SHOW OF HANDS
Puppet Festival
Visionaries + Voices SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival is an ongoing performance and workshop series which celebrates experimental puppetry and storytelling for all ages, abilities, and experience levels.
SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival trailer by Michael Malloy
Step right up! Calling all puppeteers, burlesque performers, and freaky experimental performance artists! Visionaries + Voices is taking submissions for our upcoming SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Cabaret, happening October 10th at the Northside Tavern.
Apply to be a part of the sexiest, grossest, and most absurd ADULTS ONLY Puppet Cabaret on this side of the Mill Creek. All acts must contain a handmade puppet or object.
Sponsored by The Puppet Slam Network and Pi Alpha Mu.
★ PAST EVENTS ★
2025 SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival
September 27 - October 31, 2025
Visionaries + Voices SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival returned in 2025 with more sparkle, spectacle, and puppet-powered joy than ever before. The month-long performance and workshop series celebrated experimental puppetry and storytelling for all ages, abilities, and experience levels. Over 3,000 people came out to experience the magic of puppetry, participating in workshops, attending performances and events, and helping to build giant puppets.
HIGHLIGHTS
Six free workshops brought V+V artists and the community together to learn new puppet techniques and styles
2025 Puppeteers-in-Residence Renee Martin and River Rat Puppet Collective worked alongside V+V artists to create original puppet shows
We hosted a wild adults-only Puppet Cabaret and all-ages Puppet Slam to a packed house at Heart of Northside
A giant puppet parade danced through the Cincinnati Art Museum on Halloween night
We paid over 35 teaching artists, performers, and V+V artists who made the festival full of magic
Thanks to generous support from ArtsWave, the Puppet Slam Network, Summerfair Cincinnati, Unnewehr Foundation, JWC, Purdy Foundation, and the Northside Community Fund, we were able to ensure puppets are for everyone!
FESTIVAL BY CATEGORY
SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival is presented by Visionaries + Voices and generously funded by ArtsWave, The Puppet Slam Network, Summerfair Cincinnati, The Unnewehr Foundation, Northside Community Fund, JWC, and supporters like you!
SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Slam
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2024
2:00PM
The Factory Events
1546 Knowlton Street
Cincinnati, OH, 45223
Visionaries + Voices presents the SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Slam, an all ages + abilities variety show featuring performances by artists from near and far. This diverse group of puppeteers dazzled, delighted, and challenged the audience’s expectations about what puppetry can be!
Sponsored by the Puppet Slam Network and Ohio Arts Council
SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Cabaret
SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2024
8:30-10 PM
The Lounge Northside
3938 Spring Grove Ave
Cincinnati OH, 45223
Visionaries + Voices proudly presented the SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Cabaret, an adults only variety show, which showcased local and national puppeteers. The cabaret included three shows created with V+V artists and performances by Melodic Connections musicians.
A packed house of V+V friends and fans celebrated inclusive arts during this rowdy, raunchy, grim, and hilarious night of Disability Pride debauchery!
July is Disability Pride Month, commemorating the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. Disability Pride Month invites us all to honor the community's history, experiences and achievements. Visionaries + Voices strives to broaden access to creativity for artists with disabilities, and through SHOW OF HANDS programming we've explored how puppetry is such a potent medium to delve into themes of the human experience, including disability. Puppets help us tell stories, represent ourselves and each other, and share powerful ideas and experiences.
Sponsored by the Puppet Slam Network and Heritage Bank
SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival 2023
SEPTEMBER 1 - OCTOBER 14, 2023
Visionaries + Voices SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Festival 2023 was a raucous celebration of experimental puppetry and storytelling for all ages, abilities, and experience levels. Beginning September 1, 2023, a six-week workshop series introduced the scope and possibilities of puppetry through hands-on learning, exploration, and play. Puppetry artists and Visionaries + Voices teaching artists co-led free workshops throughout the city. The festival culminated October 11-14, 2023, in boisterous performances, a gallery exhibition, a puppet cabaret, an energetic giant puppet parade through Camp Washington, and SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Slam, a showcase of original short-form puppet performances by workshop participants. The festival centered the artistic community at V+ V and gave artists with disabilities a platform to teach, perform, and exhibit art.
Sponsored by ArtsWave and JWC. With support from Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, The Well, PAR Projects, Wave Pool, WordPlay Cincy, DSGN CLLCTV, and Indigo Hippo.
Videography and editing by Justin Warrick
EYEBROWS by Renee Martin and Jon Flannery at the SHOW OF HANDS Puppet Slam, October 14th, 2023.
