Bring the family to the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival January 14-25 and stay at the nearby and affordable Best Western Plus Chicago Hotel at Hillside!
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival brings you multiple events and locations, including some of Chicago’s most iconic theaters. This is puppetry as art, a tradition in the United States that goes back to 1900, the objective of which “is to cultivate the imagination through the traditions and contemporary practices of puppetry.”
Schedule Highlights:
Art Institute of Chicago, through January 25. This is an interactive installation allowing audiences to explore hand, shadow and finger puppets. Free. On January 17, enjoy “Family Festival: Puppets!”
Blind Summit Puppet Theater presents “The Table,” a play about Moses, a cantankerous puppet with a cardboard head. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater, January 14-25. Also at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Belgian puppeteer Nick Steur presents “Freeze,” a one man show of balancing, grace and wonder. US premiere.
Free Street Theater presents “Mariposa Nocturna: A Puppet Triptych,” with Stephanie Diaz and company, an exploration of loss, longing and rebirth. January 14-15.
MCA Stage presents “Mementos Mori,” three interrelated stories about technology and death. January 15-18. MCA presents a Puppetry Symposium, with scholars from diverse fields talking about the meaning, vitality and relevance of contemporary puppetry. January 24. Free.
The Field Museum presents “Chinese Theater Works,” a show devoted to the hundreds of years’ tradition of shadow puppets. January 17.
For more information about Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival events and performance sites, go to info@chicagopuppetfest.org.
Best Western Plus Chicago Hotel at Hillside, just a short trip to the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival events, provides free shuttle service to and from O’Hare Airport in Chicago. The hotel offers affordable, comfortable rooms, a breakfast bar and restaurant and much more. The hotel is pet friendly and offers AAA rates.