(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It’s a November afternoon inside a small storefront in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and Co Artistic Director of Manual Cinema Julia Miller opens up one of the dozens of storage boxes and dusts off some of her old "friends".
"Here we've got some villagers, we've got a giant feast for the Ghost of Christmas Past who loves to eat," she laughed.
Hundreds of paper puppets, scenery and props that make up Manual Cinema's latest holiday production, "A Christmas Carol".
Their tools are simple things you can find around the house.
"Some of the materials we use are cardboard, paper and paint. We use a lot of kabob skewers, literally the ones you get from the grocery store," she said.
Manual Cinema has been Chicago based for 14 years and tours internationally.
"I, along with my four co-founders, started this in 2010. Since then, we've performed at the Kennedy Center in DC and in California. We've done international festivals. We've been to Egypt, we were in Singapore early this year."
The company is unique as it uses puppets, live actors, cameras, live music and overhead projectors to create a live theatrical experience.
"Projectors really aren't new. They've been around since the 70's. I did a production with them of Swan Lake with the CSO and it was one show only. We were using overheads and little paper puppets to illustrate the story of Swan Lake and I became obsessed with it because it was non verbal story telling, it was this beautiful artwork that you could manipulate live, live animation and I just really loved it so I wanted to make my own version of it," she said.
The performances use virtually no dialogue but the cast and crew creates quite the production. Miller says it's a huge collaboration.
"Everyone is on stage at once. We work with dancers, we work with theater performers, we work with artists that are really incredible makers but haven't really performed before. It uses principals like timing, precise movement. Not everyone goes to school for puppetry. Once we teach you the vocabulary, you can absorb it and know it. It's people who understand how to translate their breath into the object."
One of their biggest hits on the stage was an adaptation of "Frankenstein" at Court Theatre in 2018. Their creations even appeared in music videos and the trailer for the 2020 film "Candyman".
"We get commissioned by museums. We got hired by Showtime and AMC. We get hired to do a lot of video work because it's so visual and we have such a signature style. We've gotten a lot of cool, for-hire gigs designing video content. We've gotten a lot of great reviews and reached amazing benchmarks over the years."
Each production takes about a year to create and launch.
"It's a time intensive process. It's object based, all objects have to be made and deigned but even before that, we're story boarding each frame of the show. We are creating it into animatics which is editing the storyboards so the sound and music team have something to work with for sound design. We usually do a workshop so we decide how we want to tell the story. There are hundreds of paper puppets and they all have little mechanisms, and are hand painted so yeah, there's a lot of stuff," she said.
Miller says Chicago has especially embraced the art form.
"Chicago has a lot of puppetry in the city. The Puppet Festival is a huge draw to teach people and show people the breath of puppetry because there are so many kinds. People's references aren't exclusively the Muppets anymore." Miller said.
“Puppets are magic, yes. It's an inanimate object but we all invest in it in a special way that we believe the stories they are telling even though we know it's just someone waggling a doll. Somehow, with good puppetry, it transports you in a magical way."
The company just wrapped up a run at the Studebaker Theater with Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol.
For more information about the company and its schedule of performances, visit the Manual Cinema's website.
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!
Sign up and follow WBBM Newsradio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Bluesky