Uncanny Cabaret III - Variety Show & Fundraiser for Driveway Follies

Join us to kick off the Halloween season with Uncanny Cabaret III — the third annual multi-media variety show and fundraiser for our friends at Driveway Follies, the long-running and beloved Oakland Halloween puppet show tradition.

This family-friendly event will include a mix of live performances, puppets and recent and historic Halloween-adjacent films. 8 Fables Shadow Puppet Orchestra will perform The Golden Egg with rod puppets, shadow puppets and a live musical score; David Wallace & Leonara Taylor-Wallace return with Kitty Cat Kids Go On Vacation—the third chapter in their on-going narrative series—with live action and handmade puppets; Kathleen Quillian's expanded poem The Tempest conjures the spirits and creatures that lurk in the shadows through cut paper silhouettes, lumia and various optical tricks; Ellie Vanderlip takes on Alfred Hitchcock in oiseaulium densare her multi-projector deconstruction of his classic film The Birds; Kiera Griffith will introduce you to some of her large handmade puppets and members of Driveway Follies will give a special presentation of some of their amazing trick puppets and a behind the scenes look at their annual puppet show experience.

Woven through these performances will be several recent and historic Halloween-adjacent films including Kerry Laitala's Spectrology (2009) which simulates the magic of 18th century phantasmagoria shows through optical tricks and mesmerizing spectral illusions captured on 16mm film; PLUS The Skeleton Dance (1929) and Hell's Bells (1930)—two classic Silly Symphony animations celebrating the spooky delights of the season.