The Gaithersburg Arts Barn and Alex & Olmsted Puppetry will present Milo the Magnificent at 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17, at The Arts Barn. The performance is suitable for all ages.
The Gaithersburg Arts Barn is located at 311 Kent Square Rd. in Gaithersburg. General admission is $10. Admission is $3 for youth ages 10 and under. Purchase tickets here.
Milo the Magnificent is a highly engaging puppet show about an aspiring magician. The wordless comedy, inspired by turn of the century vaudeville entertainers, is as highly physical as it is charming. Using stunningly innovative puppetry, Milo presents a variety of magic tricks that do not always go as planned.
Milo the Magnificent was awarded the 2017 Jim Henson Foundation Grant and the 2017 Greenbelt Community Foundation Grant.
Laurel Graeber wrote the following review of the performance in The New York Times in 2018:
"Milo is a bit of a cardboard character, but you can’t blame him for that. He’s a puppet: specifically, a huge cutout fellow, whose arms, hands and feet belong to one of his creators, and whose changing facial expressions are recorded on flippable circular cards. The duo Alex & Olmsted — Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas — invented his world, which includes other puppets made of cleverly repurposed materials. Milo, appearing here as part of the ‘Just Kidding’ series, aspires to be an illusionist, and while his tricks and experiments rarely work out as planned, children will still find them magical."