Alban Odoulamy has been selling puppets out of his shop in the Crystal City Underground for 28 years.
Opening as “La Marionette” in April 1996, that shop — now Puppet Heaven at 1750 Crystal Drive — has shifted locations over decades, but it’s always stayed in the subterranean mall. However, following last month’s announcement that all shops must vacate the shopping area, what Odoulamy says is the D.C. area’s only dedicated puppet store is one of many businesses in need of a new home.
Artisphere (1101 Wilson Blvd) in Rosslyn is hosting a unique show this weekend.
Alban Odoulamy has been running Puppet Heaven, or puppet shops by other names, in Crystal City for 18 years, but his heart isn’t in it like it used to be.
Odoulamy emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1990s from the small, French-speaking West African country of Benin, where he had worked in production and set design for children’s programming for the state-owned television station. He had been formally trained in Marionette puppetry — the puppets controlled by strings — and worked under a master puppeteer until he came here, where he worked as a concierge for Charles E. Smith before its merger with Vornado.
