ANDERSONVILLE — Noah Ginex has come a long way from performing his puppet show behind a couch for the kids he was babysitting about 21 years ago.
That was at age 14 when he was growing up in Old Irving Park and the show mainly consisted of nursery rhymes he could sing, some that were previously recorded and a few puppets he owned, he said.
"As the years went on [the show] got more advanced and I was able to create more characters. Over the last 10 years, I've gotten a group together. ... Now we're able to write everything, do the music as much as we can and really control how the show goes," said Ginex, who added writers and directors to the team to create the Noah Ginex Puppet Company.
[Noah Ginex behind the scenes of "The Saturday Afternoon Monster and Piggie Variety Show." Courtesy of Arne Parrot]
The cast of "The Saturday Afternoon Monster and Piggie Variety Show" a.k.a. SNORF! includes Ginex, Adam McAleavey, Sarah Gilmore, Regan Davis and Sam Locke. In January, Ginex and his puppet company will bring their show to Stage 773, at 1225 W. Belmont Ave., for the Chicago Comedy Sketch Festival.
The show is billed as variety show featuring a cast of ridiculous characters, songs, sketches, musical improv and viewer mail, but don't expect a fluffy kid's show, he said.
"It's sort of kin to the old 'Muppets' show from the '70s because it has a human [interacting with the puppets] during the show, but it's mostly puppets. It's accessible to children, but not geared towards them. It's not crude or lewd, but we don't shy from sarcasm. It's not a kiddy show with blocks and crayons," he said.
Ginex, 35, of Andersonville, has dreamed of doing the sketch comedy festival for years, but never found the time. The project is one "we're taking on aside from everything else we're involved in," he explained.
For example, Ginex also creates and sells puppets and creatures for Chicago's theater scene.
"Honestly, we've been looking at doing Sketch Fest for a couple years and we've always been too busy to do, or even apply to do Sketch Fest," said Ginex adding this year the timing was perfect. "We wanted to do the show again for people. Sketch Fest was the best way to get our show seen by as many people as possible. And it's very easy for us to do our show."
[The cast behind the scenes of "The Saturday Afternoon Monster and Piggie Variety Show." Courtesy of Arne Parrot]
The show seemed like a "good fit" for the festival, and puppeteering is also a good fit for sketch comedy. That being said he isn't sure it's the new face of sketch comedy.
"There's a lot of opportunity to do sketch comedy with puppeteers. You can do a show with 25-30 different characters and they all look different as opposed to an improv show with the same five faces," he said.
Puppeteering is one of the oldest forms of art. It's lasted so long partially because of some people who want to perform, but don't want to deal with crowds staring at them and because of the creativity it allows, he said.
"It could be the new face of sketch comedy, but that's not our goal," Ginex said. "The most fun we have is in rehearsal, writing for the show. [The performance] is just the frosting on this amazing cake of writing and being creative together. I'm doing this show because I love these people and love being creative together."
The group will perform at 2 p.m. Jan. 17. Tickets for the Chicago Comedy Sketch Festival will be available here.
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