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Manual Cinema Brings Leonardo! to CTC

Posted on December 19, 2024

Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award-winning performance collective, design studio, and film production company bringing Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster to CTC January 8-March 9, 2025.

About Manual Cinema

Chicago-based theatre troupe, Manual Cinema, was founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen.

ManualCinema_Leonardo_RebeccaJMichelson (Leah Casey, Sarah Fornace, Lily Emerson, Anney Fresh)

Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality. The company was awarded an Emmy in 2017 for The Forger—a video created for The New York Times—and named Chicago Artists of the Year in 2018 by the Chicago Tribune. In 2020 they were included in 50 of Chicago theater “Rising Stars and Storefront Stalwarts” (Newcity). Their shadow puppet animations were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions. In 2022 they premiered Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster—an adaptation of two books by celebrated children’s author Mo Willems—and a live adaptation of their 2020 streaming hit A Christmas Carol.

In 2023 Manual Cinema completed production on their first self-produced short film, Future Feeling, and toured with folk rock band Iron & Wine in 2024 creating live visuals on stage.

A Message from the Director

Sarah Fornace, Leonardo! Playwright and Director

“We are so thrilled to bring Leonardo! A Wonderful Show about a Terrible Monster to the Twin Cities. The show adapts two books by everyone’s favorite bedtime book author Mo Willems, and it tells an important story about empathy and choosing unexpected friendships. Minneapolis has such a wonderful arts scene and some of the best puppetry in the country! We always love performing here, because the audiences are smart and savvy and seem to love puppet shows!

We use paper puppets, fuzzy Muppet-style puppets, live music, and video cameras to bring Mo’s books to life in front of the audience’s eyesIn every Manual Cinema show, we always show the process of making the performance, and I hope that we inspire the future generation to make their own art and tell their own stories! Also, as a parent, I am always excited to bring this show to other parents. There are jokes for all ages, and the songs are jams—I do not mind singing them 100 times.” 

See Leonardo! A Wonderful Story About a Terrible Monster at CTC January 8-March 9, 2025!

Photo Credit: Maren Celest
Source: ManualCinema.com