They started as a group of five friends tampering with an overhead projector. Now, they’re the face of shadow puppeteering in Chicago.
Manual Cinema is a Chicago-based puppet troupe, widely known for their shadow puppets and horror-inspired original plays. Founded in 2013, the freshly graduated group of creatives made their start from humble beginnings before their ideas took them around the world.
“We very much focused on creating the art, and not creating a company,” said Julia Miller, a co-artistic director at Manual Cinema. “When we did have a really strong foundation of the visual style and aesthetics and techniques, over three or four years, then we figured we could segway this to making money off our work.”
Manual Cinema’s story started with a love for puppetcraft before making profits. The group of friends put on smaller productions in Chicago’s bars, community spaces, and even in a living room window on Halloween night for passersby.
Last weekend, their production “The 4th Witch” was showcased at the 2026 Chicago International Puppet Festival held at Victory Gardens Theaterjust a short walk away from DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus. They had planned six — eventually seven — show performances for the weekend.
“I designed (the puppets) and they’re all handmade, animated by the puppeteers,” said Drew Dir, the show’s writer and director. “Each puppet is only used for a couple seconds for the show, but put together with hundreds and hundreds of them … it tells a story, it puts together a cinematic sequence.”
“The 4th Witch” loosely adheres to the story of Macbeth, reimagined during a gothic World War I backdrop. While hiding from trench combat, a young orphaned girl is rescued by a mysterious old woman, who turns out to be one of the three fateful witches who tell Macbeth his fate. With no other place to go, the girl joins the coven, becoming the fourth witch.
As Manual Cinema has grown, so has its ambition. Original shows like “Ada/Ava” and “Mementos Mori” moved the group to innovate, adding sound design and live musical performances to accompany the animated visuals which were composed and designed by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter.
“We are, at our heart, a collaboration between visual artists and music artists,” said Sarah Fornace, longtime puppeteer and narrative designer. “The music is on equal footing with the visuals and telling the story. Music is the omniscient narrator who can go in and out of characters’ heads, set the scene, the mood.”
One of Manual Cinema’s central missions is capturing the deliberations of live performances. In an age of artificial content being the most widespread visual art form, the importance of puppets and live theater does not go unappreciated in the public eye. Manual Cinema’s puppet performances sell out on the regular.
“I think puppets are really having a moment right now,” Dir said. “I think it’s because we’re so inundated with computer-generated special effects that I think there’s something about the puppet on stage or screen. It’s imbued with human life and emotion that really appeals to people.”
These shadow puppet stories often intertwine gothic horror with familiar tales. The shadow puppets are used as vessels to tell often vulnerable stories in an accessible way. “The 4th Witch” is no different.
“Because of shadow puppetry, there’s a natural affinity to the gothic,” Dir said. “I love using the genre of horror to investigate a psychological question, a social question. I like using horror as a frame.”
Live productions like “The Magic City,” “Hansel and Gretel” and the now-touring “Frankenstein” implement and reimagine fantastical gothic stories into this accessible and digestible format.
After gaining attention from The New York Times during a festival performance in Edinburgh, Scotland, Manual Cinema collaborated with the paper on “The Forger,” a 2016 documentary short film about World War II child rescuer Adolfo Kaminsky. Manual Cinema’s work on “The Forger” helped it win a News and Documentary Emmy awardthe tenth Emmy won by NYT.
With widespread acclaim and love for their art, Manual Cinema was spotlighted again in their collaboration with Universal Studios and MGM on “Candyman,” a 2021 sequel to the original 1992 gothic horror movie of the same name. Chicago-based painters like Cameron Spratley and Sherwin Ovid were asked by name to work on the film, which made Chicago-based Manual Cinema a choice pick for the movie’s requested shadow puppet inclusions.
The group crafted scenes tying to the original “Candyman,” an accessible way for audiences to experience that movie’s emotions anew. Writers and producers including Jordan Peele were so impressed with the scenes, that they added more.
“Flashbacks were written into the script,” Miller said. “Creatively, they were interested in capturing them in a more artistic frame, not just cutting to live action. I was surprised about the amount of creative control we had.”
The magic of puppeteering is one of Chicago’s unsung staples, stretching back to some of the country’s first radio broadcasts, and the list of titles only growing. “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie,” “Child’s Play,” and now, Manual Cinema. A new entry into the Puppet Hall of Fame, sure to enchant for years to come.
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