The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival announces its Fall 2020 Living Room Tour, Thursday, October 1-Sunday, October 4, 2020.
This year, their annual fundraiser will bring the art of contemporary puppetry and unique food and drink to special outdoor spaces in Chicago, suburban Glencoe, and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Join a diverse group of arts and culture fans outdoors for a delicious meal and a private, intimate performance of cutting-edge contemporary puppetry set against an architecturally significant backdrop. Fall 2020 Living Room Tour dates and locations are:
Thursday, October 1, 5:15 p.m.
An exquisite outdoor garden in a vintage Tudor private residence in north suburban Glencoe
Hosted by Nina and Steve Schroeder
Friday, October 2, 5:15 p.m.
Rockwell on the River, 3057 N. Rockwell in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood
A sleek new event space to meet, taste and celebrate on the North Branch of the Chicago River
Hosted by Paul Levy and Mia Park
Co-hosted by Elizabeth Basile
Saturday, October 3, 4:30 p.m.
A rustic dairy barn turned puppet studio on an organic farm outside Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Hosted by Blair Thomas and Sheri Doyel
Co-hosted by Jackie Zydeck and Ted Phillips
Sunday, October 4, 11:30 a.m.
A dairy barn turned puppet studio on an organic farm outside Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Hosted by Blair Thomas and Sheri Doyel
Co-hosted by Maureen Mizwicki, Kim Ohms and Joe Novelli
Tickets to each event are $150, including wine, beer, supper, the performance and light dessert. Benefactor tickets are $250 and add a contribution and a special goodie bag upon departure.
Purchase tickets online at chicagopuppetfest.org. Reserve early as space is limited. Proceeds benefit The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and are tax deductible.
Each event will showcase professional puppeteers performing two different shows featuring diverse puppetry styles.
Tom Lee, portrait, and Tom performing another outdoor production, Spiral Staircase.
Sounding the Resonant Path, a new work by Perry Yung, Tom Lee and special guests, draws on the spiritual connection between humans and nature. Audiences will witness an artist, seeking the unknowable, encounter the growing bamboo and tree, whose harvested material is crafted into the artistry of the flute and the puppet. Japanese kuruma ningyō style puppetry and multiple, illuminated shadow scrolls play out this wordless tale to the accompaniment of taiko drums, shamisen and shakuhachi flute.
Watch Tom Lee perform another outdoor work, Spiral Staircase.
Jerrell L. Henderson. Photo by Sarah JHP Watkins.
I Am the Bear, a contemporary allegory on modern policing techniques; or, the consequences of "walking while Black,” is by Jerrell L. Henderson, a director, puppeteer and assistant professor of performance studies at Chicago State University. Henderson recently directed Mlima’s Tale with Griffin Theatre (Jeff Award Nomination for Direction and Best Play) and Thurgood with Walnut Street Theatre. His shadow play adaptation, 3 American Myths: A Riff in Shadow & Light in 3 Rhythmic Movements, was a finalist for a 2019 Jim Henson Foundation Grant. He was also a Henson Foundation sponsored participant at the 2020 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Puppetry Conference.
Note:
All Fall 2020 Living Room Tour events will be staged outdoors, and limited to small numbers with social distancing in place. Guests are asked to wear a face covering at all times except when sitting to eat or drink. Appropriately distanced mingling with masks is encouraged.
Friday night’s event is outdoors and will not be re-scheduled for inclement weather. However, a rain check will be offered for Saturday’s performance in Avondale. In case of rain Saturday or Sunday, events will be moved to very large indoor spaces at the same address.
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival’s 2020 Living Room Tour Co-Chairs are Jackie Zydeck, Irena Čajková and Klára Moldová. The 2020 Living Room Tour Committee is Liz Aviles, Silvia Barrios, Elizabeth Basile, Leah Bohannon, Cheryl Lynn Bruce*, Andrea Cochran, Irena Čajková, Kerstin and Rance Clouser, Mary B. Emmerick, Molly and Tom Fleming, Joanie Friedman, Tom Goodman, Tracy LaRock, Freddie Levin, Caitlin McCleod, Maureen Mizwicki*, Klára Moldová, Eva Niewiadomski, Kimberly L. Ohms* and Joe Novelli, Michael Reed, Terry Reimer, Deborah Ross, Jane Nicholl Sahlins*, Anna Seifert, Leesa and Jes Sherborne*, Jordan Shields*, Eva Silverman, Blair Thomas*, Steven Widerman, Jackie Zydeck and Ted Phillips. *Board Member
About the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival
Founded in 2014 by master puppeteer Blair Thomas, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is a non-profit organization with a mission to establish Chicago as a prominent center for the art of puppetry and advance the form.
To date, the festival has presented three multi-week, citywide festivals in 2015, 2017 and 2019. The Chicago Puppet Festival has quickly grown to be the largest of its kind in North America, attracting as many as 14,000 audience members biannually to dozens of Chicago venues large and small to enjoy an entertaining and eclectic array of puppet styles from around the world.
In addition to planning the fourth Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival (dates to be announced), the Chicago Puppet Festival continues offering its new Pop-Up Puppet-Gram delivery service and educational programs for novices to professional puppeteers. It also runs the Chicago Puppet Studio, its in-house puppet design and fabrication workshop, which creates and builds puppets for theaters and film productions nationwide year round.
Fittingly, the Festival’s offices are in Chicago’s historic Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Avenue, which many consider the birthplace of contemporary puppetry. The Festival is led by founder and Artistic Director Blair Thomas, Managing Director Sandy Gerding, an Advisory Board and a dedicated volunteer Board of Directors.
For the latest updates, visit chicagopuppetfest.org, follow the festival on Facebook at facebook.com/ChicagoInternationalPuppetTheaterFestival, on Instagram at instagram.com/chipuppetfest and on Twitter @ChiPuppetFest.