Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival

The 2025 Chicago Puppet Fest will span 12 days and dozens of Chicago venues, presenting  an international pageant of puppet artists sharing more than 100 puppetry activities. Get set for all-ages spectacle shows in landmark theaters, intimate works on smaller stages, and the always popular, adults-only, late night puppet cabarets.

Schedule of Events:

10:00 pm: Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium Panel 3 - Notes on Sounds and Words

Language, music, and soundscapes are especially important elements in numerous works of puppetry this festival. Artists will discuss how the sounds that arise from manipulation of material, the dialogue, the soundscape, and musical accompaniment complement the puppet as a visual object. In this panel Craig Leo (Life and Times of Michael K), Yael Rasooly (The House by the Lake, Edith and Me), Paula Riquelme (Organismo), and Anthony Michael Stokes (The Scarecrow), respond to the question: What do sounds and words contribute to the emotional journey of each story? Moderated by Dr. Paulette Richards.

10:00 pm - 7:30 pm: The Puppet Hub

In addition to the incredible pageant of international and U.S. puppetry artists, the Puppet Hub is back and open throughout the festival. It's 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. Attractions include:           

Lessons in Puppetry by Myra Su
In this exhibit, Myra Su shares her various puppetry experiments (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and lessons she's learned along the way.

Puppetry Under the Sea
Inspired by coastal parades and spectacles, over 20 puppets that were designed and built by the Chicago Puppet Studio, for Drury Lane Theatre's production of "The Little Mermaid", will be on display.

Pop-Up Puppet Shop
The perfect spot to stock up on your newest Chicago Puppet Fest swag.

The Spoke and Bird Pop-Up Cafe
Stop by The Spoke and Bird Pop-Up Cafe if you're coming to a show at the Studebaker Theater, workshops, readings and special events in the Fine Arts Building, or any Puppet Fest show downtown. Enjoy coffee, tea, winter soups and baked treats in a cozy, puppet-inspired setting, and check out the surrounding exhibits.

1:00 pm: UnterWasser: Untold

What cannot be said, cannot be explored nor elaborated upon, so neither can it be resolved. Untold shares a meticulous melding of shadow puppetry, original soundtrack, and illusion to reveal artifice and clues. Images demand the limelight and messages push to the surface in this striking piece of poetic reflection with remarkable technical detail counterpointing the solitude of interior life against a metropolis bustling with crowds and chaos.

Click here to Buy Tickets

1:00 pm: Josh Rice Projects: Kayfabe

Jump in the ring for this puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular! Puppetry meets pro wrestling, meets rock show; high art meets low art meets Samuel Beckett! A frenetic frenzy slash aburdist love letter combines Bunraku-style table-top puppetry, cart puppetry, live-feed projection (instant replay) and object performance, as well as the wrestling tropes of matches, monologues, and music and video.

Click here to Buy Tickets

3:00 pm: Baxter Theatre and Handspring Puppet Co - J.M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K

In this stunning transformation of Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel by the same name, a humble man finds solace in nature as he takes an epic journey through a mythical, war-torn landscape. In search of his mother's ancestral home, he finds strength in his own humanity and a profound connection to the earth. With puppets by Handspring Puppet Company, known for building the War Horse and Little Amal, Cape Town's Baxter Theatre brings us a new level of exquisite bunraku-style puppet theater.Click here to Buy Tickets

4:00 pm: Marana: Organismo

Berlin's cutting-edge collective brings this celebrated kaleidescope aerial arts piece, combining art installation, contemporary circus, object theater, textile arts, live music - and lots and lots of wool. A trust-filled performance of connectedness and obsessive organic magic, where the division between object and body become indistinguishable, teems in a massive, hand-knit visual feast.

Click here to Buy Tickets

5:00 pm: Anthony Michael Stokes: The Scarecrow

In a fabulous mash-up of musical, puppets, and the story of OZ, the newly appointed "Majesty the Scarecrow" is tasked to save the citizens of Winkie country from an ever-increasing horde of crows. Fascinated by how he came to be hanging in a field in the first place, his Majesty follows a journey back home learning who he was and discovering who he must be. Joined by new companions; the Wogglebug, Sawhorse, the Patchwork girl and a perpetually puckish crow, his journey lead to discoveries and connections between Oz and the African-American experience in the United States in the early 1900's.

Click here to Buy Tickets

8:00 pm: Yael Rasooly: Edith and Me

Based on a true story, Yael Rasooly bring her virtuosic vocals and puppetry to share the struggle of a singer nearly silenced at the hands of political leaders, immobilized, and perhaps never to perform again. Yet she is not alone - the famous singer icon Edith Piaf is there to drag her out of bed and pull her back into life. "Edith and Me" is a one woman show doubling the power of French cabaret.

Click here to Buy Tickets

10:30 pm: Nasty, Brutish and Short - Week 2

Don't let the evening end! Come join the fun at this fan-favorite late show where eyebrows meet lowbrows. Enjoy Chicago's long-standing puppet cabaret with your hirsute host Jameson and somewhat furry friends for a naughty night of raucous, dark, sassy, sad and highly unusual puppet theater. Out-of-towner puppeteers are invited to join local legends for friendly unwinding. All shows are at Links Hall this year for the Nasty, Brutish and Short puppet cabaret.

Click here to Buy Tickets