{"id":6858225,"date":"2025-12-01T23:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/?post_type=app_event&#038;p=6858225"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:24:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:24:29","slug":"the-2026-chicago-international-puppet-theater-festival","status":"publish","type":"app_event","link":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/the-2026-chicago-international-puppet-theater-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2026 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Featuring companies from 10 countries, including <strong>Plexus Polaire<\/strong> and <strong>Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Massue<\/strong> from France, the festival will showcase a vibrant array of puppetry styles and celebrate the creativity and artistry of puppeteers from around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a sneak peek at the lineup below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Doll&#039;s House - une Maison de Poup\u00e9e\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ee8KfXtRXqQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/plexus-polaire-a-dolls-house\/\">Plexus Polaire &#8211; &nbsp;<em>A Doll\u2019s House<\/em><\/a><\/strong><br><strong>January 22-24, 2026 &#8211;<\/strong> <strong>DePaul\u2019s Merle Reskin Theatre&nbsp;<\/strong><br>Plunge into a world on the edge of the fantastic in <em>A Doll\u2019s House<\/em>, an eerie retelling of Henrik Ibsen\u2019s 1879 classic. Created by and starring artistic director Yngvild Aspeli, the production blends puppets, actors, music, and video projections. Life-sized puppets, dead birds, and a possessed female choir haunt the house as Nora, the heroine, confronts the collision of her reality with the web of lies she has woven. This immersive performance invites audiences to reflect on the choices that shape their own lives.<br><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/plexus-polaire-a-dolls-house\/\">Tickets<\/a><\/strong><br><em>On January 25 &amp; 31, Plexus Polaire will participate in the <a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/symposium\/\">Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"La M\u00e9ridienne (Teaser)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qQj9e18wT80?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/theatre-de-la-massue-chef-chris-sullivan-of-twilight-kitchen-la-meridienne\/\">Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Massue:&nbsp;<em>La M\u00e9ridienne<\/em><\/a><\/strong><br><strong>Jan 22 &#8211; 28, 2026 &#8211; Private Wicker Park Location<br><\/strong><em>(address shared after ticket purchase two weeks prior to event)<\/em><br>Don\u2019t miss this unique farm-to-table, family-style dinner for 12 people, paired with a five-minute puppet show performed for each guest, one at a time. The puppet play&nbsp;<strong><em>La M\u00e9ridienne<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;tells the story of the fragility of human thought in front of the passage of time. The puppet showman, invisible and tucked away in his theater, shows his solo viewer the whole life of humanity\u2014birth, life and its apprenticeships, then disappearance within the universe\u2014as if it\u2019s happening in a dream, in just five minutes.<br><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/theatre-de-la-massue-chef-chris-sullivan-of-twilight-kitchen-la-meridienne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Tickets<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\n\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/trust-me-featured-e1767650040498.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" \/>\n\t\t\t<figcaption>\n\t\t\t<p>Fornier-V.Arbelet<\/p>\n\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/plexus-polaire-trust-me-for-a-while\/\">Plexus Polaire &#8211; <em>Trust Me for a While<\/em><\/a><\/strong><br><strong>January 28-31, 2026 &#8211;<\/strong> <strong><strong>Reva &amp; David Logan Center for the Arts<\/strong><\/strong><br><strong>Plexus Polaire&#8217;s <em>Trust Me for a While<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0brings us into the curious and rather fraught relationship between a failed magician and his professional puppet collaborator. In this wild, suspenseful and entertaining horror-comedy, director Yngvild Aspeli explores her fascination with the ventriloquist dummy. A show replete with off-the-rails mischief, it plays on the traditionally tense and intimate relationship between ventriloquists and their dummies while startling the audience with contemporary questions like What is real? What is fake? And, what happens when reality flails between the two?\u00a0<strong><em>Trust Me for a While<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0brings Aspeli \u201cback to the bone, stripping off the skin, flesh and technical magic I normally rely on to build a raw story about the relationship between actor\/puppeteer and puppet.\u201d<br><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chicagopuppetfest.org\/event\/plexus-polaire-trust-me-for-a-while\/\">Tickets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the artists<\/strong><br>France\u2019s internationally acclaimed <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plexuspolaire.com\/\">Plexus Polaire<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;returns for its fifth Chicago Puppet Festival, having already wowed audiences with spectacular, sold out performances of&nbsp;<em>Dracula: Lucy\u2019s Dream<\/em>&nbsp;(2025),&nbsp;<em>Moby Dick<\/em>&nbsp;(2023),&nbsp;<em>Chambre Noire<\/em>&nbsp;(2019) and&nbsp;<em>Cendres<\/em>&nbsp;(2017). Now they\u2019re back with large-scale spectacle, human size bunraku puppets, hypnotic video projection and their signature style of imbuing the puppet with storytelling power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00c9z\u00e9quiel Garcia-Romeu, artistic director of the<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/ezequiel-garcia-romeu.com\/en\/la-meridienne\/\">Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Massue<\/a><\/strong>, is an inventor of universes, director and scenographer. He explores contemporary forms of puppetry and new forms of stage writing. His shows have been programmed at the Festival Mondial de Charleville- M\u00e9zi\u00e8res, the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre National de Nice, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre National de Chaillot, the Od\u00e9on, the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Commune, the Auditorium of the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay, the Festival in d\u2019Avignon, the Berliner Festspiele, and numerous festivals and stages around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6858588,"menu_order":0,"template":"","app_discipline":[521],"app_city_tax":[223],"app_event_type":[237],"class_list":["post-6858225","app_event","type-app_event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","app_discipline-puppetry","app_city_tax-chi","app_event_type-festival"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The 2026 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival - Villa Albertine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Featuring companies from 10 countries, including Plexus Polaire and Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Massue from France, the festival will showcase a vibrant array of puppetry styles and celebrate the creativity and artistry of puppeteers from around the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/the-2026-chicago-international-puppet-theater-festival\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 2026 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival - 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