CAPITOLA >> Those who have played fantasy video games, or watched movies or read books within the genre, have more than likely wanted to experience firsthand the thrills of going on quests, navigating enchanted realms, coming face to face with bizarre creatures and escaping peril, only to be rewarded in the end.

The Puppetry Institute will be providing exactly that when it opens its second space at the Capitola Mall in May. The institute’s primary space near Macy’s will continue its goal of providing a venue for people to expand their creativity through building puppets, but a new space near Kohl’s opts to bring something unique to the mall, if not the region: a 5,000-square-foot puppetry art installation called Middleof that serves as an interactive museum on weekdays and a space to go on an adventure through different worlds on weekends.

It is in this latter setup where visitors traverse through different rooms representing unique fantasy worlds, interact with large mythical creature puppets and try to outwit bad guys, all while protecting a dragon’s egg.

Ricki Vincent, Puppetry Institute founder and artistic director, said it is the only installation of its kind.

“What this place is designed to do is to breathe life back into an otherwise quiet mall,” he said.

Middleof is the culmination of a longtime love of puppetry for Vincent. At the age of 4, he was enamored after seeing legendary puppeteer Jim Henson on “The Jack Paar Program,” followed by a scene of Kermit the Frog mistaking a monster’s nose for a worm and promptly getting eaten.

“I knew right then that’s what I had to do,” he said. “The next day, I was at my grandmother’s and screaming about how I wanted to make a wormy, so my grandmother handed me an old fur coat and a pair of sewing shears … and showed me how to work her pedal sewing machine by tying a block to it so I could stand on it.”

Vincent went on to make thousands of puppets and used his allowance to host puppet shows while also making money selling his creations to kids as they left. By the time he was a teenager, he lost interest in puppetry and got into tattoo artistry, but the 9/11 attacks and a chance viewing of a “Muppets Tonight” rerun got him back into making puppets.

This rediscovered interest in puppetry led Vincent to create the underground puppet TV series “Dante’s Place” and nonprofit theatre troupe Geppetto Dreams Puppet Co. Moving to Santa Cruz, he created the Puppetry Institute as an artist-in-residence program through the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History before relocating to a permanent space at the Capitola Mall.

Vincent said the institute teaches everything from puppet-making to stop motion effects to people of all ages.

“Anything that you’ve ever thought of in the FX industry that you’d like to learn, whether you’re an adult or a kid, you can learn at the institute,” he said. “Our mission is to make these classes available to everyone, not just people that can afford it.”

Vincent said the money from classes, art and performances go into scholarships that support youth on the spectrum or from underserved communities. He estimated that about 75% of funding came from a traveling dragon circus program that was performed in local schools, but after the Pajaro River flood of 2023, money became a lot tighter. Combined with federal art cuts and the fierce competition among Santa Cruz artists, Vincent said funding became a lot more scarce.

“I went on a fact-finding vacation to look at a place called Meow Wolf, which is a big series of interactive museums all over the country and thought I could build something like this, so I built this place,” he said.

Construction on Middleof began at a former Victoria’s Secret in June, and the finishing touches are being put on it ahead of its public May 3 opening.

“Once it’s open, it will be the only one of its kind,” said Vincent.

He said there are two ways visitors will be able to experience Middleof. The first is a museum mode on weekdays, where people can touch and play with various interactive exhibits. The second is the adventure mode on weekends, where visitors will be part of the action.

Only 12 people will be let into the adventure mode at a time, so Vincent said there will be a queue of people waiting to get in, but they may use that opportunity to peruse the mall’s shops or eat at the food court. Once in, the premise is that you, the visitor, are touring a floating island called Middleof under the guise of an interdimensional vacation but are thrust into protecting a dragon’s egg. Here, visitors will have to navigate through five different worlds, dodge bad guys and make it back to the home world, where they will be rewarded with a toy baby dragon.

“(The egg is) motion-activated, so it will keep moving as you move around the exhibit,” said Vincent. “You have to get it through all five worlds, plus past the evil clutches of the bad guys and get it back to its home world, or else all reality blips from existence.”

These worlds include the ice realm of Underest, featuring Yeti and selkie puppets; the fairy world of Celestia with a gnome rave, large driad puppet and a banshee named Alexa who will answer any yes-no question but will always answer “No” because “she’s a teenager,” according to Vincent; the avian world of Atheria with cryptids, a thunderbird (complete with sounds of thunder) and a golden gryphon named Arun; and the Hall of Dragons which feature a dragon named Verathos, whom Vincent described as the biggest dragon puppet he has ever made.

“She’s 32 feet long from the tip of her tail to the tip of her nose,” he said.

Along the way, there will also be QR codes which people can scan with their smartphones to learn more about the different creatures.

Vincent said a lot of work went into creating Middleof, including repurposing items such as a Roboraptor into a nurse dragon named Helga or rebuilding Spirit Halloween animatronics that Vincent found discarded at the dump. Morgan Shea, a Capitola resident who went from being a Puppetry Institute student to a volunteer, has done everything from painting the walls to creating parts of the puppets.

“Everything I’ve been doing, I’ve been learning new things, which I love but some things are more challenging than others,” he said. “When you make mistakes, you have to learn from them.”

Shea wants Middleof to make people happy.

“I hope it helps bring joy and makes people feel better about life, but I also hope that it makes people realize things like this are possible,” he said. “People can go out and make things and make art.”

Middleof will benefit the Puppetry Institute’s scholarship program, which Vincent said has raised more than $40,000 over the last eight years. Working with puppets, he said, has taught students so much in many different areas.

“Everything that you see in here is chock-full of every academic that they’ll ever teach you in school,” he said. “This is math, this is geometry, this is physics, it’s engineering and it’s even creative writing because if a kid builds a puppet, then you’ve gotta write something for that puppet to say.”

Those inquiring about scholarships can email Vincent at the.puppetry.institute@gmail.com.

Vincent hopes Middleof will spark a sense of wonder and reignite childhood imaginations.

“If you go through this whole thing and you leave with a smile, then I’ve done my thing,” he said.

Middleof will open to the public with hourly tours starting at 1 p.m. May 3 at the Capitola Mall, 1855 41st Ave., Suite D-06 near Kohl’s. For more information, go to Thepuppetryinstitute.org/middleof.