The Festival, returning to Chicago January 19-29, 2017, features over 90 performances by 20 different companies from around the world – Norway, Iran, Italy, Canada, South Korea, and, of course, your favorite artists from Chicago! The lineup includes renowned productions by: Hamid Rahmanian, Silencio Blanco,Michael Montenegro, Plexus Polaire, Teatro dei Piedi, Théâtre Puzzle, and Portmanteau. 

Tickets on sale now!

Eager to learn more? Talented Columbia College student Cyrus Stowe spent the day with Blair Thomas at his studio barn where he got an exclusive behind–the-scenes look at Blair’s process and how he creates the magic behind his puppets.

Blair Thomas & Co is thrilled to present Magali Chouinard, one our international artists from Montreal to perform a special preview performance for the Living Room Tours before returning for the full Festival in January. Her performance, The White Woman is a visual narrative, filled with arresting images and performed without words. Enjoy her performance at each stop and be able to discuss the performance with the artist.

Plus, Blair Thomas will be performing a toy theatre staging of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies. This delightfully dark abecedarian tale told in rhyming couplets will be performed exclusively this season at the Living Room Tour.

Performances by Magali Chouinard and Blair Thomas & Co.

2016 LIVING ROOM TOUR HOSTS

November 11: Dorothy Zalewski, Dan Engh, and Rick Stoneham, Logan Square

November 12: Susan and Phil Hague, Liz Aviles and Colleen Sims. Bronzeville

November 13: Sidney Nagel, Young-Kee Kim and Michelle McClennan, Kenwood

2016 LIVING ROOM TOUR COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Barbara Abel | Liz Aviles | Susan Hague | Justine Jentes | Michelle McClennan | Jenny Shanks | Eva Silverman | Colleen Sims | Asheley Smith

Blair Thomas & Co. presents the 2015 Living Room Tour, November 4 – 11, 2015. Each stop on the tour features a mini puppet theater festival, including an excerpt of Blair Thomas & Company’s Moby Dick along with performances by Mike Oleon and Adventure Sandwich. Enjoy dinner, drinks, and the opportunity to discuss the work with the artists.

To purchase tickets, select the desired performance date. The exact location of each event will be revealed on ticket purchase.

Buy Tickets!

Performances by Blair Thomas & Co., Mike Oleon, and Adventure Sandwich.

2015 LIVING ROOM TOUR HOSTS

2015 LIVING ROOM TOUR COMMITTEE MEMBERS

While contemplating the role of puppetry in today’s society, Scott T. Cummings gives his account of the first ever Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival:

The shows in Chicago ranged from the kind of traditional, family-friendly work often seen at schools, libraries and public fairs to edgy, experimental performances more common to galleries, lofts and tiny black-box theatres. Veteran Dave Herzog presented cute, colorful, well-crafted trick marionettes that can juggle, blow up a balloon, swing on a trapeze, or instantly transform from a magician into a fairy. His circus figures contrasted with the mesmerizing Le Petit Cirque of Laurent Bigot from France, who uses a table-top toy circus reminiscent of Alexander Calder, rigged with 16 tiny microphones to perform a concert of odd, cleverly generated sounds. New York’s Chinese Theatre Works (inspired by the pioneering work of Kansas-born Pauline Benton, who brought Chinese shadow puppetry to the West in the 1920s) performed a traditional Chinese shadow-puppet play in the halls of the Field Museum. Contrast this with the innovative shadow theatre of Chicago’s own Manual Cinema or Canadian artist-illustrator Daniel Barrow, both of whom use multiple overhead projectors (in very different ways) to create manual animation in real time.

The variety of work programmed by Thomas points to a question that is fascinating artists, audiences, and academics: What constitutes a puppet, exactly? What, in other words, is its nature and essence? How does it help us to explore and understand the larger world of what cultural anthropologist and folklorist Frank Proschan dubbed “performing objects”—puppets, masks, ritual and fetish objects, and other material things endowed with agency through display, manipulation, storytelling, or performance?

 

Click HERE to view the full article on the American Theatre website.

January marks the return of the all-ages hit show The Selfish Giant, a musical spectacle created for CCT in 2008 by two Chicago theater icons – master puppeteer Blair Thomas and singer-songwriter Michael Smith– based on Oscar Wilde’s classic story about a grumpy giant who forbids children from playing in his garden.

After the children are locked out, the trees and flowers refuse to grow and the garden plunges into an eternal winter. Then one morning, the children sneak back into the garden, bringing with them the joyous rebirth of spring. Featuring original puppets and music, The Selfish Giant is enormously imaginative, gigantically whimsical, and is sure to thrill children and giants of all ages.

Blair Thomas & Co. presents the 2014 Living Room Tour, November 4 – 9, 2014, featuring a selection of artists performing at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. This annual fundraiser invites audiences into private homes for food, drink, and conversation—topped off by a set of intimate performances by Chicago’s best puppet theater artists.

Located in six distinctive Chicago homes, each stop on the tour includes food, drink, performances, and the opportunity to discuss the work with the artists. To purchase tickets, select the desired performance date. The exact location of each event will be revealed on ticket purchase.

Buy Tickets!

Performances by Blair Thomas & Co., Manual Cinema, and Michael Montenegro.

2014 LIVING ROOM TOUR HOSTS

2014 LIVING ROOM TOUR COMMITTEE MEMBERS

“Chicago’s unofficial Puppeteer General, Blair Thomas, is spearheading a grand-scale new festival aiming to make the city a center for puppet arts. The inaugural Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is set for January 16–25, 2015, with major institutions from the Art Institute to the Second City on board to present events.”

Read the full article here.

Robert W. Harwood, author of  the book “I Went Down To St. James Infirmary” and creator of the blog by the same title interviews Blair Thomas:

“St. James Infirmary” has a great untold story lurking in between its few short verses. . . . There is an intimate relationship between puppetry and death, and I see this song as a form of mourning or grief at the loss of a loved one.  Continue to article.

Listen to this great piece produced about the upcoming Puppets Take Strathmore! festival. Blair talks about the experience of puppets from the audience’s perspective.

Here’s the link.