Special Effects Festival 2025

Founded by the visionary duo Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson of Big Art Group the Special Effects Festival (SFX) has championed groundbreaking, genre-defying work since 2014. After a hiatus due to the pandemic, the festival is back to rekindle the spirit of the avant-garde and create a shared space to gather for contemporary performance. Held every year in the midst of the Annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in NYC, SFX celebrates the eclecticism of contemporary performance.

Illuminated Skies: A Night of Puppetry 
Curated by Amanda Card
January 9 @ 7 PM

Cumulo by Emily Batsford
Cumulo follows protagonist Plum as she freefalls through the sky, meeting weather and whimsy along the way. A nonverbal puppet piece that (sky)dives into our accumulation of self and the experiences that shape us.

An excerpt from Shiny One by Jon Riddleberger
Featuring Max Gayford, Nick Lehane and Joseph Lymous
When Shiny One stumbles upon a dangerous sickness in the forest, they must use their unique light to save the forest and bring the people back to nature. Shiny One is a brand new puppet theater piece currently in development.

Cast From Heaven by Jacob Graham
Performed by Jacob Graham and Avemaria Magdalena
Cast From Heaven is a ceremonial reenactment and dramatization of something that may or may not have happened in the deep past. A short, contemplative vignette in the vein of The Wormwood Star.

Where Did You Go, Connie? by Amanda Card
Where Did You Go, Connie? is an experimental puppet show blending shadow puppetry, toy theater and live-feed puppetry. Inspired by musician Connie Converse’s life and disappearance, it explores themes of visibility, invisibility and self-destruction.

Curated by Kyla Gordon
January 10 @ 7 PM
Featuring Wonderful Cringe by Nicholas Sanchez, Harlequin by Adonis Huff & Jelani Best and work by Lele Dai.

Gray Spaces
Curated by Lisa Clair
January 11 @ 7 PM

Idiot Void (working title) by David Commander
Idiot Void (working title) is a work in progress and an initial effort to create a framework in which to amplify the dying scream of all humankind. It is also a musical puppet show.

double column by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Featuring Deja Rion
double column, is a performance piece with text and live music that looks to strings—those of the heart, those of rope and shibari and those of stringed instruments—to explore Marissa’s relationship to love (in all of its forms). The harmonies. The dissonance. The knots. The tuning. The rigging. The surrendering.

5G Maitreya by Glenn Potter-Takata
5G Maitreya is a multimedia performance work that looks at parallel notions of the ‘real’ in Buddhist metaphysics and a digital/material divide. Using video projected 3D renderings of Buddhist deities and ritual objects paired with 3D-printed facsimiles, the work brings the digital into the tangible as an analogy for Buddhist distinctions between the consciousness and the material.