginning of the recession. In 2011, a flood damaged the walls and floors. Through it all, the brothers hung on.
Fosser had left them the gift of his art. And he left them with a lesson: When you are performing, you have to learn to disappear. In the darkness of the theater, you have to allow yourself to recede and let the puppets come to life.
On a recent night, a small audience settled into the blue velvet chairs. Before them a proscenium arch rose over an elaborate stage built to look like a miniature opera house, complete with royal boxes on either side.
The lights went down, and a golden curtain parted. A white-haired puppet stepped into view.
In the dim light beneath the stage, Justin and Shayne Snyder rolled on low, wheeled office chairs. Working quickly and carefully, they pulled the rings and pushed the rods that moved the puppets.
As the music rose, Justin closed his eyes. His lips moved as he sang silently along with the arias. Next to him, his brother was equally lost in the performance.
Fosser wasn’t with them, but in a way the master puppeteer was everywhere. In the sets and in the puppets. And in the hearts and memories of the brothers.
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As Justin Snyder explains, “It is a tribute to Bill.”
Opera in Focus will present this year’s final performance of “La Boheme” on Christmas Day at 4 p.m. For tickets call 847-818-3220, ext. 186, or visit operainfocus.com.