Events

About the festival

 
The Puppy Tears Festival of Experimental Puppetry is a celebration of puppetry as an open rift between the tangible world and the imagination. This evening of original works exemplifies one of Chicago’s proudest fringe traditions, as a means to tell the stories of the macabre, the joyous, and the downright heartbreaking. Performances include works from young and promising puppeteers such as Meredith Miller, Julia Miller (no relation), Jason Adams, Crash Pad, New Skin, and The Rough House’s premier of their fish-puppet-rock-opera, “Icthyoddyssey” (Ick-thee-oddyssey). Reservations can be made by emailing at reservations@roughhousetheater.com or by calling the Rough House Box Office at 408-646-9299. More information can be found at Roughhousetheater.com.
 
 

About the Contributing Artists

 
The Rough House is a fringey little theater space located in Logan Square. In it’s brief life-span, The Rough House has fostered myriad artists and companies by providing rehearsal space and other vital resources to the performance community. It was founded by members Shelley Geiszler, Mike Oleon, and Max Wirt who have made regular contributions to the Building Stage, Redmoon Theater, Oracle Theater, Blaire Thomas and Co. and have been active supporters of the Chicago poetry and burlesque scenes.
 
Jason Adams has been a puppy tear in Chicago for the past five years and has worked with the Incurable Theatre, Filament Theatre Ensemble and regularly with the Girlie Q Variety Hour. His solo pieces have been seen at the Jim Henson Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, The Great Small Works festival in New York, and the Around the Coyote Festival here is Chicago. He is currently studying to be an English teacher and has been married for almost a year.
 
Julia Miller is a Pilsen based interdisciplinary performance artist specializing in movement and image based story telling. She received her BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University in 2008, and studied mask, clown, acrobatics, and Commedia dell'Arte at Accademia dell’Arte (Arezzo, Italy) in 2007. Her training has focused on developing work through physical exploration, ensemble improvisation, and object based performance, which has turned out to be a very interesting transition into puppetry.
 
Meredith Miller is a Chicago-based designer and performer of original object-based theatrical works.  Her recent work includes "The Abduction", originally created for "The World is Flat! A Weekend of Toy Theater" at Chicago's Links Hall, where she shared the bill with Great Small Works. In addition to her performance work, Meredith is one of the Midwest's leading puppet and mask designers whose skills are widely utilized in regional theater.  Her creations have recently been featured in productions at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Goodman Theater, Court Theater at the University of Chicago, Victory Gardens Theater, and in the productions of Blair Thomas and Co.

Andrew Marchetti and Josh Zagoren, the artistic director of HoBo Junction Theatre, are co-creators of the puppet short series  'Crash Pad'. Silly, adult, and ultimately unpredictable--the idea revolves around puppets living in the city in desperate need of a human roommate and the ultimate craziness that ensues. Crash Pad is a work in progress that is gaining notoriety here in Chicago. They have worked with the American Library association, various theatre troops including HoBo Junction, and, most recently, The Chicago Fringe Theatre to support their transition to Chicago.