This year’s Hanukkah/Christmas presents to each other were tickets to the first weekend of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, which ran from Jan 17-27 2019. Neither of us had been before (this was the 3rd) and it was Jack’s first puppet festival overall.

In anticipation, Jack ordered You, Me and the Violence by Catherine Taylor. It set the stage for puppetry being more than just socks (although socks can be cool) and underscored that the ways we chose to relate to other is powerfully connected. (Much more can be said about this essay; stay tuned.)

We arrived in Chicago on Friday and stayed through the first weekend (this timing did mean we missed the opening show, Ajijaak on Turtle Island,  although we had already seen it in Philly and highly recommend it). We were able to see 6 shows altogether plus the first of two symposia and a late night cabaret by the multi talented Yael Rasooly. The shows included:

• Chambre Noire by Plexus Polaire
• Just Another Lynching by Jeghetto
• Nasty, Brutish and Short Puppet Cabaret
• Paper Cut by Yael Rasooly
• Shank’s Mare by Tom Lee and Koryu Nishikawa V
• Tedium and Other Sensations by The Neo-Futurists with Mocrep and Theater Oobleck

On the way home, I stuck a recorder between myself and Jack and started to capture some of our thoughts about our experiences. The roughness of these is therefore all my fault, just fyi.

Where next with our new-found puppet festival energy? Up to UConn next week for Living Objects: African American Puppetry Festival and Symposium.