Blair Thomas is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in Chicago, North America’s largest puppet Festival, starting in 2015. There he co-created the Chicago Puppet Lab, the design and fabrication wing of the Festival and the Chicago Puppet Lab, an incubator program for the development of new work.
Blair is currently writing and directing Lena a full length work with the grammy winning new music sextet Eighth Blackbird with a commissioned score by Andy Ahiko. He most recently designed and performed Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature? in collaboration with Nois Quartet. He served as the puppet director, designer and writer for the feature film Dear Stranger and created Little Amal Spectacle for the Chicago Festival in the fall of 2023.
His puppetry design work has been seen at Metropolitan Opera House, MCA Chicago, Loyal Museum of Art, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater, Trinity Rep, Alliance Theater, Lookingglass Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre and House Theater.
The Selfish Giant
From 2002-2018 he led Blair Thomas & Co creating chamber puppet theater works that toured nationally and internationally, the last two of which were Moby-Dick at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes, France and Buried Alive With Edgar Allan Poe with Greg Allen at Nordland Visual Theatre, Norway.
Other notable works during this time were: Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, in collaboration with Eighth Blackbird; The Selfish Giant, created with late folksinger Michael Smith and Chicago Children's Theater; The Ox-Herder’s Tale created with percussionists Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake and The Snow Queen with Frank Galati and Michael Smith.
Blair created a series of solo shows inspired by literary works: The Blackbird from the Wallace Stevens’ poem, St James Infirmary from the traditional blues ballad, Don Cristobal and Buster Keaton’s Stroll from Federico Garcia Lorca, Gashly Crumb Tinies and Insect God from Edward Gorey, and Jonah from Herman Melville.
Blair Thomas. Photo Saverio Truglia
In Chicago Blair started Redmoon Theater in 1989, where he served as the artistic director and co-artistic director until 1998, during which time he was principal in the creation of all its productions, parades and pageants. Notable indoor stage works during this time were Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, The Ballad of Frankie and Johnny, You Hold My Heart Between Your Teeth, Red Devil Green Devil, and The Evil Flower. Redmoon was the first Chicago company to produce large scale spectacle theater both outdoors and indoors and Blair led the creation of the annual Winter Pageant, and Halloween Lantern Parade and Spectacle, as well as Long Live the King and The Big Evil.
Before that he served as the assistant artistic director at the Organic Theater Company where he directed the award winning The Danube. He also assisted Larry Sloan at the Remains Theatre Ensemble, Bob Falls at Wisdom Bridge Theater.
His first company, The Palace Puppeteers performed in churches and schools in his home town in Alabama 1975-1977. He served on the tech crews for three seasons at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival from 1977-1980.
As a teacher Blair taught puppetry at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1990-2026 in both the Performance and Sculpture departments ending his time there as a Full Professor Adjunct. He served as the first Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence for the 2006-7 academic year at the University of Maryland. He has taught courses variously at University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Chicago. During the 1980’s he worked as an Illinois Arts Council artist-in-residency in the Chicago Public Schools for 5 years.
Blair is a graduate of Oberlin College (1985), with a dharma teacher ordination from the Maitreya Buddhist Seminary (2009) and an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2023).
He was awarded the Chevalier of Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture, two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, two Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Awards and number Jeff nominations and awards. For three terms he served on the Jim Henson Foundation Board of Directors. A former President of UNIMA-USA, he now serves on the UNIMA International Festivals Commission.