If anybody knows puppets—like really knows puppets—it’s Blair Thomas, founder and artistic director of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and codirector of the Chicago Puppet Studio. And yet, if you ask him about the artists who are most attracted to the form, his answer is entertainingly vague.

“Chicago could boast over 150 companies in town,” Thomas continues, “but the aesthetic was of a very narrow palette.” So what changed? For him—and also for much of the city’s theater community, he believes—it started with a festival.

Over the course of three hours, using basic building materials provided by the company and literal trash out of cans in the alley, Thomas and his peers whipped together a castle set and dragon puppets for a medieval fantasy story, complete with improvised percussion instruments. “It put me on fire,” Thomas remembers now. “I was so excited about that. It took one day for me to have that influence. One exposure.”

When collaborating with companies, factoring in the learning curve for each puppet is an essential component to Thomas and the studio’s design process, something he learned during Redmoon’s annual winter pageants. These featured elaborate puppets, including a caterpillar that transformed into a butterfly and required 14 trained performers to operate. But the events also had a high level of audience interaction, which necessitated that puppets with “foolproof” operational designs, like a simple trigger, be handed off to untrained spectators. (Even professional actors sometimes need foolproof designs. One of Thomas’s favorites is the single-hand operated tail- and head-wagging poodle manipulated by Patti LuPone in the Chicago production of War Paint at the Goodman Theatre in 2016. The puppet was a compromise between LuPone’s desire for a live dog and the producers’ for a stuffed animal.)

Upcoming productions featuring work by the Chicago Puppet Studio

Pinocchio Through 5/19: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, 773-769-3832, thehousetheatre.com, $30.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 5/8-8/4: Wed-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan, 312-337-0665, lookingglasstheatre.org, $45-$65.

Cluck Cluck Cabaret Sat 5/18, 7:30 PM, Tiny Tempest Farm, W4355 Mohawk Rd., Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 262-374-4903, tinytempestfarm.com, $5.