Chicago Puppet Festival Living Room Tour Brings Outdoor Puppet Shows to Avondale, Glencoe & Lake Geneva

The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival announces its Fall 2020 Living Room Tour, Thursday, October 1-Sunday, October 4, 2020.

This year, their annual fundraiser will bring the art of contemporary puppetry and unique food and drink to special outdoor spaces in Chicago, suburban Glencoe, and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Join a diverse group of arts and culture fans outdoors for a delicious meal and a private, intimate performance of cutting-edge contemporary puppetry set against an architecturally significant backdrop. Fall 2020 Living Room Tour dates and locations are:

Thursday, October 1, 5:15 p.m. An exquisite outdoor garden in a vintage Tudor private residence in north suburban Glencoe Hosted by Nina and Steve Schroeder

Friday, October 2, 5:15 p.m.
i??Rockwell on the River, 3057 N. Rockwell in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood A sleek new event space to meet, taste and celebrate on the North Branch of the Chicago River Hosted by Paul Levy and Mia Park Co-hosted by Elizabeth Basile

Saturday, October 3, 4:30 p.m. A rustic dairy barn turned puppet studio on an organic farm outside Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Hosted by Blair Thomas and Sheri Doyel Co-hosted by Jackie Zydeck and Ted Phillips

Sunday, October 4, 11:30 a.m. A dairy barn turned puppet studio on an organic farm outside Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Hosted by Blair Thomas and Sheri Doyel Co-hosted by Maureen Mizwicki, Kim Ohms and Joe Novelli

Tickets to each event are $150, including wine, beer, supper, the performance and light dessert. Benefactor tickets are $250 and add a contribution and a special goodie bag upon departure.

Purchase tickets online at chicagopuppetfest.org. Reserve early as space is limited. Proceeds benefit The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and are tax deductible.

Each event will showcase professional puppeteers performing two different shows featuring diverse puppetry styles.

Tom Lee, portrait, and Tom performing another outdoor production, Spiral Staircase.
Sounding the Resonant Path, a new work by Perry Yung, Tom Lee and special guests, draws on the spiritual connection between humans and nature. Audiences will witness an artist, seeking the unknowable, encounter the growing bamboo and tree, whose harvested material is crafted into the artistry of the flute and the puppet. Japanese kuruma ningyō style puppetry and multiple, illuminated shadow scrolls play out this wordless tale to the accompaniment of taiko drums, shamisen and shakuhachi flute. i??

I Am the Bear, a contemporary allegory on modern policing techniques; or, the consequences of "walking while Black," is by Jerrell L. Henderson, a director, puppeteer and assistant professor of performance studies at Chicago State University. Henderson recently directed Mlima's Tale with Griffin Theatre (Jeff Award Nomination for Direction and Best Play) and Thurgood with Walnut Street Theatre. His shadow play adaptation, 3 American Myths: A Riff in Shadow & Light in 3 Rhythmic Movements, was a finalist for a 2019 Jim Henson Foundation Grant. He was also a Henson Foundation sponsored participant at the 2020 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Puppetry Conference.