William PK Carter's Beautiful Without Consequence

William PK Carter

Mayo Street Arts
10 Mayo Street
Portland, ME
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/mayostreetarts/2102413/r/jim

Beautiful Without Consequence is a fantastical puppet performance about removing the prey mentality from the Queer Black identity and founding community in its absence. Mimicking the life cycle of a butterfly, this show follows the main character as they change through many physical forms in search of an existence outside of the grasp of their oppressors- liberating their body and mind alike. Exploring themes of yearning, belonging, internalized homophobia/racism, and self-image, Beautiful Without Consequence forges an intimate connection between the viewer and the material and invites all to release the harmful expectations that they uphold within themselves and become more engaged within their own communities.

June 6, 2026
7:00 PM

$20 GA / $30 Preferred Seating

Echo - FILM

Zero Untitled Productions

Viewable on Youtube. https://youtu.be/tB71rlrAcAU?si=z5XgCJAd7Zkg8we1
Online
Kingsville, TX
www.zerountitled.com

Zero Untitled’s official submission to the “2026 Water, TX Film Festival” is a bleak work called “Echo”, written by Katherine Orozco-Verderber, conceived and directed by Michael Verderber, with the Director of Photography, Julio Martinez. All entrants to the festival should have a heavy focus on “water” as a topic in the film submission. ZU is going the ironic route.

Utilizing the bunraku puppeteering skills of Dakota West, Martinez, and Verderber, the short film focuses on a crane searching his habitat for something edible in the water. Only problem – there is no water left. The film is a scathing indictment on water issues arising in south Texas, as well as mankind’s negative effect on animal habitats.

March 31 - June 1, 2026
Available for viewing on Youtube: https://youtu.be/tB71rlrAcAU?si=z5XgCJAd7Zkg8we1

FREE to View

rustbelt.

Theatre Nobody / Kevin Michael Wesson

Redtwist Theatre
1044 W. Bryn Mawr Chicago
Chicago, IL
https://redtwisttheatre.thundertix.com/events/262814

Through live-feed storytelling, audience interaction, and found physical media, one urban explorer weaves an electronic fantasia from stolen artifacts of the Rust Belt, raising questions about memory, ownership, and the working-class history that's been left to rot. [Winner of BorderLight Festival 2025's "Vivid Visual Theatre Award"]
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Kevin Michael Wesson (he/they) is a proudly unrepresented puppeteer/deviser based in Chicago, originally from Tampa, FL. Credits include: Leonardo! & Christmas Carol (Emmy-winning Manual Cinema), “Where we go together” or The Flashlight Play, CAMPOUT, rustbelt. (Theatre Nobody), Dog or Cats; Augmented Body (Steppenwolf LOOKOUT), House of the Exquisite Corpse I-V (Rough House Puppet Arts), Elements of Style (The Neo-Futurists). His works have been mentioned in American Theatre Magazine, The Chicago Cultural Center, Earth First! Journal, No Proscenium, The Puppetry Journal, NPR, and various curation for/residencies with Jane Adams Hull-House Museum, Links Hall, Chicago Puppet Lab, The National Puppetry Conference, The Valdez Theater Conference, & Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. A firm believer in DIY ethos, they currently organize works-in-progress & community programming for Agitator Artist Collective, Rough House Puppet Arts, Stop Motion Plant, etc. Slam, PUPPETQUEERS Chicago, and Physical Theater Festival Chicago.

April 8 - May 13, 2026
April 8th, 7pm CT Doors / 7:30pm CT Show
April 22nd, 7pm CT Doors / 7:30pm CT Show
April 29th, 7pm CT Doors / 7:30pm CT Show
May 6th, 7pm CT Doors / 7:30pm CT Show
May 13th, 7pm CT Doors / 7:30pm CT Show

Sliding scale $10-35 adv. tix, free/pwyc at the door

Its A Puppet Thing! - Hunter College Puppet Slam

Danilo Tamayo

Hunter College, North Building 543. The usher will pick up the audience at the Hunter West Lobby.
695 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065
Upper East Side, NY
https://forms.gle/be4EfgEgTR3o6jxm9

It's a Puppet Thing is a puppet slam dedicated to the development of new puppetry works and Student artists. We bring together experimental and non- traditional puppeteers to share works in progress with live audiences — creating space for growth, honest feedback, and artistic risk-taking. We believe puppets are uniquely powerful: they can speak truths, carry protests, and move people in ways that no other art form can. From bunraku to marionettes to found objects, we challenge what a puppet is and what it can do!

May 1, 2026
May 1st - 6:30pm- 8:00pm

Free - RSVP

Animal Farm, a fairy story

Dreamland Puppet Troupe

Photo by: Naia Venturi

Dreamland Theater
26 N. Washinbgton St.
Ypsilanti, MI
https://our.show/animalfarm

Dreamland Theater presents Animal Farm, a fairy story, based on the novel by George Orwell, adapted for puppetry by Naia Venturi and the Dreamland Puppet Troupe. Original Marionettes, Rod, Hand, and Shadow Puppets are used in this telling of George Orwell’s classic dystopian tail.

May 1 - 16, 2026
Friday, May 1st, 7pm
Saturday,  May 9th, 7pm
Saturday,  May 16th, 7pm

Front row $18, general admission $15

King Friday's Dungeon Puppet Slam

Various Artists

Mayo Street Arts
10 Mayo Street
Portland, ME
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/mayostreetarts/2095984/r/jim

King Friday’s Dungeon Puppet Slam provides local emerging to present works-in-progress to a receptive audience. Established puppeteers from away enjoy engaging with our local community and often return with full-length performances.

May 22 - 23, 2026
7:00PM

$20 GA / $30 Preferred Seating

Workshop: Everything is Puppets, an Intro to Puppetry & Found Object

Rough House Puppet Arts

Online (Zoom)
Zoom Link to be emailed week of class.
Chicago, IL
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/roughhousetheaterco/2153870

Everything is Puppets! An Intro to Puppetry & Found Object
Led by: Felix
Where: Online (Zoom)
When: Sunday, May. 31 @ 6pm - 8pm CT, optional Q&A to follow 8pm - 9pm CT
EVERYTHING IS PUPPETS! Your wallet? PUPPET. Coffee cup? PUPPET? Computer mouse? DEFINITELY A PUPPET. If you've ever wondered how puppeteers come up with their wildest ideas or ever wanted to learn the foundational skills to animate a puppet, this is the workshop for you. Using objects found in your home we will explore what a puppet can be and how you bring it to LIFE.
This a workshop for those with no experience in puppetry, movement artists looking for a fresh perspective, folks who want to recapture their sense of play, and everyone in between!
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A multi-hyphenate creator in Chicago. Felix’s work balances innocence and horror to create characters and narratives that feel both human and otherworldly. Sharing their experiences of being brown in America, mental illness, trans queerness, and grief keeps their work unique and relatable.

May 31, 2026
May. 31 @ 6pm - 8pm CT, optional Q&A to follow 8pm - 9pm CT

Sliding scale $0-70 ($30 suggested, scholarships available)

Symphonie Fantastique * - Film

Basil Twist

Photo by: Richard Termine

HERE - URHERE, online
here.org/shows/symphonie-fantastique-urhere/

Twenty years ago in 1998, Basil Twist debuted his boundary-breaking response to Berlioz’s 1830 “Symphonie Fantastique” to universal acclaim. In this revival, accompanied live by virtuosic pianist, Christopher O’Riley, the exquisite Liszt transcription, Symphonie floats and swirls in a 1,000-gallon water tank neatly disguised as a puppet stage. For the many who never saw it, and for those who relish seeing it again and again, the return of this tour de force to HERE is the event of the season. Watch on-demand on URHERE.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Production Grant (1998) and Workshop Grant (1996)

Available on-demand on URHERE

9000 Paper Balloons * - Film

Maiko Kikuchi & Spencer Lott

Photo by: Richard Termine

HERE - URHERE, online
here.org/shows/9000-paper-balloons-urhere/

Inspired by the stranger-than-fiction secret weapons that floated over America during World War II, 9000 Paper Balloons is a poetic and eerie performance that examines distance – the distance between two friends, between two enemies, two cultures and two generations. Japanese artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott blend puppetry, animation and mask as they weave their own family histories into a surreal and visually stunning collage that speaks to the past and the future. 9000 Paper Balloons is available on demand on URHERE, a one-of-a-kind, rigorously curated virtual platform for outdoor and digital premieres. URHERE aims to occupy an important part of the art ecosystem which nurtures experimentation, sparks dialogue, and creates engagement with the local community.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Production Grant (2020) and Workshop Grant (2019)

Available on-demand on URHERE

The Fortune Teller * - Film

by Phantom Limb Company | Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko With Music by Danny Elfman

HERE - URHERE, online
https://here.org/shows/urhere/

Seven strangers’ twisted tales are brought to life in this marionette play and woven with haunting music to tell an eerily comic story of fate and fortune. On a dark night, the strangers are invited to the mansion of a deceased millionaire, and learn that their inheritances will be based not on a will, but on the readings of a fortune teller. Each soon meets a gruesome end in this production developed through HERE’s Dream Music puppetry program. The Fortune Teller played at HERE November 28 - December 4, 2010. The Fortune Teller is available on demand on URHERE, a one-of-a-kind, rigorously curated virtual platform for outdoor and digital premieres. URHERE aims to occupy an important part of the art ecosystem which nurtures experimentation, sparks dialogue, and creates engagement with the local community.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Production Grant (2006)

Available on-demand on URHERE

The Scarlet Ibis - Film

Beth Morrison Projects

HERE - URHERE, online
urhere.art/archive/ibis

The Scarlet Ibis is an opera about family, illness, and the power of the imagination to soar above what’s considered “normal.” This world premiere by composer Stefan Weisman (Darkling) and librettist David Cote (Blind Injustice) fuses singers, puppetry, and multimedia stagecraft to tell the story of a remarkable disabled boy nicknamed “Doodle,” whose older brother pushes him to be like other kids. Set in rural North Carolina a century ago, The Scarlet Ibis contrasts notions of physical wholeness with mystical otherness The narrative (inspired by the short story by James Hurst) draws on elements of Southern Gothic, boy’s adventure, and domestic tragedy. Mallory Catlett directs; Steven Osgood (Dead Man Walking, Metropolitan Opera) conducts the American Modern Ensemble. For audiences 10 and up. The Scarlet Ibis was a part of the 2015 PROTOTYPE Festival, co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects

Available on-demand on URHERE

Spirited Away (Live on Stage) - Film

Based on the animated feature film by Hayao Miyazaki

On Demand
gkids.com/films/spirited-away-live-on-stage/#watch-now

Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award®-winning animated feature film comes to life in this first-ever stage adaptation, full of dazzling sets, captivating musical numbers, and wondrous puppets of beloved characters. Adapted and directed by Tony Award®-winner John Caird (Les Misérables), two unique casts and performances were filmed during the show’s acclaimed 2022 run at Tokyo’s historic Imperial Theatre, featuring Kanna Hashimoto and Mone Kamishiraishi as Chihiro.

Send for the Million Men * - Film

Joseph Silovsky

HERE - URHERE, online
urhere.art/archive/sftmm

The “crime of the century” of the 1920s jolts to life in modern-day New York City in Joseph Silovsky’s micro-history multimedia tale, Send for the Million Men. With a compelling command of animatronics, robotics, puppetry, and handmade projectors, Silovsky examines the controversial executions of notorious anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Their bleak fates intertwine with Silovsky’s own micro-tragic biography in a humorous and captivating history-rethink.

* Recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Production Grant (2010) and Workshop Grant (2009)

Available on-demand on URHERE