The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival Returns

www.newcitystage.com: Each January, the (especially cold and) windy city attracts hundreds of the finest puppeteers in the world to perform in what has become the biggest festival of its kind on this continent. Events—over a hundred in twelve days—reliably sell out well in advance and scores of Chicagoans brave the dead of winter to warm themselves with theatrical magic. Any of last year’s ticketholders crammed into the sardine-packed Steppenwolf lobby, jockeying for position in one of the Chopin Theater’s waiting areas, or standing in a line that switchbacked up and down the vestibule of the Biograph might have found rumors of live theater’s death to be greatly exaggerated.