New Victory Theater

Designer-director Hamid Rahmanian's dazzlingly cinematic multimedia epic, set in ancient Persia, uses hundreds of handmade shadow puppets to cast the tale of a brave young woman who must escue the man she loves and prevent an imminent war between the kingdoms of Iran and Turan. The story is adapted by Rahmanian and Melissa Hibbard from a section of Ferdowsi's seminal 10th-century poem Shahnameh. Having made its U.S. debut with three performances at BAM for Kids in 2023, it now reveals its treasures again in a brief encore run at the New Vic. 

The Chicago collective Manual Cinema (Ada/Ava) combines live actors and musicians with puppetry, overhead projectors and filmic techniques to create virtuosically handmade theater experiences. The company visited the New Vic in 2022 with Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About A Terrible Monster, which was aimed at very young kids. This time, it aims a little older with a reprise of its first show for family audiences: its 2017 adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s 1910 novel about a girl who finds herself trapped inside the miniature metropolis she has been building out of household objects to avoid the annoyances of real life.