*Free* NBS Work-in-Progress Workshop Day!
Test out performance works-in-progress ahead of upcoming puppet slams. Free for all!
Puppets-in-Progress
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
House of the Exquisite Corpse IV: Superstition
House of the Exquisite Corpse returns with an all-new program of immersive acts of puppet horror that are guaranteed to shock, scare, astonish and delight this Halloween season.
Don’t step on a crack on the way in, because six teams of multidisciplinary puppet artists have joined to create six different puppet horror experiences, each built around a different SUPERSTITION, and you don’t want to miss them!
Rough House Halloween Party!
Celebrate Halloween, Rough House style! Spooky cocktails, music, special puppet appearances, and crafty fun, all exclusively inside 2024’s House of the Exquisite Corpse: Superstitions. Support and celebrate puppetry with us! 21+. Costume welcome!
House of the Exquisite Corpse IV: Superstition
House of the Exquisite Corpse returns with an all-new program of immersive acts of puppet horror that are guaranteed to shock, scare, astonish and delight this Halloween season.
Don’t step on a crack on the way in, because six teams of multidisciplinary puppet artists have joined to create six different puppet horror experiences, each built around a different SUPERSTITION, and you don’t want to miss them!
House of the Exquisite Corpse IV: Superstition
House of the Exquisite Corpse returns with an all-new program of immersive acts of puppet horror that are guaranteed to shock, scare, astonish and delight this Halloween season.
Don’t step on a crack on the way in, because six teams of multidisciplinary puppet artists have joined to create six different puppet horror experiences, each built around a different SUPERSTITION, and you don’t want to miss them!
House of the Exquisite Corpse IV: Superstition
House of the Exquisite Corpse returns with an all-new program of immersive acts of puppet horror that are guaranteed to shock, scare, astonish and delight this Halloween season.
Don’t step on a crack on the way in, because six teams of multidisciplinary puppet artists have joined to create six different puppet horror experiences, each built around a different SUPERSTITION, and you don’t want to miss them!
Puppets-in-Progress
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
Nasty, Brutish & Short: A Puppet Cabaret
Nasty, Brutish & Short is a late night cabaret packed with contemporary short-form puppet and object based theater. Providing a low-risk environment for artists to perform new and experimental work, this puppet slam fosters an artistic exchange between puppet artists of different generations and mediums.
This performance is for adult audiences.
Found Object Puppetry Workshop
Anything can be a puppet! Learn the fundamentals of puppetry and create your very own short performance piece using found objects. This workshop, led by Claire Saxe, will cover the basics of puppet manipulation, and give you the tools to bring to life the extraordinary stories hidden within common objects.
Out With It
A new work of dance-object-theater by Rough House Co-Artistic Director Claire Saxe, Within Without tells a wild and lyrical tale about holding things in and letting things go. Order and chaos come head to head, and a new balance must be found. Interweaving mime, found-object puppetry, and visual poetry, Within Without unfolds in playfulness and poignancy. Suitable for adult and youth audiences.
Puppets-in-Progress in the Park!
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
A Workshop Performance of The Life Uncanny: A Puppet Séance
The Life Uncanny invites you to a real-life confluence of the curious, where the unseen becomes seen, and dreams and stories find a fleeting, tangible home. Join us for a night of wonder, inquiry, and the thrill of the inexplicable.
A Workshop Performance of The Life Uncanny: A Puppet Séance
The Life Uncanny invites you to a real-life confluence of the curious, where the unseen becomes seen, and dreams and stories find a fleeting, tangible home. Join us for a night of wonder, inquiry, and the thrill of the inexplicable.
The Life Uncanny: A Puppet Séance
The Life Uncanny invites you to a real-life confluence of the curious, where the unseen becomes seen, and dreams and stories find a fleeting, tangible home. Join us for a night of wonder, inquiry, and the thrill of the inexplicable.
Build a Puppet Picture Book, Your Very Own Crankie!
Crankie is a form of puppet storytelling told through a mechanical box and an illustrated scroll crank, creating an animated picture book! In this workshop, you'll build your very own crankie out of cardboard and make shadow puppets to accompany it. You will also learn pointers on scroll composition and layout to make the most out of the unique storytelling opportunities that the crankie offers.
Puppets-in-Progress
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
Nasty, Brutish & Short
Watch artists perform live on stage in-person or virtually. Rough House and Links Hall are pulling out all the stops to create a multi-camera puppet variety show. Combining the polish of network variety show and the rough magic of an experimental cabaret, we welcome you to the new abnormal!
Learn to Build Reed Puppets with Grace Needlman
Learn to build giant reed puppets in this hands-on workshop offered live in person in Chicago. All material included with enrollment.
Puppets-in-Progress
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
The Joy of Puppet Mechanisms LIVE
Join Rough House Co-Artistic Director Mike Oleon to learn how to make a mechanized puppet! We’ll equip you with a prefab kit of puppet parts and teach you the secrets of building a puppet incorporating several basic mechanisms, including moving mouth, head, and limbs.
Nasty, Brutish & Short
Nasty, Brutish & Short is a late-night puppet cabaret happening on both Friday and Saturday night (Jan 26 & 27). Join for wild, innovative, and exceptional puppetry from local legends and out-of-town heros.
Nasty, Brutish & Short
Nasty, Brutish & Short is a late-night puppet cabaret happening on both Friday and Saturday night (Jan 26 & 27). Join for wild, innovative, and exceptional puppetry from local legends and out-of-town heros.
Puppets in Progress (PiPs)
PIPs is a FREE informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
Stay after from 5-9pm for a puppetry exhibit called Potential Energy! Celebrate material and formal invention, trace networks of collaboration, and discover some of the exciting questions and possibilities that are animating puppet art today.
Puppets in Progress (PiPs)
PIPs is a FREE informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
Are you new to puppetry and want a low stakes way to test the waters? Are you an old hand with a new project? Are you a dancer, comics artist, performance poet, teacher, lifeguard, engineer just curious about what puppetry looks like today?
Everyone is welcome! Bring a project, no matter how rough, or just come for the conversation.
House of the Exquisite Corpse
Rough House Theater's annual Halloween seasonal haunt, House of the Exquisite Corpse III, rises from the dead for its third reign of puppet theater terror.
This year's peep show/puppet theater anthology features 6 news acts inspired by the book “Our Homes and How to Keep Them Healthy,” published in 1883 by Robert Brudenell Carter.
Do you dare step into the shadows?
Nasty, Brutish & Short: A Puppet Cabaret, Sept 2023
Watch artists perform live on stage in-person or virtually. Rough House and Links Hall are pulling out all the stops to create a multi-camera puppet variety show. Combining the polish of network variety show and the rough magic of an experimental cabaret, we welcome you to the new abnormal!
Puppets in Progress (PiPs)
PIPs is a FREE informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks
!Are you new to puppetry and want a low stakes way to test the waters? Are you an old hand with a new project? Are you a dancer, comics artist, performance poet, teacher, lifeguard, engineer just curious about what puppetry looks like today?
Everyone is welcome! Bring a project, no matter how rough, or just come for the conversation.
We Missed the Train and Had to Wait
We Missed the Train and Had to Wait playfully re-envisions Anton Chekhov’s 1904 play The Cherry Orchard in a palette of clown, mime and found-object puppets. An exploration of property, progress and the places we call our own, We Missed the Train invites audiences to join in the party - before it’s too late.
Puppets In Progress
PIPs is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other Chicago puppet-folks!