Tickets are now on sale for the 6th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, the largest of its kind in North America, returning January 18-28, 2024, at venues large and small throughout the city. The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the largest event dedicated to the art form in North America. In the heart of winter, the Festival spans 11 days and dozens of Chicago venues, sharing 100+ puppetry activities with 14,000+ guests.
The festival includes performances, the Free Neighborhood Tour, a Puppet Hub open throughout the festival on the fourth floor of the Fine Arts Building, a symposium, the Catapult Artist Intensive, workshops, and more.Following are details about all of this year’s performances (in chronological order), special events and exhibits, including venues, dates, times, ticket prices, estimated run time, show descriptions and artist bios.Visit chicagopuppetfest.org to purchase tickets or follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram or Vimeo, hashtag #ChiPuppetFest.
Wakka Wakka’s Animalia Trilogy
Wakka Wakka
U.S./Norway
The Immortal Jellyfish Girl
Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Mainstage Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Lincoln Park
January 18-21
Four shows: Thursday, January 18 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday January 19 at 1:30 p.m.; Saturday, January 20 at 7 p.m.; Sunday, January 21 at 1:30 p.m.
80 minutes
Ages: 10 and up
Tickets: $40-$45
Note|Free events: Come make your own masks at free Wakka Wakka drop-in mask making workshops, Saturday and Sunday, January 20 and 21 at 2:45 p.m.
A gripping tale of humanity on the brink of annihilation and the unlikely hero who might just save them all. The year is 2555. Large swaths of earth’s surface are considered dead zones, and mass extinction has begun. There is a war (there is always a war). As both sides grow desperate, their thirst for destruction becomes more and more volatile. An improbable meeting between an orphan and a jellyfish girl threatens to tip the balance forever, but in whose favor, and at what cost? A mysterious man in a homemade fox costume has seen this all before, has lived this tragedy too many times, but he is determined it will end differently. Hilarious, ridiculous and virtuosic, this puppet show blends innovative projection, original music and puppetry that soars through dimensions, unconfined by time, gravity or biology.
The New York Times called it “A 26th-century love story.” The New Yorker called it “stunning.”
