A kid-friendly counterpart to the Chicago Humanities Festival's semi-yearly lineups of heady talks for grownups, CHF's Stages, Sights and Sounds offers a slate of kid-oriented performances and creative workshops. Here's what's on tap for this year's fest, taking place May 9–20 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.
The main attractions are performances by theater companies from three different companies. Chicago's own Theater Unspeakable will perform its The American Revolution, in which seven barefoot actors loosely recount the fight for American independence while confined to a 21-square-foot platform (May 9 at 4, 7pm; May 16, 17 at 4pm). They're joined by Canada's L’Illusion, Théâtre de marionettes with Ondin, a tale of a young fisherman who dreams of the sea's depths (May 16 at 11:30am; May 17 at 10:30am), as well as another puppet show from the U.K.'s Unicorn Theatre and Scottish puppet maker Ailie Cohen, The Secret Life of Suitcases (May 16 at 10am, 2:30pm; May 17 at 1pm).
Other programming includes a writing workshop with 826CHI, an intro to stop-motion animation with LEGOs led by Chicago animator David Pickett (of the YouTube channel NightlyNewsatNine), and a screening of the Kartemquin Films documentary The Homestretch, which follows homeless teens in Chicago. Visit chicagohumanities.org for a complete schedule; tickets are on sale now.