Chicago Puppet Artists Will Present a Mini-Festival Next Month

Ten incredible Chicago artists who have spent the past eight months creating new, original puppet theater shows while in residence at the Chicago Puppet Lab, will present a mini-festival of their works in progress, June 1-11 in the Chopin Theatre Basement, 1543 W. Division St. in Wicker Park. 

The Chicago Puppet Lab Showcase has two rotating group shows, each featuring diverse works in progress by the Lab’s talented Year Two cohort, all mentored by Chicago Puppet Lab co-directors Tom Lee and Grace Needlman.

Program A features new works by Rachel Singer, Gretchen Hasse, Jacqueline Wade and Chio Cabrera-Coz. Performances are Friday, June 2 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 2 p.m.; Sunday, June 4 at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, June 11 at 3 p.m.

Program B features works by August Boyne and Jacky Kelsey, Claude Fethiere, Sion Silva and Collective SUMM (Kevin Michael Wesson and Jaerin Son). Performances are Thursday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m.; Friday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 10 at 2 p.m.; and Sunday, June 11 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets to each program are $20 regular/$15 student and seniors. Purchase tickets at chicagopuppetfest.org.

The Chicago Puppet Lab is the developmental arm of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. In addition to presenting the largest annual puppetry festival of its kind in North America, the Festival’s Chicago Puppet Lab is an education space that incubates new works of boundary-breaking puppetry in Chicago, expands equity in the field of puppetry, and encourages interdisciplinary experimentation in puppet theater. 

The 5th edition of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, January 18-29, 2023, was a great return and the inaugural year of the Festival becoming an annual event. Chicago’s appetite for puppetry was proven yet again with more sold out shows than ever before and a delicious variety of international performances.

Though the Festival did coordinate a wonderful restart in the middle of Omicron in 2022, the 2023 Festival blew it right out of the water. Audiences returned to venues all over the city for the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, the Chicago Reader’s 2022 Best of Chicago Poll “Best Performing Arts Festival” runner-up, second only to Ravinia. 

Over 105 performances and events astonished and delighted attendees. Artists came from Chicago, the nation and internationally from Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway, South Africa, and Spain. From bunraku, to shadow, to crankie scroll, pageant-style puppets and more, puppets took over for 12 amazing days and nights of inspiration and invention.

For 14,000+ national and international guests, the 5th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival presented a substantial, in-person puppet festival, an oasis of fascination and artistry representing a breadth of style, quality of work and spectacular depth of artistic achievement from the U.S. The Festival boasted many new events this year notably a Puppet Hub at the Fine Arts Building complete with photography exhibitions, art installation and Pop Up Spoke & Bird Cafe. Although only in its 5th edition, the Festival was again the largest festival of its kind in the nation and remains celebrated for consistently excellent and unforgettable puppetry experiences.