puppets on parade

LIFESTYLE & ARTS PUPPETS ON PARADE

The 5th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival will take place next month at the Fine Arts Building and other locations throughout Chicago.

BY MITCH HURST

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Puppeteers from 10 different countries will be bringing their talents to Chicago from January 18 through 29 for the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, the largest festival of its kind in North America.

The festival was founded to establish Chicago as a center for the advancement of the art of puppetry and returns as an annual event showcasing an entertaining and eclectic array of puppet styles at venues large and small throughout the city.

“We have geographic and stylistic diversity and performances for young children and adults. It run the gamut,” says Blair Thomas, Artistic Director for the festival. “It’s a sprawling giant of a festival anchored at the Studebaker Theater but spreads out to the Museum

of Contemporary Art, the Logan Theatre, and the Chopin Theatre.”

The newly renovated Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Avenue will be the site for two puppetry shows for audiences as large as 600. The festival opens with the French-Norwegian production of “Moby Dick” and closes with “Frankenstein,” staged by Chicago's Manual Cinema.

Returning in 2023 is the free Neighborhood Tour, a series of puppetry workshops for working artists, and the Ellen Van Volkenberg Puppetry Symposium with free admission at the Studebaker Theater on both festival Saturdays.

Also back for artists across all disciplines looking for a deep dive into diverse puppetry styles are two sessions of the Catapult Artist Intensive, offering eight shows per weekend with behind-the-scenes access to the artists.

“’Moby Dick’ and ‘Frankenstein’ are visual feasts, and we also have ‘Invisible Lands’ from Finland about forced migration, during which two puppeteers use their own bodies in a live production,” Thomas says. “There’s also a piece from Brazil based on a well-known carnival folk hero that will be at the MCA.”

Thomas grew up in a small town in Alabama and got into puppetry at young age. He moved to Chicago to work in the theater industry—including a stint running Redmoon Theatre—but eventually rediscovered his youthful passion.

“Puppets are unique for showing fantastical worlds and imaginative things that can’t happen in real life,” Thomas says. “Puppets can come in