Types of Puppetry: Toy Theatre

This is a new one for me. In the past decade or so, there has been a growing popularity for toy or miniature theatre performances. This artform started out as a domestic diversion in the 1800s, a way to recount famous operas and ballets in the comfort of one's own salon or parlour:



Ahhh ... wasn't life in a pre-internet world grand!

What started out as a novel pastime on lazy Sunday afternoons has become a very exciting vehicle for public performance, as seen here in a "trailer" for Chicago's Redmoon Theater's production of "Once Upon a Time (or the Secret Language of Birds)":



Accessibility to video cameras and decent video projectors certainly helps!