2024 Festival Artists

Alex & Olmsted

MAROONED! A Space Comedy (Baltimore, Maryland)

An internationally acclaimed puppet theater and filmmaking company that blends myriad forms of puppetry into heart-warming tales of curiosity and wonder.

Cripps Puppets

A Slice of Crazy Pie (Northfield, Massachusetts)

Through meticulously crafted marionettes and mesmerizing storytelling, Madison J. Cripps creates a unique connection that transcends time and space, leaving spectators spellbound and their imaginations ignited.

Maskhunt Motions

Road of Useless Splendor (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

A nomadic, unregistered laboratory for experimental object theatre work, Maskhunt’s practice is focused on and explores mask work and puppetry in public/private spaces, often performing in unconventional places and to very intimate audiences.

Modern Times Theater

The Perils of Mr. Punch (East Hardwick, Vermont)

In pursuit of a radically divergent model of art-making, this duo creates venues in unlikely locations, working in populist theater forms, they seek to reinvent and reimagine classic American entertainment.

Night Shade

Order of Wolf (Portland, Oregon)

An artist collective that creates contemporary tales of timeless terror through a live cinematic shadow experience that rebels against traditional flat silhouettes and revolutionizes the ancient art of shadow puppetry.

Puzzle Théâtre

Bois (Montréal, Canada)

Puzzle Theatre works with a colorful amalgam of styles—objects, puppets, and actors—and widely diverse means of expression. Their wordless performances encourage audiences to freely associate ideas and feel what is not explicitly stated during performances.

Shoestring Theater

PiP PiP Parade! (Portland, Maine)

Shoestring Theater has been at the heart of Portland’s art scene for over forty years. From their bird’s eye view atop stilts, they witnessed the gradual change in the personality of Portland’s Old Port as they kicked off the Old Port Festival parade for decades.

Xavier Bobés

Things Easily Forgotten (Barcelona, Spain)

Xavier Bobés is a Catalan actor and scenic manipulator who has spent the last 12 years investigating the power of objects to draw out new symbols and contexts.