The Twelfth Annual New Orleans
Giant Puppet Festival
Artist Lineup
String and Shadow. BreakFAST Puppets. Brzezinski & Schap. The Mudlark Puppeteers. Jawbone Puppet Theater. Nate Puppets. Muddy Roots Theatre Collective. Happy Accident. Puppet Pants. Steve Ackerman and Dominique Herskind. FeliceGoLucky and SaraO'Keefe. Emily Schubert. Rabbit Foot Puppets. Honey Goodenough. Fernfrond Puppet Ensemble. Mr. Bonetangles. Miss Pussycat and Quintron. Velvet Effigy. Puppet Pants. Poose the Puppet. Possibly Puppets. Jake (he/they) & Ches (they/them). Mutual Obsession Circus . Little Chaos Company. Cila Puccadella. abandoned ships. Madison J Cripps. Nocturnal Creatures. The Silly Gooses. Naughty Little No Good. Isabel's Zombie Nightmare. Samuel J Lewis . Water Striders. MR KY WHY + WET WIG PRODUCTIONS.
Brzezinski & Schap
Say Mama
Brzezinski & Schap is a shadow puppetry duo founded in 2016 by Caitlin Brzezinski & Libby Schap. Their distinct style creates performances for stage and film using moving shadow screens, innovative lighting textures, and blurred lines between puppeteer and shadow character.
In the hauntingly beautiful world of a miniature dollhouse, Say Mama explores the isolating and terrifying experience of new parenthood. This psychological journey follows a mother who, while trying to soothe her baby one night, encounters a nightmarish transformation of shadows within the dollhouse. Developed as part of Les Sage Fous' Micro-festival of Unfinished Puppetry in Montreal and Puppet Blok at Dixon Place in New York. Performed by Libby Schap. Original music by Christopher Vu. Puppet design by Caitlin Brzezinski.
Their current work-in-progress, Say Mama, explores the terrifying experience of new parenthood. Developed as part of the 2024 Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppetry in Montreal, the piece features original music by Christopher Vu.
“Cinderella” & “Charlie”
As a company, the Mudlark Puppeteers specialize in puppet theatre that is innovative and unconventional, presenting original and little-told stories of heroic misfits and wayward love. The Mudlarks have a developing repertory of object-based works in a variety of scales. Mudlark work explores history and human experience through a lens of fable, waging a playful but determined battle for alternative modes of being. We imagine hope in the form of new stories, reimagining the dispossessed as emerging heroes.
Mutual Obsession Circus
The Dream Show
The dream show is exploration of dreaming - of sleep, new horizons, and other ends of the world through the love story of Pierrot & the Moon. Giant mache puppets, lullabies, marionettes, disembodied limbs searching for their homes, and textured landscapes create a dreamworld both tender and horrifying.
Show in Progress.
String and Shadow is a theater company based in Olympia, Washington and (lately, sometimes) in New Orleans. They create giant outdoor touring puppet shows that weave together a variety of puppetry and theater styles. With copious amounts of cardboard, fabric, and paper-mache, String and Shadow's worlds of fantasy and fable aim to pluck at the strings of universal wonder, innocence, and joy.
Jawbone Puppet Theater
“Der Golem”
“Der Golem” is a dense puppet show about a secular Jewish-American radical puppeteer who has complicated feelings when asked to build a golem puppet at the height of a genocide. We take a deep dive into hard drugs, toenail fungus, ancient sacred monsters, Kabbalah wizards, Jewish diaspora and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
NATE PUPPETS
Welcome to TheAte-A Monstrouso a living, live puppet theater!
The TheAte-A Monstrouso is huge monster that transforms into multiple puppets right before your eyes!
See just how many puppets are able to fit inside just one, at THE THEATE-A MONSTROUSO!
MUDDY ROOTS THEATRE COLLECTIVE
The Muddy Roots Theatre Collective is a collaboration between old school Mudlark Puppeteers Otter Goodfellow and Amanda Stone. Their performance in Aprils is a sequel to their last show: Three Impossible Tasks. As they continue their quest to kill a tyrannical king/abusive husband, our heroes set off to the Goblin Market to procure supplies and allies. They encounter many strange characters, both sinister and saintly, along the way.
Little Chaos Company
Moondance
Little Chaos Co. manufactures whimsy, wonder and cacophonous joy. A strong belief in the power of the extraordinary compels us to be constantly searching for visually creative ways to tell stories. Based in Toronto, Canada and founded in 2024, Little Chaos specializes in whimsical shadow puppetry and spectacular ambient street performance. Our innovative shadow tent shows have appeared at Concrete Cabaret, Fresh Ideas in Puppetry, the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto International Buskerfest and the World Harmony Puppet Innovation Festival in Thailand.
Moondance is the story of a young girl coping with loneliness, finding magic and going on an adventure that changes her perspective.
Happy Accident
Happy Accident: "Vol 2 or Nothing is Everything"
Happy Accident explores the exponential pace of overwhelming absurdity in our world. Found objects, large scale puppets and sputtering lights bring you face to face with the cuddly nightmare that is everyday life. An anti-clown car driven by master puppeteer liz HOWLS and co-piloted by musician/unlicensed electrician Servant Baby, Happy Accident ecstatically careens down the wrong side of the lost highway leaving a trail of old copies of Weekly World News and Jack in the Box wrappers in its wake. Colorfully reimagining Saturday mornings spent drooling over piles of synthetic material in front of the TV, Happy Accident revels in naked, antipathetic americana. You will probably laugh, you might cry, and like other designer drugs, you will want more within minutes. Ultimately you will ask yourself, “What kind of culture would produce something like this?”
Puppet Pants
Founded in Atlanta in 2024, Puppet Pants is committed to providing top quality marionette entertainment for audiences of all ages, and has performed at the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival, Puppeteers of America 2024 South East Festival, DragonCON, Asheville and Atlanta Fringe, as well as music festivals, and tours of the United States.
In this performance, Puppet Pants marionettes come to life to interact with the audience, perform tricks, and leave you feeling inspired.
Clowns, monsters, and mysteries await in this intense and harmless whimsical wordless variety show featuring brand new puppets and music.
Cila Puccadella
"Often magical, probably funny, usually scientific, and always fantastical, Cila Puccadella presents original myths and fairytales that explore themes of love, loss, transformation, and other trivial matters such as the meaning of life on earth. And if the conclusively quirky puppets aren’t enough, New Orleans’ very own Eight Dice Cloth members Chris Booth and Zach Thomas are ready to steal the show with live music. Puppeteering by Audrey Fiala, a New Orleans star in her own right with writing and direction by Elena Ricciardi.
(Show in development.)
abandoned ships is Milissa Orzolek and a rotating collection of visual artists, musicians and puppeteers who work with ideas of belonging, care and coexistence.
weather reports of the future examines the idea of small talk. After a series of disappearances, our protagonists turn to talking about the weather in order to re-establish a sense of community. This show will use shadow and table top puppetry.
abandoned ships
weather reports of the future
Miss Pussycat began her career in art and puppetry as a child in the Southern Baptist Church of Antlers Oklahoma as part of the Christian Puppet Youth Ministry. She is always excited to bring puppetry into the pantheon of contemporary art, as well as the subculture of underground music.
The magical collaboration that is Quintron and Miss Pussycat began at a Mardi Gras party in New Orleans. For thirty years, the two of them have been busy presenting live puppet shows and playing organ driven party music in rock clubs, pizza restaurants, and secret clubhouses all around the world.
Madison J. Cripps
“A Slice of Crazy Pie”
Step into the enchantment of "A Slice of Crazy Pie," a mesmerizing cabaret style marionette puppet show meticulously crafted by Madison J Cripps. Since 2006, this captivating production weaves interests, viewpoints, and eccentricities into a spellbinding journey. Characters like Pinkey the Mayor and Ratty Ratkinson engage with audiences, while diverse settings from the moon to the street provide intrigue. With themes spanning ecology to well-being, the show's fluid duration accommodates any space. Beneath the puppetry lies a world of creativity and interaction, where harmonica melodies and singing add depth. Blurring imagination and reality, the show thrives on creative engagement. As the curtains rise, all ages are invited into a captivating realm, a profound exploration of the human spirit, and a shared adventure of fascination.
Emily Schubert is an interdisciplinary artist working in the worlds of puppetry, performance, sculpture and collage. Her rag tag puppet company Pink House Puppets operates with a strong mission to aid in the critically essential effective effort to resist the gloom of our own making!
'A Period Piece'
A show about periods through the ages. Comical, educational, and a little too bloody real. Period.
RABBIT FOOT PUPPETS
The Elemental Trial
Rabbit Foot Puppetry is a Chicago-based LGBTQIA+ puppetry collective composed of fabricators, performers, writers, and artists committed to creating bold, original puppet theatre. Rooted in spectacle and driven by imagination, our work fuses the technical precision of puppetry with the joy of play and experimentation.
The Elemental Trial is a story of love and loss in an ever changing landscape. Puppets will be morphed and shifted using heat, water, and air. The Elemental Trial offers a simple question: what does it mean to live in a world that asks us to change?
FeliceGoLucky and SaraO'Keefe
The Pesky Possom
The Pesky Possum feels all alone in the world until he consults with an Oracle. She embarks on an adventure full of friends and strangers, unfamiliar places, and difficult roads. Pesky Possum finds her way to a welcoming community who embraces her after some very challenging experiences, where she feels understood and belonging.
Naughty Little No Good
Hymen Opus
Naughty Little No Good (aka Opal) is a puppetry artist working at the convergence of the surreal, sensual, and haunting. Their creative practice is driven by an emotional undercurrent and a desire to explore what’s tender, grotesque, and unspoken.
Based on the unfinished poem 'Christabel' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'Hymen Opus' is a psychedelic vampire fantasia dripping with sapphic yearning and, of course, orchid mantises. Layered with erotic tension and mythic overtones, 'Hymen Opus' pulses with an orgasmic energy. It’s part cabaret, part fevered séance, and part insectoid spectacular- a queered gothic romance drenched in lace, light, and blood.
Esmerelda the Puppet
Day in the Life
Day in the Life is an original puppet musical starring the one and only Esmerelda the Puppet. Her rent is late, her polycule is collapsing, and the evil Negativité has Esmerelda gripped in their velvet claws. Nonetheless, the show must go on! Equipped with sequins, sass, and sheer delusion, Esmerelda must cleverly find her way to the gig of a lifetime. Can Esmerelda finally prove she’s not just another sock in the drawer? Or will she lose her shot at the most earth-shattering, jazz-soaked performance humanity has ever witnessed?
Bursting withinnovative puppetry, razor-sharp wit, and a live jazz score led by the brilliant Danny Abrams trio, A Day in the Life is an iconic spectacle not to be missed.
Nocturnal Creatures Troupe
Nocturnal Creatures Show
A multimedia musical puppet production concerning the lives of a humanoid bat, cuddly spider and cranky mouse. Distracting, absurd and endearing, for better or for worse! Provocative parody of everyday experiences of street performers in the French Quarter, the characters they encounter, as they strive to strike a record deal and make it big.
Photo credit and copyright Richard Termine
Drama of Works
The Grand Guignol Theater for Children*
(*not actually for children)
Drama of Works presents an instructional evening of theater for children (*NOT really for children). In between beautiful, innovative, large-scale shadow puppet renditions of literature by Edgar Allan Poe they use a toy theater cemetery to warn children of the dangers of misbehaving. The tales of The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, Annabel Lee, and The Black Cat come to life spectacularly with DOW’s signature inventive shadow puppetry! All the while trick toy theater skeletons and cadavers inspired by Heinrich Hoffman, Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak, & the Dead Milkmen get sliced, blown away, drowned, set on fire… Is everyone ready for a bloody good time?!?
Photo credit Stephanie Creekpaum
MR. BONETANGLES
Mr. Bonetangles' Vortex
Will Schutze is a marionette artist, maker and music producer from Austin, Texas. He is also Mr. Bonetangles.
Mr. Bonetangles is a cute and disturbing punk rock puppet spectacle of marionettes, broken toys and home-recorded music that has entertained audiences from the street to the screen--ranging from busking across the country and performing on stages in theaters and venues all over the land to being featured in Jon Favreau's 2014 film 'Chef'
Mr. Bonetangles' Vortex is a whirling combination of marionette characters, old and new, performing the home-recorded album, Eddy by Mr. Bonetangles, accompanied by a broken toy and robot band. It's a punk rock puppet show.
VELVET EFFIGY
Show in developement.
HONEY GOODENOUGH
WORD PLAY: Clown around with the alphabet.
"Word Play" uses clowning and puppetry to take audiences on an adventure through the alphabet. Words come to life in the hands of two skilled performers, who clown around with sounds and letters to create dozens of interactive characters and imaginative scenes. It’s the perfect blend of education and entertainment—a play on words, literally!
FERNFROND PUPPET ENSEMBLE
"The Owl and the Pussycat"
Fernfrond Puppet Ensemble, a newly germinated New Orleans based troupe, will bring an extended and enlivened story of "The Owl and the Pussycat" with handmade papier maché puppets and live music to sweep you away on a pea green boat. The show is for children of all ages and lasts for a year and a day .... or just for 10 minutes, or so.
Possibly Puppets
Save the Day for Snail
Save the Day for Snail is an interactive handmade puppet show featuring Gladsy the snail, denizen of the empty lot next to The Waffle House; designed for ages 3 through 9 and their families. Puppeteer Risa Lenore combines live acting and puppetry in this new show made from reclaimed materials. Children become part of the performance, by making the sound effects, joining as puppeteers and helping rebuild Gladsy's house. With the use of tabletop mouth puppets, rod puppets, one very simple marionette and a rotating backdrop, Risa as storyteller and performer guides the audience as the cable-knit snail searches for a new home. This is an eco-fable, a timely, yet silly tale that reminds us that innovative community solutions are the only way forward.
POOSE THE PUPPET
Heart On Your Nose Clowns
“Heart on Your nose!” is an artist led project by Benjamin Martin and Emi Rane Fisher with Poose Productions Inc.
"Heart on Your Nose is an all-ages puppet and clown show that invites children and grownups to discover the clown they’ve always been. Through whimsical marionettes and lovable misunderstood monsters, the story gently encourages audiences to embrace their emotions, their weirdness, and their hidden “clown heart.” By the end of the show, everyone is transformed—invited to wear their hearts on their noses and celebrate the joyful magic of being fully themselves “
Photo Credit Matthew Gilson Photography
Forged By Family LLC: Samuel J Lewis
Praiseworthy -
In 2022, Sam discovers an amazing newspaper article in the Memphis Daily Appeal from 1872 that describes a heroic story from rural Tennessee.
music composed and performed by: Hunter Diamond
crankie puppet building and art direction by: Grace Needlman
Photo credit @samuelbirdsong
Sunrise New Orleans
The Little Shrimp and the Terrible Noise
Written in conjunction with String & Shadow, For a Better Bayou and fishermen from Cameron Louisiana, The Little Shrimp and the Terrible Noise tells the real story of a small coastal town in Southwest Louisiana and its fight against destructive industry. Told from the point of view of a heroic shrimp, this show shares the impact of a new liquified natural gas plant on the ecology and way of life of Cameron, and the ongoing fight for the sake of both the shrimp and the shrimpers.
Water Striders
float
Our performance tells a story that is fictional, yet draws from our personal and the collective's experiences from Hurricane Helene. It interweaves the dynamics of several characters (humans, creatures & landscapes) in the process of reuniting with one another after a natural disaster. The themes explored in the story are of grief, loss, connection, magic, and the mystery of eternal unknowing. We find inspiration in zen koans, fables and the bewildering beauty that lies within every biome. Our intention is to evoke a sense of unity with the audience, offering lanterns of light while portraying the cycles of death and rebirth. We wish to tell a tale that is unique in its composition, yet universal in its essence.
Sierra and Bixby
Deep
Sierra is best known for her painting marionettes and giant parade puppets. She has been a part of New Orleans Giant puppet festival since its inception. Bixby is a puppet artist finding unique perspectives inspired by science and nature.
Here, the octopus dreams a deep sea story.
Show in development.
Community Garden Puppets
How To: Kiss Trees, Revive the Dead and Make Friends
We welcome you into the magical garden, where you will find the child that resides within you, where all that grows comes alive! Bear witness to Willow the Tree, who yearns and aches for companion ship.! Rebirth into a child of the sun with Kresznik! Squelch with the lovers who find each other in the light of the moon!
The Silly Gooses
The Church of the Absurd
We will be presenting a liturgy from the Church of the Absurd. Sacred rituals, hymns, fellowship performed by a variety of puppets. A peaceful and joyous, somberly bombastic celebration of the absurd, where nothing means anything, and thereby, as needed, can mean everything.
Plantain Futures
Butter Woman
This is an African folktale about a fat woman made of butter. Based in Nigeria at the time of colonization. Her alluring ways and how jealousy and a non-belief of what she is made of lead to her demise.
Dane Eskin and Tau Bennett / Leroy’s Place
Dane’s Big Date
This short story follows a character, Dane, an epileptic and the trials and tribulations they must go through before the date of their dreams. We follow as Dane falls in and out of seizure episodes that bring him to an alternative reality that is a puppet manifestation of his internal monologue.
This surrealist story plays around with exploring neurological issues through an absurdist and comedic and uncomfortable perspective.
Al (Alcohol and Inhalants) Puppetry :
(Dave Haaz Baroque and Nick Knave)
Isabel’s Zombie Nightmare
Based on Ogden Nash’s indefatigable heroine, Isabel (The Self Reliant), takes the darling killer of witches, eater of bears and destroyer of nightmares and places her in a neon hued whirlwind of gore, slime, and survival. Follow Isabel as she travels through a ridiculous rhyming hellscape and attempts to subvert the evil that threatens to consume us ALL!
Steve Ackerman and Dominique Herskind
Let's Make A Puppet Porno
Go behind the scenes of the creation of a puppet porno, watching a ragtag film crew put together a heartfelt, sincere attempt at the most raunchy of cinema on the most modest of budgets. Craft services. Best boy grips. Wardrobe and Make-up. The Fluffer. It's like Boogie Nights, but with puppets.
Jake (he/they) & Ches (they/them)
LIMBS
LIMBS is a multidimensional puppet show featuring shadowy memories and masked creatures. Inspired by the "Bride of Frankenstein," LIMBS explores memories of a three-faced Creation as they are disassembled and discarded by their Creator. The dismembered limbs follow threads from their lives - together and separate - in a swirl of interactive shadows. The performance features an 8 foot tall marionette, fleeting thoughts, and a vehement soundscape as the Creation's lives flash before your eyes.
cabal of crabs productions
wonders of the dumpster the musical
two friends on a quest for food must dumpster dive to get there meal but the dumpster has a secret they will never forget
Work in development.
Playdoh Puppet Productions
Piano Creatures
"Piano Creatures" is a found object tabletop and water puppetry meditation on the sacred and discarded. With puppets made from detritus and scraps, we catch a glimmer of the brilliance of life and the seed for a new world. "Piano Creatures" is a wordless exploration of the Gulf South landscape and the fertile potential of a threshold between land and sea.
MR KY WHY + WET WIG PRODUCTIONS
There’s Something About (the virgin) Mary
Join four heathens in reimagining the story of (the virgin) Mary’s immaculate conception into gay fanfiction. Follow Mary on her provocative adventure as she cruises her way through Hell on a journey of sexual and self discovery.
WET WIG PRODUCTIONS was founded by Rhode Island sweethearts, Reba Mitchell, Ly Barber and MR KY WHY in 2022, then joined by Eilish Wilder in 2024. The group have combined their love of unhinged fantasies, musical vastness and visual artistries to produce a theatrical experience that is both biblically accurate and historically slutty.
Photo credit Elena Escobedo
Amica Hunter
Anatomica
ANATOMICA:
A Comedy About Meat, Bones, & The Skin You’re In
By Amica Hunter (they/them)
International Comedian & Weird-Lil’-Gremlin, Amica Hunter (they/them), GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN and CRUSHES YOUR FUNNY BONE in this hilarious, captivating, and sometimes-unsettling-comedy about skeletal systems and the horrors of living in a body. ANATOMICA is an intimate, unpredictable exploration of zoological fascination, chronic pain, & the collective imagination. It is a show striving to answer one crucial universal question - What is the BEST type of skeleton?!?!?
With candidness and a comfortably casual tone, Amica reviews the three skeletal systems found in animals and discusses the pros and cons of each one. What would it be like to inhabit a body completely alien from our classic human form? A gloriously deranged Ted-Talk by a wanna be scientist who dropped out of college to attend clown school instead.
Featuring a guided worm meditation, a slew of scientific animal facts, a butt-faced crab, and communication with the audience via a long plastic tube, ANATOMICA is an absurd shapeshifting show that will leave audiences with more questions than answers.
Part stand-up, part storytelling, and part clown, ANATOMICA is an investigation of the inadequacies of different animal body models, and a celebration of the absurdity of being trapped in a body that is limited by pain, fatigue, and ultimately decay. But, you know, make it fun.