Katie has been involved with various performing arts projects in the cities for over 15 years, including Barebones, Infiammati Fire Circus and dance and acrobatics pieces. They decided to team up with artists Dylan, Amanda and Heather to collaborate on this project to combine their skills in theatre, act creation, puppet building and acrobatics.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: The show begins with industry coworkers wishing their lives were different and suddenly needing to pivot to their cryogenic pods. One nuclear winter later and they emerged to a world evolved, in which their existence on earth requires taking on a very different form….

Nyssa is a visual artist and performer from North Carolina. She worked for many years as a puppeteer and performer with the giant puppet company Paperhand Puppet Intervention. She is the founder of Deep Time Puppet Company, which pledges to never let the world forget the extinct megafauna. Learn more.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: The Time Machine is a ten-minute choose-your-own-adventure shadow puppet show operated by a well-oiled machine of puppeteers with dozens of hand cut puppets. An after-hours visit to an inventors' laboratory in the Department of Deep Time can veer in many directions – through 1980s executive board rooms, ancient Egypt, or even the dawn of time – based on audience participation. It's guaranteed no two shows will be exactly the same!

Orren focuses their work on puppetry, costume design, dance, performance art, sequins, and googly eyes. Recent productions include The Garden (open flame theater), Puppet Fashion Show (HOBT), Into the Bowels of Heck (Open Eye), Impact Theory of Mass Extinction (HOBT). They are currently attending FAIR School for Arts, and are an intern at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: Hospital, blood, drama, gore, sequin fabric? Oh no, I amputated the wrong leg, ahhhhh confetti canons. Do I sense a love triangle with a patient and a doctor? I introduce to you Drama MD.

David is a Minneapolis-based director, puppeteer, and teaching artist. They were the Artistic Director of Collective Unconscious Performance from 2014-2020. David received their MFA from the University of Iowa, and has also trained with the SITI Company, the Margolis Brown Adaptors Company, Czech master puppeteer Miroslav Trejtnar, and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: Candyland is a campy romp that features paper dolls and toy theatre. In it, a young Victorian woman is carried off by a strong wind to a magical land where everything is made of candy. Candyland will be performed by David Hanzal and Heather Stone, and feature live music by Ryan Lee.

Aliya is a Midwestern creator who has called Minneapolis home for the past 6 years. She hopes to challenge the gatekeeping that often exists in art spaces, and creates with connection, playfulness, and curiosity. Aliya fell in love with puppetry when she attended her first Full Moon Puppet Show in 2018, and this is her first public solo puppet show (unless you count the puppet parade she participated in when she was in elementary school and the hair flew off of her puppet).

SHOW DESCRIPTION: Static Noise is a tabletop puppet show that explores the redundancy that can permeate modern life, the community that can ground us, and the decision we must make — over and over again — to show up in our own lives.

Fionn is an artist and public history educator based out of Minneapolis. His work often celebrates new interpretations of well-worn and well-loved stories. This will be his first fully conceived and directed show.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: Told through costume, cardboard and shadow, In My Nature is a fun retelling of Aesop’s classic The Scorpion & The Frog. Historically one of the darker fables, this version stays true to highlighting the uncomfortable and seemingly incompatible differences between people, but also reveals how different perspectives can offer novel solutions to life’s unexpected hurdles. Also, there’s a whale!

Akiko is a visual artist, performance artist, teaching artist, curator, and an activist who lives and works in Minneapolis. A native of Osaka, Japan, she uses poetry, music, dance, collage, found objects and shadow puppetry to tell stories that reflect her time, and a narrative of immigrant women of color that is often underrepresented in white eurocentric society.

SHOW DESCRIPTION: Racist Hotline is a toy theatre puppet show, centering on an imaginary live radio/podcast show. Through this comedic puppet piece Akiko hopes to examine how racism is normalized in daily life, and create a shared language with the audience in order to cultivate the culture that challenges the oppressive nature of the system we live in.