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Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) presents productions from the UK and the Netherlands as part of CST's World's Stage Series-Blind Summit's The Table and the US premiere of Freeze! from performer Nick Steur, January 14-25, 2015. These offerings headline the inaugural Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, a celebration of dynamic and inventive puppet performance in cultural institutions across the city. Returning to Chicago Shakespeare from the UK after a critically acclaimed run in 2013, The Table features the unforgettable Moses, a cantankerous and loveable puppet with a cardboard head facing an existential crisis-on a table. In Freeze!, Dutch performer Nick Steur astounds audiences as he artfully balances stones without glue or other manipulations, challenging traditional conceptions of performance to dazzling effect. At the forefront of exciting international theater practices, The Table and Freeze! are performed in tandem at Chicago Shakespeare throughout the two week-long festival.
Intended to be a theatrical interpretation of the biblical story of Moses, The Table is performed by a grizzled, crotchety old man. But the grumpy puppet narrator strays far from the planned storyline and winds up playing out his own hilarious, existential crisis as his puppeteers improvise and interact with each other and the audience. Premiered at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to a sold-out run, The Table was honored with a Fringe First Award for outstanding new work. Time Out London calls The Table "absolutely sublime, the best thing this excellent company has ever done."
The Table is created in the Japanese Bunraku style, performed completely on the table top with multiple puppeteers visible to the audience. Blind Summit's puppeteers breathe poignant life into the character using humor and improvisation, revealing something of ourselves in the cardboard, wood and fabric creation on stage.
Founded by Mark Down and Nick Barnes in 1997, Blind Summit Theatre is reinventing puppetry for modern adult audiences, bringing together internationally renowned puppetry innovators to devise new works and engage in stunning collaborations. London's The Guardian declares Blind Summit to be "the UK's puppet masters, a company whose shows have proved that puppetry doesn't have to come either with apologies or strings attached." In addition to The Table, Blind Summit will also present late night showings of a new work-in-progress following the evening performances on Fridays and Saturdays during the festival.
Also part of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Chicago Shakespeare and Richard Jordan Productions present the US Premiere of Freeze!, a one-of-a-kind live performance event from the Netherlands. Creator and performer Nick Steur welcomes audiences to witness as he balances stones into stunningly delicate towers, wihout glue, cement or any other trick involved. Winner of the Edinburgh Fringe First award in 2013, Freeze! blurs the line between performer and audience as all collectively experience the inexplicable harmony that comes from balance and focus. The Scotsman raves, "It reminds us of the essential narrative simplicity of dramatic experience...It is also absolutely and compellingly beautiful, in its perfect focus on the radiant energy of the stuff that makes up our world."
About his wholly original process, Steur shares, "In all my works I use minimalism, but the road is chaotic. I use enough time to let my audience get out of their daily thoughts and judgments, in order to give them the chance to look again-in a new way, perhaps-at the simplest things in life, and to appreciate their endless qualities."
Founded to establish Chicago as a center for the advancement of the art of puppetry, the city-wide Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival will showcase an entertaining and eclectic array of puppet styles from around the world, including marionettes, shadow puppets, Bunraku puppets, tiny toy puppets, and distinctive, innovative styles of contemporary puppetry. Nearly 50 different performances are slated, showcasing more than 50 artists and a dozen puppet theater acts from around the globe. Chicago Shakespeare joins the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Field Museum of Natural History, The Second City and other Chicago cultural institutions in the week-long festival.
For more information, visit www.chicagoshakes.com/thetable and www.chicagoshakes.com/freeze. A full performance listing for the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival can be found at www.chicagopuppetfest.org.
