This section is full of content about the art and craft of puppetry and object theatre—performances created primarily using puppets and objects, rather than the full bodies of actors. A great introduction to the topic is our 2015 Puppetry series curated by Jean Marie Keevins.
The Latest
Video
A Conversation with Basil Twist
TORCHES: 30+ Years of Downtown Performance
Monday 12 January 2026
New York City
Podcast
Autobiographical Performance for Teaching English as a Second Language
by Ash Marinaccio, Baha Sadr, Chris Ackley, Ana Bess Moyer Bell, Eve Kerrigan, Noga Paulino
Ash Marinaccio speaks with the Creative Pathways team at the Genesis Center in Providence, RI, about how documentary theatre is used alongside drama therapy to support newly arrived immigrants and refugees in sharing their stories, building community, and learning English.
Hakawati founder Sona Tatoyan tells the story of her great-great-grandfather growing up during the Armenian genocide, her summers spent in Aleppo, and how art is an inheritance. Tune in and learn more about Hakawati and Sona’s play, AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf).
Fifty Boxes of Earth at Theater Mu was a maximalist play that combined Western and South Asian theatrical styles, choreography, and puppetry. Lianna Matt McLernon and playwright Ankita Raturi talk about the show’s collective approach and how it was created to be reproduced for any specific community.
The team at Shanty Theatre dove deep into Igbo mask and masquerade traditions to stage the largest of them all: the Ijele Masquerade. Angelea Okolo and Eseovwe Emakunu detail the research and creative process they used to bring the masquerade to Benin City, Nigeria.
Panelists reflect on why doll play was serious business for Lenon Holder Hoyte, founder of Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum, and the development of puppetry on stage.
The La MaMa Puppet Festival, which brought three weeks of puppet performances to New York City. The productions, writes Lucy Haskell, moved the material world to help us reconsider our own relationships to the worlds inside and around us.
Bringing Together Practicing Festival Artists with Scholars to Consider the Intersection of Puppetry with Other Disciplines and Ideas
Saturday 18 January to Sunday 26 January
Chicago, IL
The 2025 Ellen Van Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium series at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival explores the dramaturgical elements that distinguish puppet theatre and actively engage audiences in endowing material with life.
A Crossroads of Invigorating Arts Exchange in the Field of Puppetry
Sunday 8 September to Sunday 15 September 2024
Vermont
Join international artists and local leaders for three panels exploring festival themes through literature, traditions, history, and social change. Access Through the Arts panels create dialogue between guest artists, community figures, and the audience, offering diverse perspectives on festival topics.
In Plexus Polaire’s Moby Dick, the line between the performers and the puppets they control sometimes blurs. Lucy Haskell explores the way that the shifting animacy of humans and objects on stage disrupts the audience’s expectations of where life resides.
Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson look at MENA and SWANA puppetry traditions with guest artivist Dr. Sarah Fahmy. They talk about her production of the first recorded full play in English of Ibn Daniyal, The Shadow Spirit; the Aragoz Puppet; and, coming more into current puppetry practice by MENA folks, Fahmy's own ecofeminist puppetry practice.
Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT) is thrilled to present an interesting performance called Dark & Delicious, featuring participants from last year's Safe Havens Conference in Athens. This version of the performance took place in Nordic Black Theatre (Oslo) early March 2024.
Bringing together practicing festival artists with scholars to consider the intersection of puppetry with other disciplines and ideas.
Sunday 28 January 2024
United States
This year’s Symposium featured festival artists on four different artist panels discussing the materiality of the puppet in both theory and practice. It also featured book talks by puppet scholars of four new US publications released this year.
A Presentation of Excerpts from Chinese Theatre Works (New York) and US Karagöz Theatre Company (Washington)
Monday 30 October 2023
New York City
An evening celebrating the work of New York based international puppet theatre company Chinese Theatre Works and Washington's US Karagöz Theatre Company. Ayhan Hulagu (KTC), Kuang-Yu Fong, Stephen Kaplin (CTW) presented excerpts from their repertoires and demonstrated the puppets. The panel was joined by Prof. Marvin Carlson, editor of one of the latest Segal Center Publications: Turkish Traditional Theatre: Karagöz Puppet Plays.
Kristin Idaszak reflects on experiencing Nina Vogel’s lambe-lambe piece ConCordis at the Prague Quadrennial. This deceptively simple puppet performance aided Kristin in processing her feelings about her work in theatre while navigating chronic illness, and also reminded her of the deep connection to the universe that we all share.
Panel Discussion with Residents of Concord Park, Pennsylvania
Saturday 22 July 2023
Pennsylvania
Housing rights activist Morris Milgram developed Concord Park outside of Philadelphia as an interracial community at a time when covenants prohibiting the sale of homes to African Americans and other minority groups were routinely included in deeds. Children of the Wonderland Puppet Theatre puppeteers discussed their experience growing up in a neighborhood that intentionally sought to fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of beloved community and the role that the Wonderland Puppet Theatre played in unifying neighbors.
A Live, Virtual Conversation on Directing and Collaboration with Phelim McDermott and Frank Hentschker
Tuesday 28 March 2023
New York City
In advance of McDermott’s upcoming New York Premiere of Tao of Glass at NYU Skirball, they discussed McDermott's work and career, Improbable’s work with Open Space Technology, and McDermott’s long-term collaborations with Philip Glass.
The Ellen Van Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium brings together practicing festival artists with scholars to consider the intersection of puppetry with other disciplines and ideas. In Van Volkenburg’s honor, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival presents four discussions featuring festival artists and key topics from the works presented in the festival.
Access Through The Arts Panel Discussions Exploring the Theme of Roots and Wings
Saturday 10 September - Sunday 18 September 2022
United States
Sandglass Theater presented events from the Puppets in the Green Mountains Festival 2022 livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 10 September, Saturday 17 September, and Sunday 18 September 2022.
Part Artist Portrait, Part History Lesson, and Part Community Forum, Coffeehouse Chronicles Takes an Intimate Look at the Development of Downtown Theatre in New York City
Saturday 28 May 2022
New York City
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club presented Coffeehouse Chronicles #165: Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre livestreaming on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 28 May 2022 at 11 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 1 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 2 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
verity healey shares the journey and impact of Walk with Amal, an interactive, artistic project that centered on a large puppet refugee girl travelling through Europe.
Can a new holiday hatch humans closer to freedom? Eli Nixon's homage proposal messes with time, place, and puppets towards building inter- and intra-species solidarities.
Denise Rogers Valenzuela shares the way that learning to perform improvised crowd scenes with large, flat puppets—called naked population puppets or potato people—encourages an embodied practice that resists individualism.
In 2021, Ian McFarlane and Laura Stinson of North Barn Theatre launched into a bicycle tour that brought a puppet circus to rural communities across Nova Scotia. They discuss the creation and performance of their show, which joyously embraced troublemaking as a path to activism.
Sarah Plummer kicks off the puppet series by introducing the series contributors and exploring the way their work highlights puppetry’s capacity to form solidarities among humans and nonhumans.
