The 8th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival Returns January 21-February 1, 2026

Chi, IL Live Shows On Our Radar:

The 8th 

Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival 

Here at ChiIL Live Shows and ChiIL Mama we've been covering Chicago's vibrant puppet scene since 2008. And we've been extensively covering The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival since its inception eight years ago. We are so fortunate here in Chicago, to host puppeteers from around the globe for 12 days of spectacular shows, intimate works and special events all over the city, January 21-February 1, 2026. 

I love that modern puppetry has elevated from an often ignored, fringe element of theatre, begging for coverage, to a wildly popular genre, selling out shows at a record pace. Sadly, the bigger The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival has grown, the harder it's become to get press tickets to cover all the shows. Despite applying to review all 19 productions, I was only given tickets to 7, and all my top choices were sold out and/or closed to press. So I'll be featuring the heck out of the 7 I am able to see. Check back January 21-February 1 like we vote in Chicago, early and often. I'll be posting lots of social media updates and reviews as the fest ramp up. **** I've noted those I'm covering with 4 asterisks

Two of the ones I'd hoped to see are Chicago locals, so I do have hope they'll all do a remount I can catch in the near future. I was shut out of covering Manual Cinema's The 4th Witch, as well as Rhynoceron by local puppeteer and Jeff Award-winning puppet designer KT Shivak. I'm also very much hoping for a remount of The Left Hand of Darkness, in from New York.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO: Many of the fest's offerings are geared toward adults, so be sure to check out age recommendations below and on the puppet fest's site.

MULTI CULTI: WE'RE BETTER TOGETHER Despite the USA's current administration's aversion to DEI and multiculturalism, we're thrilled that puppet artists from England, France, Norway, Denmark, India, Scotland, South Korea and Spain, are slated for the fest. The U.S. and Chicago cool kids are also well represented and we love the international friendships and collaborations the fest fosters. Fingers crossed all the performers and their puppets/sets/costumes safely make it through customs and enjoy their weeks in Chicago unmolested by ICE and Border Patrol!

NEED AN EXCUSE TO LEAVE THE COUCH? Bundle up and check out the 8th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, showcasing different forms of traditional and contemporary puppet styles, from bunraku-style to shadow puppetry, marionettes to object-based works. 

Tickets to more than 100 shows, events and interactive workshops are on sale at chicagopuppetfest.org. Don’t wait. Despite Chicago’s cold winters, tickets to the Chicago Puppet Festival are always the hottest ticket in town come January. In fact, some shows are already sold out.

Highlights I'm covering include:

****Fan favorite Wakka Wakka, featuring artists from Norway and New York, opens this year’s festival with Dead as a Dodo, a mesmerizing musical odyssey about survival, transformation, and the power of true friendship. Infused with puppetry, humor, and stunningly innovative visual effects, Dead as a Dodo, commissioned by the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, takes audiences deep into the underworld, where two skeleton friends, a Dodo and a boy, may be shattering the established order of the dead. This production is returning after a prior stint at the fest in 2024. Still, I'll be catching this one again. Highly recommended. Don't miss this! Check out my past Dead as a Dodo review HERE: https://www.chiilmama.com/2024/01/world-premiere-of-wakka-wakkas.html 

Dead as a Dodo
Wakka Wakka (Norway/U.S.)
Studebaker Theater, Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave., downtown Chicago
January 21-25

Five shows: Wednesday, January 21 at 7 p.m.; Friday, January 23 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, January 24 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, January 25 at 2 p.m.

80 minutes
8 and up
Tickets: $40-$48

wakkawakka.org.dead-as-a-dodo

****In a late addition to the line-up, festival founder and artistic director Blair Thomas returns to the stage with his original new work Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature?, a large-scale, four-panel crankie offering insight into the rascally nature of a dog and his owner. I've enjoyed interviewing Blair Thomas several times over the years and rolling video on another of his infamous crankies for ChiIL Live Shows and ChiIL Mama. Check out those blasts from the past HERE: 

Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies Puppet Show--Blair Thomas & Co

ChiIL Mama Chats with Puppeteers Blair Thomas and Magali Chouinard

ChiIL Mama's Houdini Box Interview With Blair Thomas and Hannah Kohl

Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature?
Blair Thomas (Chicago/U.S.)
Chopin Theater, 1543 W. Division St., Wicker Park
January 25-26

Four shows: Sunday, January 25 at 8 p.m.; Monday, January 26 at 2 p.m.,
5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

45 minutes
All Ages
Tickets $35-$45

****New York’s Alva Puppet Theatre presents The Harlem Doll Palace, based on the true story of Lenon Holder Hoyt, better known as Aunt Len, a beloved public school art teacher for 40 years who created a doll museum in her Harlem brownstone. Join the dolls from Aunt Len’s “dollection” as they recreate their journeys to their museum.

The Harlem Doll Palace
Alva Puppet Theatre (New York City/U.S.)
Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts, East Theater, UChicago, 915 E. 60th St., Hyde Park

January 22-24

Five shows: Thursday, January 22 at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Friday, January 23 at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, January 24 at 6 p.m.

80 minutes
10 and up
Tickets: $35-$43
alvapuppettheater.com/theharlemdollpalace

ChiIL Mama's Chi, IL Picks List: a family friendly show & a 2 for 1 discount code too!

****Family audiences will love Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile by England’s Roald Dahl Story Company. In this mischievous musical, based on Dahl’s snappy book with toe-tapping tunes, the titular star weaves through the jungle with his tummy rumbling, while other jungle creatures foil his secret plans to stop this greedy brute. Audiences will go from the jungle into outer space and back again, just in time for a wild dance party!

Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile
Roald Dahl Story Company (England)
Studebaker Theater, Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave., downtown Chicago
January 29-February 1

Seven shows: Thursday, January 29 at 1 p.m.; Friday, January 30 at 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.; Saturday, January 31 at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.; Sunday, February 1 at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
(Note: Post-festival performances continue through February 21)

55 minutes
All ages
Tickets: $40-48, with discounted tickets available for school groups
enormouscrocodilemusical.com

****India’s Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust makes their Chicago debut with About Ram, an experimental theatrical piece using excerpts from the Bhavbhuti's “Ramayana,” an epic tale and guide for Hindu principles like dharma, told through animation, digitally projected dance, masks and puppets.

About Ram
Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust (India)
Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave., downtown Chicago
January 29-31

Four shows: Thursday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, January 30 at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.; Saturday, January 31 at 12 p.m.

60 minutes
5 and up
Tickets: $15-$35
katkatha.org

****Audiences of all ages will delight in the magic of sequined Portland puppet raconteur Laura Heit’s The Matchbox Shows, teeny tiny puppet shows performed inside matchboxes, “the smallest, greatest, bravest, show in the world.” In addition to seeing Heit perform live, catch Laura Heit: Short Films, a showcase of her short films featuring drawing, stop-motion and puppetry, presented in the fest’s first-ever collaboration with Chicago’s Music Box Theatre.

The Matchbox Shows
Laura Heit (Portland/U.S.) 
Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave., Roscoe Village/Avondale
January 22-25

Seven shows: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, January 22- 24 at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.; Sunday, January 25 at 8 p.m.

50 minutes
13 and up
Tickets: $25-33

lauraheit.com/the-matchbox-shows 

****From Seoul, South Korea comes Oil Pressure Vibrator created by and featuring Geumhyung Jeong, an artist who’s interested in the human body, the objects that surround it, with a particularly strange fascination with the excavator. Witness as Jeong plunges a big bucket into preconceptions about sexuality, technology and the body. For adult audiences only.

Oil Pressure Vibrator
Geumhyung Jeong (South Korea)
Chopin Theatre Mainstage, 1543 W. Division St., Wicker Park
January 30-31

Two shows: Friday, January 30 at 9 p.m. and Saturday, January 31 at 2 p.m.

60 minutes
18 and up
Tickets: $40-$48
geumhyungjeong.com

Puppets for FREE

If the hefty ticket prices are out of your reach this year, you can still catch both neighborhood tours for FREE, as well as the exhibits on the fourth floor of the Fine Arts Building and the Ellen Van Volkenburg Symposium puppet panels in person or streaming.

Giant Puppet Lanterns

In addition to the incredible pageant of international and U.S. puppetry artists, The Puppet Hub is back and open throughout the festival on the fourth floor of the Fine Arts Building. It’s the perfect place to relax between shows, meet up with friends, make new ones, and learn more about contemporary puppetry. Attractions include The Spoke & Bird Pop-Up Cafe, serving coffee, tea, winter soups and baked treats, the Pop-Up Puppet Shop, and two free exhibits: Two Ways Down, featuring festival artist Laura Heit’s exquisite hand-drawn animation and film inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” and a room full of giant lantern puppets created in the pre-festival workshop with Andrew Kim of Thingamugig.

Puppetry enthusiasts are also welcome to check out the free Ellen Van Volkenburg Symposium, the Catapult Artist Intensive, professional education workshops with visiting puppet artists, and more.

Now presented annually, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the largest event of its kind in North America. Last year’s festival attracted a record audience – more than 22,000 fans of puppetry, ranging from Chicago residents to international guests who choose Chicago as their travel destination in the middle of January to enjoy world-class puppet productions from here and abroad. 

Visit chicagopuppetfest.org for tickets and information about the 8th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and sign up for the festival’s e-news. Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram or Vimeo, hashtag #ChiPuppetFest. 

Festival funders

Supporters of the 8th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival include the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Art Legacy Institute, Cheryl Lynn Bruce and Kerry James Marshall, The Chicago Community Trust, Chicago Park District Night Out in the Parks Program, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Ferdi Foundation/Julie Moller, Illinois Arts Council, Jentes Family Foundation/ Justine Jentes and Dan Kuruna, Paul Levy and Mia Park, The Reva & David Logan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Manaaki Foundation, Marshall Frankel Foundation, Kristy and Brandon Moran, Pritzker Foundation, and Deb and Andy Wolkstein.

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, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Puerto Rico, Poland, Scotland 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 2025 festival attracted a record 22,000+ audience members to 29 different 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 founded the Little Theater of Chicago in the Fine Arts Building, she needed a name for the actors manipulating marionettes in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So she credited them in the 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 and Executive Director Sandy Smith Gerding, with Cameron Heinze and La Mar Brown, Business Managers; Taylor Bibat, Festival Coordinator and Director of Education; Deirdre Huckabay, Grants & Giving Manager; Jess Mott Wickstrom, Web + Visual Communication Designer; Margaret Nelson and Frank Rose, Festival Production Managers; Zachary Sun, Studio Coordinator; Tom Lee, Co-Director, Chicago Puppet Lab and Studio; Grace Needlman, Co-Director Chicago Puppet Lab; and Caitlin McLeod, Chicago Puppet Studio Project Manager.

For more information and the full lineup, visit chicagopuppetfest.org.