Founder Matt Sandbank began building puppets as a middle school teacher.  With just an overhead projector and some scraps of cardboard, he put on shadow puppet performances for his students to help them master difficult lessons.  Today, he hangs his hat in Nashville, Tennessee and tours nationally, delighting audiences of all shapes and sizes, backgrounds and beliefs.

For more information, visit WildGooseChaseTheater.com.

About “Mischevious Spaceship”

About Wild Goose Chase Puppet Theatre

The Dresden puppet theater, founded in 1997, uses different types of puppets to create performances for children and adults.

“Theater is the most blissful haven for those who secretly put their childhood in the pocket and made off with it on and have to get up at her life to continue playing.” (Max Reinhardt)

For more information, visit Dresdner-Figurentheater.de.

About “Peter and the Wolf”

Grandfather Propopopov always tells Peter to close the gate so that the big bad wolf cannot come to the house. But one day he forgets. Performed to the music of Sergei Prokofiev.

Video of Mother Holle, a coproduction between Dresdner Puppetry and Piccolo Theater Cottbus.

Sombras Chinas performs Chinese shadow puppetry, wordless shows that combine music, hand movement, and various accessories to leap linguistic barriers. Thanks to the dexterity acquired from her childhood piano lessons, Valeria Guglietti developed her creations while learning her trade using such sources as Sergio Tajan and videos of Fu Manchu and Mac Rubens.

The company was founded in Villa Gesell, a coastal town in Argentina, where the company’s first presentations of Chinese shadow puppetry took place. For more information, visit SombrasChinas.com.

About “Don’t Touch My Hands”

Chinese shadow spectacular in which the worlds of silent films, puppets, comics and music meet to create a collection of funny stories that fascinate all audiences. Premiered at the International Puppet Festival, Tolosa 2005.

Grand Reading Room puppet stage

Magdeburg Puppentheater

Magdeburg Puppentheater

Magdeburg Puppentheater

Teatro dei Burattini San Carlino

2011 Nashville Puppet Festival

2011 Nashville Puppet Festival

2011 Nashville Puppet Festival

2011 Nashville Puppet Festival

Maypole in the Park

Dragon Art Studio

Dragon Art Studio

The Postman - Velo Theatre

The Postman - Velo Theatre

Teatro dei Burattini San Carlino

Teatro dei Burattini San Carlino

Teatro dei Burattini San Carlino

Wishing Chair Productions

Puppet Exhibit - Courtyard Gallery

Main Library Lobby

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(23 Photos)

Festival Photo Albums

• 2008 Festival Photos

• 2011 Festival Photos

This Emmy award-winning master puppeteer creates sophisticated performances and incredible, complex puppets famed around the world. Perhaps best known for his marionette work in Being John Malkovich (1999), he conjures up magic again in a performance as “China Girl” for Disney’s Oz, The Great And Powerful (2013).

Huber will perform “Suspended Animation,” which the L.A. Times praised as “a marvel of keenly observed gestures and actions that are remarkably true to life.”

For more information, visit HuberMarionettes.com.

About “Suspended Animation”

In a “cabaret” presentation distinctly adult in its sophistication and artistry, internationally acclaimed marionette artists Phillip Huber is in full view of the audience as he controls incredibly compelling characters through a series of variety vignettes revealing humor, pathos, drama and grace. Figures of cloth and wood come to life while they mimic vaudeville turns, acts styled after the finest worldwide circus tradition, instrumentalists, portraits of celebrities, and witty contemporary performers. Each marionette personality is developed through detailed, highly refined characterization, carefully choreographed interplay between puppet and puppet as was as a “tour de force” manipulation. Fantasy is imbued with a sense of reality, imagination becomes real-time animation. This is not a performance of grand spectacle, but rather employing subtle artistry to touch the innocence within us all… an entertainment that makes you “smile with your heart.”

Puppets to Go has been in existence since 1979, and is a full-time, professional puppet company. Using primarily hand and rod puppets, Puppets to Go has entertained tens of thousands of people, as well as educating them about the ancient art of puppetry.

For more information about Bob and Elise Nathanson, visit their website PuppetsToGo.com.

About “The Frog Prince”

In this enchanting, updated version of the classic fairy tale, Wanda the Witch casts a spell on the handsome prince, turning him into a frog. To break the spell, he now must be kissed by a beautiful princess. There are a few delightful surprises, too. Beautifully designed puppets and music, which will evoke a wide range of moods, enhance this production.

Yoshiya Yamamoto, of Kawasemi-Za, creates impressive and sophisticated puppets. Depending on its specific character, a puppet might be created by interweaving both a marionette and rod-type structure. Special handling skills are required in order to move naturally and freely.

The world created by Kawasemi-za is a new one that is unique and unexplored in puppetry. Puppets, lifeless in themselves, become so marvelously animated in the hands of the puppeteers, expressing various emotions and conveying meaningful messages.

For more information, visit Kawasemiza.com.

About “Silent Poems”

Without words, puppets and puppeteers create poetic worlds, which attract wide range of audience. “Silent Poems” speaks to everyone’s heart and inspires everyone’s imagination. Only puppets can create such fantastic worlds on the stage.

Yuqin Wang trained in classical Beijing opera and performed with the Puppet Art Troupe of China for more than 30 years. Zhengli Xu graduated from the Beijing Puppetry Art School and spent many years studying under the great puppet masters of China, performing as a rod puppeteer for more than 40 years. The pair, now based in the U.S., blends puppetry and music with elegance, humor and special effects. In their production “Images of China,” they present a series of vignettes based on traditional—and sometimes not so traditional—Chinese tales.

For more information about Dragon Art Studio, visit www.dragonartstudio.com.

About “Images of China”

“Images of China” is a series of Vignettes based on Chinese traditional – and sometimes not so traditional – tales.

Formed by Charlot Lemoine and Tania Castaing in Angers, France, in 1981, Vélo Theatre creates performances based on images with few or no words. Renowned for their efforts to incorporate spectators’ ideas, the puppeteers invite the audience into a relationship called Le Théâtre d’Objet or “Object Theater.” At the festival, Vélo will perform “And Then He Ate Me” and “There’s a Rabbit in the Moon.”

For more information, visit VeloTheatre.com.

About “There’s a rabbit in the moon”

One dark night far far away, Thomas Snout was born. Ever since he collects nights, capturing them with his bare hands, which is not an easy task as obscurity is black and dirty and leaves traces. It is also dangerous, as fears live in the night as fish live in the sea.

About “And Then He Ate Me”

The story is the house…
This small, fragile, protective house becomes the stage of our fears when the wolf looms outside. A visual théâtre piece using objects as a vocabulary, exploring the poetry and the symbolism of the house.
The house is the story…