Infused with puppetry, humor, and stunningly innovative visual effects, Dead as a Dodo is a mesmerizing musical odyssey about survival, transformation, and the power of true friendship.
Join top supporters, festival leadership, staff and artistic directors from this year’s international companies to toast the opening of the 8th edition of the festival.
Celebrate opening night with the artists who have come to Chicago to share their astonishing and delightful acts for the next 12 days of the festival.
Welcome to The Harlem Doll Palace, based on the true story of Lenon Holder Hoyt, better known as Aunt Len, a public school art teacher for 40 years who created a doll museum in her Harlem brownstone.
A Doll’s House brings together puppets, actors, music and video projections in this eerie retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play, one of the great Nordic classics.
A new and fantastic tale from Chicago’s Manual Cinema, inspired by elements of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which a girl escapes war and flees into a dark forest.
A Chicago premiere, Rhynoceron traces the true events surrounding the arrival of a one-horned rhinoceros to Renaissance Europe, sparking an obsession that continued for hundreds of years.
Miniature raconteur and sequined pyro Laura Heit performs teeny tiny puppet shows inside matchboxes. “The smallest, greatest, bravest, show in the world!”
A Puppet Fest first! Don’t miss this unique farm-to-table, family-style dinner for 12 people, paired with a five-minute puppet show performed for each guest, one at a time.
The Puppet Festival’s annual Free Neighborhood Tour brings free, family-friendly performances to locations outside of Chicago’s theaters to foster an appreciation for puppetry throughout the city.
The Puppet Festival’s annual Free Neighborhood Tour brings free, family-friendly performances to locations outside of Chicago’s theaters to foster an appreciation for puppetry throughout the city.
Register for hands-on workshops led by visiting festival artists. Each of these workshops is a 3 hour, free standing event. All workshops take place in the festival’s education space in the Fine Arts Building.
A showcase of visiting festival artist Laura Heit’s exquisite hand-drawn animation and film "Two Ways Down" and a Giant Puppet Lanterns exhibition created in the pre-festival workshop with Andrew Kim of Thingamugig.
Hit the Puppet Fest’s fan-favorite late night shows, where raucous, raunchy, dark, sassy, sad and mostly hilarious puppet theater plays to supportive, sold out houses.
The Puppet Hub is the perfect place to relax between shows, get a bite to eat, meet up with friends, make new ones, and learn more about contemporary puppetry.
Moderator:
Paulette Richards
Panelists:
Drew Dir and Julia Miller (The 4th Witch)
Ashe Winkfield and Alva Rodgers (Harlem Doll Palace)
Laura Heit (The Matchbox Shows
As charming as it is beautiful, Blair Thomas’ most recent puppetry creation takes the form of a large-scale, four-panel crankie in this koan offering insight into the rascally nature of a dog and his owner.
Moderator:
Paulette Richards
Panelists:
Yngvild Aspeli (A Doll's House)
KT Shivak (Rhynoceron)
Gwen Warnock and Kirjan Waagen (Dead As A Dodo)
Laura Heit (The Matchbox Shows)
Mark Down (The Sex Lives of Puppets)
Laura Heit presents her short film work spanning two decades. This program showcases numerous animation techniques including drawing, stop-motion, and puppetry.
This year’s free Book Talks series presents three moderated discussions with leading national puppet scholars, discussing books and topics including race, gender and disability in puppetry.
The Sex Lives of Puppets pulls back the covers on puppet sex in contemporary Britain: filthy, funny, shocking and touching…lots of touching.
Trust me for a while is a ventriloquist show gone off the rails. A horror comedy with dark humor, putting an end to depressing contemporary meta-theatre and crappy puppeteers.
This mischievous musical based on Roald Dahl’s snappy book has toe-tapping tunes by Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab, a rib-tickling book and lyrics by Suhayla El-Bushra, and additional music and lyrics by Tom Brady.
About Ram is an experimental theatrical piece using excerpts from the Bhavbhuti’s “Ramayana” told through animation, digitally projected dance, masks and puppets.
The House is a puppet comedy thriller for teens and adults that tells the story of the Warehouse Family Funeral Home. On her deathbed, the undertaker changes her last will and testament, a secret begins to unravel and an evil plan is formed.
The Left Hand of Darkness is a new work based on the 1969 novel by famed sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin, wherein a lone human emissary to an alien world tries to facilitate inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization.
In Oil Pressure Vibrator, Geumhyung Jeong breaks into the complexities of sexuality. Her quest is narrated live (with English subtitles), interwoven with performance, documentary film and genre-defying video work.
Hit the Puppet Fest’s fan-favorite late night shows, where raucous, raunchy, dark, sassy, sad and mostly hilarious puppet theater plays to supportive, sold out houses.
Moderator:
Paulette Richards
Panelists:
Michael Jean-Marain (The Enormous Crocodile)
Yngvild Aspeli (A Doll’s House)
Sophie Krog (The House)
Andrew Kim (Thingamagic Theater)
Moderator:
Paulette Richards
Panelists:
Anurupa Roy (About Ram)
Geumhyung Jeong (Oil Pressure Vibrator)
Tom Lee and Edward Einhorn (The Left Hand of Darkness)
Festival favorite Joshua Holden and his right-hand man, the charmingly misanthropic Mr. Nicholas, co-emcee this final must-see evening of wildly unforgettable puppetry featuring Blair Thomas, Silas Thomas, Mark Down, and more.
