Sicilian Puppet Theater coming to campus

Sicilian Pupi, or Sicilian Puppet Theater, will present a performance at 6 p.m. Oct. 30 in Foellinger Auditorium, 709 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana. The event is free and open to the public.

The performance is presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicagoand the Italian Program at Illinois. The tradition of puppet theaters connects Renaissance poems on ladies and knights with street performance and has survived throughout the centuries in Italy. The company is led by puppeteer Mimmo Cuticchio.

“It is an extremely rare occasion to see in the U.S. what has been named by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity,” said Eleonora Stoppino, the director of the Program in Medieval Studies at Illinois and a professor of French and Italian.

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