Welcome!
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the largest of its kind in North America welcoming 22,000+ audience members each January to enjoy 100+ events in just 12 days right in the heart of Chicago’s winter taking place at dozens and dozens of venues in the city. One of Chicago’s favorite staycations and a magnet for international visitors, it’s a great way to see a huge range of fascinating shows – from tiny stages to huge theaters – for adults and whole families – shadow puppetry to bunraku-style – a Festival guaranteed to Astonish & Delight you!
Each Year:
Festival Productions from Across the U.S. & Around the World
chicago international puppet theater festival
Promoting peace, equality, mutual understanding, and justice locally and globally.
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival advances the art of puppetry by presenting sophisticated programs vital to the cultural life of Chicago. Engaging and inspiring the largest and most diverse audiences for puppetry possible, the Festival features performances, workshops, artist intensives, a Free Neighborhood Tour and symposia, and is home to other key initiatives, including the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab, which nurture the development of puppeteers and deepen the field locally, nationally and internationally with the ultimate goal of promoting peace, equality, mutual understanding, and justice locally and globally.
Fest History (2015-2026)
Presented
“A Beacon of Warmth and Light.”
— The New York Times
Festival Parters: 2015-2025
Blair Thomas, Artistic Director & Founder
Photo Saverio Truglia
from the founder + artistic director
Dear Human!
Who better than the puppet to startle us awake? Who better to shake us free from the mire of our daily living and stir the deep knowledge of our shared humanity? This 8th edition of our Festival was, as always, chock full of astonishing revelations and delightful insights about our selves and others, revealing and revelling in what it means to be human.
This year audiences had the opportunity to see the hero in Ram (About Ram), the strength in Nora (A Doll’s House), the brutishness of Roald Dahl’s Crocodile (The Enormous Crocodile), ribald rompings (The Sex Lives of Puppets) alongside stories told from the U.S. in the ignited vision of a NY widow (Harlem Doll Palace), a post war, orphaned girl’s survival (The 4th Witch), a visit to a scifi author LeGuin’s 1960s genderless planet (The Left Hand of Darkness), and the rhinoceros’ journey (Rhynoceron).
Additionally we brought a unique dinner + puppetry experience from France this year as well as brand new works and premieres from Chicago artists—notably the wildly-popular Manual Cinema. Meanwhile, world-renown artists brought to Chicago: master classes, panel discussions, exhibitions and more.