This winter is the perfect time to stay inside, dive into live, hands-on puppetry workshops and make something extraordinary.
That’s why, due to popular demand, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is expanding its teaching artist roster and tripling its winter line-up of live, online puppetry workshops for actors, artists and theater craftsmen interested in expanding their skill sets and creating new works.
Chicago Puppet Festival workshops cover a range of puppetry styles including Shadow, 3D Fabrication, Crankies and Pop Up Books. Classes are taught by Chicago’s top puppet theater artists, who guide participants from conception, to construction, to a live presentation, all in a fun, communal format. Students typically use found objects and materials from their homes to create their original works. Live work sessions, group sharing and personal feedback combine to make Chicago Puppet Fest workshops enjoyable and productive.
New in 2021 is the option to choose between one-week intensives, or one class a week over several weeks. Likewise, the Chicago Puppet Festival has grown its roster of teachers, and introduced class levels from one to five – one for beginners, five for experts, with graduating levels in between.
Registration is now open at chicagopuppetfest.org for the following One-Week Intensives ($225 each) and four Six-Week Courses ($285 each). The Festival’s live online workshops are for adults, ideally with some performance and/or builder’s experience. Limited scholarships available upon request. BIPOC encouraged to apply. To request email info@chicagopuppetfest.org with a brief statement of interest/need.
One-Week Intensives:
Toy Theater (Level One)
Toy Theater One is an introduction to the form, teaches basic skills and concludes with a showing. Make your first toy theater stage using recyclable materials. Learn conceptual and design approaches in building an original work. Build basic jointed 2D puppets and moveable set pieces and discover the unique theatrical language of the Toy Theater.
Session One: February 15-21, with Roberto Rossi
Session Two: March 1-7, with KT Shivak
Session Three: April 19-23, with Blair Thomas
Shadow Puppetry (Level One)
Experiments in Light and Shadow: Shadow Puppetry One is an introduction to the form for the beginning puppeteer. Students will create a desktop shadow theater, build and create basic shadow figures and environments and devise their own short pieces with music or text. An overview of world shadow puppetry traditions is included as well as an introduction to light sources and fabrication. The course makes use of basic materials including home recyclables.
Session One: February 15-21, with Tom Lee
Session Two: March 1-7, with Lake Simmons
Session Three: April 19-23, with Tom Lee
Crankie Theaters (Level One)
This workshop serves as an introduction to the crankie, or scrolling panorama, from a performative approach. Participants will learn basic construction tips and tricks as well as a cinematic framework to help storyboard and choreograph a crankie piece. The workshop culminates in a sharing of work by the participants.
Session One: February 15-21, with Myra Su
Session Two: March 1-7, with Myra Su
Session Three: April 19-23, with Myra Su
Six-Week Courses
Pop-Up Book as Stage Design with Jaerin Son (Level One)
March 8-April 12, Mondays, 7-9 p.m.
This class introduces pop-up book paper designs as a technique for puppet theater set design. The revelation of each turned page in the pop-up book is translated into a revelation in puppet stage design. This technique enables the creation of a variety of easily transportable backgrounds.
The Short Well-Made Puppet Play with Tom Lee (Level Three)
March 10-April 14, Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m.
This course is designed for practicing puppeteers interested in developing a self-contained, short puppet piece they can pull out of a suitcase. In the class, puppeteers will devise a concept through storyboarding, design the portable stage, set and puppets and develop the piece through critiques. Creating sound, music, lighting and proper documentation will also be outlined. This course requires experience and access to basic hand tools.
3D Puppet Fabrication: Strings, Hands and Rods with Mark Blashford (Level One)
March 9-April 13, Tuesdays, 7-9 p.m.
This class introduces the principles and function of the 3-dimensional puppet. Participants will learn basic construction techniques and manipulation strategies for a balanced stringed marionette, the traditional hand in glove puppet, and the principles of table-top rod puppet. This class requires purchase of a materials kit that will be mailed to each participant.
Cardboard Sculpting with Jeghetto (Level One)
March 11-April 15, Thursdays, 7-9 p.m.
Learn to sculpt and build a puppet out of cardboard with master puppeteer and builder Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins. Jeghetto’s unique style integrates functional puppet armatures and controls with a variety of found materials. Think outside the cardboard box by creating a rod puppet with it. Jeghetto will share his unique building techniques as well as manipulating your creation.
About the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival
Founded in 2014 by master puppeteer Blair Thomas, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is a non-profit organization with a mission to establish Chicago as a prominent center for the art of puppetry and advance the form. To date, the festival has presented three multi-
week, citywide festivals in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Chicago’s puppet festival has quickly grown to be the largest of its kind in North America, attracting as many as 14,000 audience members biannually to dozens of Chicago venues large and small to enjoy an entertaining and eclectic array of puppet styles from around the world.
In addition to planning the fourth Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival (dates to be announced), Chicago Puppet Fest programs include its new Pop-Up Puppet-Gram delivery service, educational programs for novices to professional puppeteers, an ongoing series of Free Neighborhood Tours, and the Chicago Puppet Studio, the festival’s in-house puppet design and fabrication workshop.
Fittingly, the offices of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and the Chicago Puppet Studio are located in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Avenue, where, many argue was the birthplace of contemporary puppetry more than 100 years ago. The festival is led by founder and Artistic Director Blair Thomas, Managing Director Sandy Gerding, an Advisory Board and a dedicated volunteer Board of Directors.
For the latest updates, visit chicagopuppetfest.org, follow the festival on Facebook at facebook.com/ChicagoInternationalPuppetTheaterFestival, on Instagram at instagram.com/chipuppetfest and on Twitter @ChiPuppetFest.
Instructor Bios:
Mark Blashford is a Chicago Puppet Studio Associate Artist, who builds and performs puppets for film and stage. He tours his short solo shows to doorsteps around Chicago through the Festival’s Pop-Up Puppet Grams. He specializes in marionettes and has a deep knowledge of materials and construction techniques. Blashford operates professionally as Rootstock Puppet Co. He is a University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts Program alum MFA ‘17. rootstockpuppet.com
Tom Lee, born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Mililani, Hawai’i, is a director, designer and puppet artist based in New York and Chicago. he began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York and, later, the St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab. His original puppet theater work includes Shank’s Mare (La MaMa, Japan Tour), Hoplite Diary (St. Ann’s, La MaMa), Punch of the Dead (St. Ann’s Puppet Lab), Odysseus and Ajax (La MaMa) and Ko’olau (La MaMa/Hawai’i tour). Lee has directed and designed puppetry for Giants Are Small with the New York Philharmonic, the Prototype Festival production of The Scarlet Ibis by Stefan Weisman and David Cote and for the National Asian American Theatre Company, among others. He collaborated with director Stephen Earnhart on a multimedia staging of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, featured at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2011 and the Singapore Arts Festival in 2012. Lee has performed extensively with other companies in New York, including War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater with puppetry by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa. He is a principal puppeteer of Cio-Cio-san’s child in the late Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera with puppetry by Blind Summit Theatre. In 2005, supported by the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers, Lee spent two months studying with Koryu Nishikawa V, headmaster of Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo (cart puppet theatre company), which led to their collaboration on Shank’s Mare. His work has received support from The Jim Henson Foundation, The Japan Foundation NY, The TCG/Andrew W. Mellon In the Lab Program, The TCG/ITI Travel Grant Program, The Trust for Mutual Understanding, The Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Japan Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, The Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse and artist residences at High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary Chicago, Sarah Lawrence College, The Rhodophi International Theater Laboratory (Bulgaria), The Ringling Museum of Art, The Jim Henson Carriage House and Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo. He was a guest faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College for ten years and co-director of the St. Ann’s Puppet Lab from 2009-2011.
Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins has been creating his “moving sculptures” out of recycled and found materials for almost 20 years. His show Just Another Lynching was presented at the 2019 Chicago Puppet Festival. A resident of North Carolina since 2005, he has fine-tuned his skills by doing street performances with his puppets as well as working with Paperhand Puppet Intervention and national recording artist, Missy Elliot’s music videos. jeghetto.com
Roberto Rossi is a member of Great Small Works. He has toured extensively with the Bread & Puppet Theater and the Boston Puppeteers’ Cooperative and has led classes in mask-making, toy theater and puppetry. He has staged pageants for Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors and has co-curated puppetry festivals with GSW at HERE and St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York.
KT Shivak is an artist and puppeteer working in Chicago. As a member of the award-winning puppetry collective Chicago Puppet Studio, KT has designed and built for production by Ma-Yi Theater, The House, Lookingglass Theater, Lifeline Theater, Walkabout Theater, Manual Cinema, and Blair Thomas & Co. She has performed at the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She earned her BFA in sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018.
Lake Simons is a Brooklyn-based director, designer, puppeteer, physical performer and a maker of things. She has collaborated with many artists creating theater productions from the ground up. She is the Managing Artistic Director of the Hip Pocket Theatre, Co-Director of Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse, and teaches puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College.
Jaerin Son is a director, set designer and puppet theater artist from Korea. Her work includes plays, movement theater and dance. Her process often involves surreal images that depict the world as it is rather representing the illusion of realism. Son has directed her own work including This is not Shakespeare, Taste of Memories and Dreadful Time in Korea. She designed scenery for the World Cyber Games Festival in China, Odyssey (directed by Youngho Gwon) in Korea and Vancouver (Ma-Yi Theater) in Chicago. She is an associate scenic and puppet designer at Chicago Puppet Studio. jaerin.yolasite.com
Myra Su is a storyteller, puppeteer, and puppet maker. Based in Chicago, Su has been an active member in the puppetry community since 2013. Her primary medium is shadow puppetry but her work also includes experimentations with bunraku, crankies, video, and taxidermy. Her work has also expanded to collaborations outside of theater, with indie bands and musicians. In addition to her independent work, she is currently a touring performer with Manual Cinema, with performances worldwide. She is also a co-curator for a quarterly puppet slam in Chicago, Nasty, Brutish & Short. In the past, she has done work for other puppetry/spectacle companies such as Redmoon and Blair Thomas & Co. Growing up in-between the United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, she is interested in using puppetry to convey stories that are culturally mobile and emotionally universal. Her work is usually driven by a simple concept or motif, which is then explored through a self-reflexive application of puppetry. Su holds a BA with honors in Theater and Anthropology from the University of Chicago. myrasu.com
Blair Thomas, Founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, has vigorously contributed to the Chicago theater scene as an actor, director, puppeteer, designer, and teacher for three decades, first as co-founder and Artistic Director of Redmoon Theater from 1989-1998, next with his own company, Blair Thomas & Co., launched in 2002, followed by the formation of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in 2014. All this has contributed to his status as “Chicago’s unofficial puppeteer-general” (TimeOut Chicago). Recent projects include creating puppets for Lookingglass Theatre’s world premieres of The Steadfast Tin Soldier and Mr. and Mrs. Pennyworth and the dragon for Lyric Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. He has twice earned the highest international honor for creators of original work in the medium, the UNIMA Excellence in Puppetry Award (2001, 2004), and received the 2015 Leadership Award from Puppeteers of
America for starting the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. Other awards include the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award (2001, 2004), the After Dark Award (2002), and a number of Joseph Jefferson Citations. He is currently on faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has taught at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, and held the first-ever Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence position at the University of Maryland. He is the current President of the UNIMA-USA Board of Directors, representing the American chapter of the oldest international theater arts organization in the world. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Henson Foundation, and represents North America as a delegate on the eight-member International Festivals Commission of UNIMA (Union International de la Marionette Association).