TV: First Look at Highlights of CST's THE TABLE

Chicago Shakespeare Theater kicks off this season's World's Stage Series with Blind Summit's The Table, a production from the United Kingdom, which launches its first United States tour Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare for a limited two-week engagement, October 16 to 27, 2013. BroadwayWorld has a first look at highlights below!

This imaginative performance introduces audiences to Moses, a cantankerous puppet with a cardboard head immersed in an existential crisis on a table. Known for reinventing puppetry for contemporary adult audiences by drawing from the traditional Japanese Bunraku style, Blind Summit Theatre presents The Table showcasing its radically modern style of puppetry and storytelling. The Table will be performed in the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare tonight, October 16 - 27, 2013.

Premiered at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to a sold-out run, The Table was honored with a Fringe First Award for outstanding new work. Time Out London calls The Table "absolutely sublime, the best thing this excellent company has ever done." London's The Guardian declares, "Blind Summit are the UK's puppet masters, a company whose shows have proved that puppetry doesn't have to come either with apologies or strings attached."

Founded by Mark Down and Nick Barnes in 1997, Blind Summit Theatre brings together internationally renowned puppetry innovators to devise new works and engage in stunning international collaborations. They have created puppetry for Anthony Minghella's award-winning opera Madam Butterfly and Simon McBurney's famed Complicite theater company. In Danny Boyle's dramatic opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics in London, Blind Summit marshaled 50 puppeteers to bring giant puppets of Voldemort, Captain Hook, Cruella De Ville and the Queen of Hearts to life.

The Table features Moses, a self-aware puppet faced with a personal crisis as he embarks on re-enacting the last twelve hours of the life of Moses on top of his table. The Table is part stand-up comedy, part Beckett and part existential dissertation on puppetry devised by Blind Summit founders Nick Barnes and Mark Down, in collaboration with Sarah Calver, Sean Garratt, Mabel Jones, Irena Strateiva and Ivan Thorley. At once endearingly sympathetic and startlingly brash, Moses proves that The Table is not a children's puppet show but instead a work of surprising humanity. As is traditional with the Bunraku style of puppetry, the manipulators appear openly in full view of the audience and work together to operate one beautifully crafted puppet, communicating through finely detailed movement and gesture. Unexpected and very funny, The Table is a work of improvised puppetry that will prove a unique experience for audiences.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater's limited two-week engagement of The Table will run Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare October 16 through 27, 2013. Tickets are on sale now for $35 with special discounts available for groups of 10 or more, as well as CST for $20 tickets available for patrons under 35. All patrons receive a 40% discount on guaranteed parking in Navy Pier garages. For more information or to purchase tickets or a season subscription, contact Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Box Office at 312.595.5600 or visit the Theater's website atwww.chicagoshakes.com.

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