Displaying items by tag: Obama Center

Chicago-based Emmy Award-winning performance collective and film/video production company Manual Cinema premiered two new hand-animated films at the Obama Presidential Center Museum earlier this year. Now, the company is bringing two of its acclaimed live-action productions back to Chicago's historic Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building, where audiences can witness Manual Cinema's handmade magic created before their eyes with performers, musicians, and hundreds of puppets.

Timed to coincide with the Halloween and Christmas holidays, Manual Cinema and the Studebaker Theater co-present Manual Cinema's Frankenstein, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror novel, for four performances only October 30–November 1, 2026; and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol, a unique take on the Charles Dickens classic, from December 18–27, 2026.

Tickets for Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol at the Studebaker Theater (410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago) go on sale Friday, August 28. Tickets are $35-$75, with student tickets available for $25 with proof of ID. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit fineartsbuilding.com/studebaker.

"Manual Cinema is a truly exceptional team of multidisciplinary artists, as demonstrated by the fact that they were tapped to create two short films for the Obama Presidential Center Museum," says Jacob Harvey, Managing Artistic Director of the Fine Arts Building and Studebaker Theater. "We're thrilled to bring their productions of Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol back to the Studebaker this year, where audiences can experience the magic of their live-action, handmade filmmaking in person."

"We're so excited to be returning to the Studebaker Theater with Frankenstein and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol!" adds Drew Dir, Co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. "Our adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel has been touring the Western Hemisphere for years, and we're thrilled to bring it back home for an encore Halloween engagement. Meanwhile, Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol has become a beloved holiday tradition for our fans—we're thrilled to give Chicago audiences another chance to see it!"

SHOW DETAILS

Frankenstein

Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building

410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

October 30–November 1, 2026

In Manual Cinema's thrilling version of the classic Gothic tale Frankenstein, the Chicago-based performance collective imaginatively combines shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and live sound effects and music in a haunting show unlike any other. The production stitches together the fictional story of Frankenstein with the biography of the original novel's author, Mary Shelley, to create an unexpected tale about the beauty and horror of creation.

Frankenstein is adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley, with a concept by Drew Dir. The production is devised by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace and Julia Miller. Original music and sound design are by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter.

Performance times:

Friday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. (press opening)

Saturday, Oct. 31 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 1 at 3 p.m.

Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol

Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building

410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

December 18–27, 2026

Featuring hundreds of handmade puppets, immersive sound design and a stunning live score, Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol is a holiday show unlike any other. Avowed holiday skeptic Aunt Trudy has been reluctantly recruited to carry on her late husband Joe's tradition of spreading Christmas cheer, and recreates his annual Christmas Carol puppet show over Zoom while the family celebrates from afar. But as Trudy dives deeper into the story, the puppets take on a life of their own and the family call transforms into a breathtaking, one-of-a-kind cinematic reimagining of Dickens's classic ghost story.

Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol is adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens and devised by Manual Cinema, with additional writing by Nate Marshall. Storyboards and puppet design are by Drew Dir, with original score and sound design by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter, and lighting design by Trey Brazeal.

Performance times:

Friday, Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. (press opening)

Saturday, Dec. 19 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 24 at 2 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 26 at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 27 at 2 p.m.

About the Fine Arts Building and Studebaker Theater

The Fine Arts Building, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2023, is a home for art in all forms: from pioneers like Poetry magazine's founding publisher Harriet Monroe, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, illustrator W. W. Denslow, sculptor Lorado Taft and the Chicago Little Theatre, to the ongoing legacies of painters, musicians, booksellers, puppeteers, dancers, photographers and craftspeople who inhabit the building today, the Fine Arts Building is buzzing with more than a century of Chicago creativity and innovation.

A Chicago Landmark since 1978, the building features original Art Nouveau murals from the late 19th century and the Studebaker Theater, one of the city's oldest and most significant live theatrical venues. Following a major multi-million-dollar renovation of the Studebaker led by Berger Realty Group and completed in 2022, the theater has been home to NPR's popular news quiz show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and has hosted performances from new musicals including 44: The Obama Musical, Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile, and Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, along with productions Ava: The Secret Conversations starring Elizabeth McGovern and Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol. For more information, visit fineartsbuilding.com.

About Manual Cinema

Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award-winning performance collective, design studio, and film/video production company founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen. Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and live music, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.

The company was awarded an Emmy in 2017 for "The Forger," a video created for The New York Times, and named Chicago Artists of the Year in 2018 by the Chicago Tribune. Their shadow puppet animations were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions. In collaboration with the Obama Foundation and Batwin + Robin Productions, Manual Cinema created two animated films for the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago, Ten Letters a Day and Power of Place.

Recent productions include Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About A Terrible Monster, based on books by Mo Willems, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and a revamped production of The Magic City, based on Edith Nesbit's 1910 novel. In 2023, Manual Cinema completed production on their first self-produced short film, Future Feeling, and toured with folk rock band Iron & Wine the following year. In Summer 2025, Manual Cinema premiered their latest feature production, The 4th Witch—a bold and imaginative inversion of Macbeth that is now touring.