The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is pulling strings to raise funds this fall, offering three exclusive sneak peeks of the amazing puppet artistry of one of next January’s most hotly anticipated festival performers, presented in highly intimate, exclusive living room settings around the city.
The Chicago Puppet Festival’s annual Fall Living Room Tour returns for three consecutive evenings, Thursday, November 14 through Saturday, November 16, this year showcasing an international work by Gildwen Peronno, co-director, RoiZIZO théâtre, from France.
What a rare and unique opportunity to witness the work of a master actor, puppeteer and manipulator, a jack-of-all-trades who thrives on the edge of art and craft that is object theater, in the comfort of someone’s living room. Peronno will perform sneak peeks of his pitch-perfect solo show I Killed the Monster, before returning to Chicago as a featured performer at the 7th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, January 15-26, 2025.
Always a wonderful time, supporters of contemporary puppetry gather in a private setting for unique food and drink, followed by a live, up close performance. Tickets to each performance are $150, $250 and $500. Purchase tickets at chicagopuppetfest.org. Proceeds benefit the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and its annual Free Neighborhood Tour. Reserve early as space is limited. Location addresses are confirmed upon purchase.
Here’s the Chicago Puppet Festival’s 2024 Fall Living Room Tour schedule:
West Loop
Thursday, November 14 at 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Caroline Randazzo and David Frohardt-Lane
The home of Caroline Randazzo and David Frohardt-Lane
Thoughtfully designed penthouse home overlooking Mary Bartelme Park
Streeterville
Friday, November 15 at 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Cheryl Lynn Bruce and Ginger Farley
Arts Club of Chicago
Known for its celebrated Mies van der Rohe staircase and designs with a membership founded in 1916, the Arts Club is a beacon of contemporary artistic exploration, community and investment.
Evanston
Saturday, November 16 at 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Leesa and Jes Sherborne
The home of Leesa and Jes Sherborne
A gracious 1870s lakefront residence, renovated in the 1930s to the Italianate Victorian style.
Watch the trailer for Gildwen Peronno’s I Killed the Monster
Mark your calendar: 7th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival returns
January 15-26, 2025
Mark your calendar for the 7th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, January 15-26, 2025. This year’s festival spans 12 days and dozens of Chicago venues, attracting an international pageant of puppet artists who will share more than 100 puppetry activities including all-ages spectacle shows, intimate works on small stages, free shows, a symposia, and an adults-only, late night puppet cabaret.
Visit chicagopuppetfest.org for tickets, information and to sign up for the festival’s e-news. Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram or Vimeo, hashtag #ChiPuppetFest.
About the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival
Originally founded in 2015 as a project of Blair Thomas & Co., the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival has highlighted artists from nations including Belgium, Chile, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Poland and South Africa as well as from Chicago and across the U.S. with the goal of promoting peace, equality, and justice on a global scale.
Already, the Chicago Puppet Festival is the largest of its kind in North America. Last year’s 2024 festival attracted a record 19,868 audience members to dozens of Chicago venues large and small to enjoy an entertaining and eclectic array of puppet styles from around the world.
In 2022, the Festival moved from a biennial to an annual event, and tripled its footprint in Chicago’s historic Fine Arts Building. It opened an expanded office suite, debuted the Chicago Puppet Studio, which designs and fabricates puppets for theaters and events around the U.S., and launched the Chicago Puppet Lab, an education space and developmental residency designed to incubate more works of boundary-breaking puppetry in Chicago, expand equity in the field of puppetry, and encourage interdisciplinary experimentation in puppet theater.
It’s fitting that the Fine Arts Building is home again to one of the most influential puppetry organizations in the world. In 1912, after Ellen Van Volkenburg famously founded the Little Theater of Chicago in the Fine Arts Building, she needed a name for the actors she had trained to manipulate marionettes while performing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So she credited them in the show program with a new word, “puppeteer.” Many agree this marked the initial intersection of traditional puppetry with contemporary theater still practiced today, and now flourishing around the world.
Expanded operations are overseen by Artistic Director and Festival Founder Blair Thomas, Executive Director Sandy Smith Gerding, with Cameron Heinz, Business Manager; Taylor Bibat, Festival Coordinator; Lucy Wirtz, Events and Engagement Coordinator; Zachary Sun, Studio Coordinator; Tom Lee, Co-Director, Chicago Puppet Lab and Studio; Grace Needlman, Coordinator, Chicago Puppet Lab; and Caitlin McLeod, Chicago Puppet Studio Project Manager.
For more information, visit chicagopuppetfest.org.
The 2024 Fall Living Room Tour Committee
Liz Aviles, Kim Ohms and Jackie Zydeck and co-chairs of the 2024 Living Room Tour Committee. The committee includes Chicago Puppet Festival board members Alicia Bird, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Jin Ivacic, Julie Moller, Kristy Moran, Jes Sherborne, Jordan Shields, John Supera, Pat Yuzawa-Rubin and Rosemary “Ro” Zalewski, plus Elizabeth Basile, Tanya Bermudez, Leah Bohannon, Irena Cajkova, Patti Gilford, Kerry James Marshall, Maureen Mizwicki, Klára Moldová, Elizabeth Monkus, Brandon Moran, Salena Potter, Margaret Radnick, Leesa Sherborne, Eva Silverman, Emily Stoltzfus, Dee and Ron Tevonian, and Steven Widerman.
