Well I'm not an award-winning LD, but that list is close to what I use most every day, so I'll take my crack at it and you can take it or not for what it cost you. Unlike people who respond to limited-resource questions with a shopping list of unobtainables, I will restrict myself to what you listed. Plus some locally-available low-cost stuff.
I hate v-lights, myself, the only Lowel product I don't like. They are good to shine up into a ceiling or at a wall just to raise the overall light level or get a diffused bounce that way, but I have never had good luck using them to light anything directly, they're harsh unless modified with a gel holder and lots of diffusion, or incorporated into a softbox setup. And that's probably what I'd do with them: build a softbox for each one. I know it sounds crazy, but you can build an effective softbox with just gaffer tape and foam core and a sheet of diffusion. There's more to it, I stole the recipe from Bill Holshevnikoff
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bill+holshevnikoff+power+of+lighting+s...
and I can give details later if needed.
I would use the Rifa as the key for your human stand-up talent, a spare light stand or mic stand or even a chair and clamp, with a sheet of white paper or crinkled-foil-covered foam core or cardboard attached to it on the side opposite the Rifa as fill, and the two v-lights in softboxes directed onto the set proper and the puppets from opposite 45-degree angles to start, adjust to taste as well as to control unwanted shadows or double-shadows.
If the set needs backlights, on a zero-base budget, I'd use the silly little 7-dollar silver dome clamp-on PARs from the hardware store (the ones that look like little chicken incubators) and try to find bulbs in a color temperature that wasn't too far off.
With this setup, an issue may be controlling spill; with money, you control that with grids attached to the fronts of the soft boxes. But I do that with more stands, and sheets of black posterboard or black foamcore. You definitely can get to the point where you create a forest of stands for all this stuff, limiting your camera movement, so that is a concern. But if this is classic puppet show stuff like
Mister Rogers or
Kukla, Fran, and Ollie stuff, your camera is mostly from just the front with one locked-off in a wide shot and one camera panning back and forth for tight close-ups on whoever is the key performer(s) at each moment, so you can block out your stands and tripods to suit this. Using a 2x4 and clamps, you might be able to fly some of the lights from above, eliminating some stands from the shots, but be
very careful doing anything like this. Also, FORGET using PVC pipe for lighting grids.
Foam core sheets are pretty cheap, and available many places, but if they are not available, cardboard, glue, and heavy white printer or typing paper or sheets of balled-up and re-smoothed cooking foil will do. Remember; it doesn't matter how ugly your lashed-up instrumentation looks, as long as it is safe and controllable, and as long as what the
LENS sees looks good.
