For over twenty years, puppet artist Michael Montenegro has been developing his unique style in the Evanston community both as a solo artist and as a collaborator with different theatre groups and commissioned projects, culminating in the recent formation of his own company, Theatre Zarko: Puppet Symbolist Theatre. The dedicated artists in this ensemble have been working together for the past ten years producing such work as:

Iktu Blas.  Produced in 2001 through The Actor's Gymnasium for the International Puppet Festival, this piece is a surrealistic study of power and loss that charts the rise and fall of an imaginary dictator.

Dreams From an Upside Down Man.  Commissioned in 2002 by the Chicago Cultural Center, this piece chronicles the memories of a relationship through the filter of poetry and humor by reinterpreting birth, falling in love, conflict, and forgiveness.

The Sublime Beauty of Hands.  Created for the Infinitesimals Festival at Links Hall in Chicago in 2004 and remounted for the Winterroot Festival at Links Hall in 2005 and the Tulipanes Festival in Holland, Michigan in 2007, this piece explores the vicious cycle of modern technology that destroys and then attempts to redress the wrongs it creates.

Each production has further solidified the working relationships between the artists of the company and has led to the next step of formally consolidating our efforts into a nonprofit corporation.  Under the artistic direction of Jeff Award Winner Montenegro, the mission of Theatre Zarko: involves the exploration of puppetry as an innovative, developing art form.  In addition to developing a repertoire of experimental puppet theatre for both adult and family audiences, we intend to establish a school of puppetry arts that will provide training in the building and manipulation of various types of puppets within the context of contemporary theatre.  Our work expresses a strong visual point of view that plays with scale, metaphor, and integral live music. Our company of collaborators includes educators with experience in elementary, secondary, university and special education instruction in language, theatre, and visual arts as well as a resident composer and professional musicians.  In addition to a skilled, dedicated ensemble, we have strong working relationships with a number of theatre companies in Evanston and the surrounding area, including Next Theatre Company, Piven Theatre Workshop, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Writers’ Theatre, and The Actors Gymnasium.  Through relationships with these established theatre companies, we are provided with guidance and support and we hope to collaborate on additional projects in the future.

Throughout our work history, we have continually struggled to introduce audiences to a broader vision of the art form of the puppet. Our artistic vision includes but goes far beyond children's entertainment.  In other countries from India, to Bali, to the Czech Republic, puppetry is acknowledged as a serious art form with a long respected history thousands of years old.  Over the past few years, puppetry has achieved more mainstream visibility with the success of Julie Taymor’s Lion King and the Broadway musical, Avenue Q.  However, despite the presence of puppetry in Chicago with companies such as Redmoon Theatre and Hystopolis Theatre, Evanston does not have a company currently producing experimental puppet theatre, and there is no school of puppetry arts in the area.  Furthermore, it is our contention that puppetry can provide a unique enrichment to language arts and can serve as a strong methodology to enhance educational experiences.