We Missed the Train and Had to Wait

About This Show

We Missed the Train and Had to Wait playfully re-envisions Anton Chekhov’s 1904 play The Cherry Orchard in a palette of clown, mime and found-object puppets. As society tumbles into decay, the last remaining idealist clambers for solid ground amidst oversized luggage, tiny trains and walls that can’t be trusted. An exploration of property, progress and the places we call our own, We Missed the Train invites you to join in the party—before it’s too late. 

Music & Sound Design: Lia Kohl
Directorial Outside Eye: Lindsey Barlag-Thornton
Design & Fabrication Assistance: Jacky Kelsey
Technical Direction: Riche Schiraldi
Run Crew - Lenny Fritsch
Production Support: Mike Oleon Special thanks to Michael Brown, Jeremy Ohringer, Mike Oleon, Janine Saxe

Development of this project was supported in part by The Jim Henson Foundation, the Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, Links Hall and Physical Theater Festival Chicago.

This Rough House program was made possible in part by support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. 

About Claire Saxe

Claire Saxe is performer, puppeteer, theater maker and arts educator, driven by work that stretches forms, genres and expectations. As an independent artist and Co-Artistic Director of Rough House Theater Company, her practice leads her between puppetry, physical theater, performance art and the passions of collaborators. Most recently, Claire directed the U.S. production of Théâtre de l’Entrouvert’s Anywhere, a work of artistic transmission between the Entrouvert company (France) and the Chicago International Puppet Festival. Other recent credits include Invitation to a Beheading at the 2023 CIPTF (Co-Creator & Performer) Rough House’s 2021 & 2022 House of the Exquisite Corpse (Lead Artist & Performer), and you wanna go forever (Genesis Ensemble at Steppenwolf LookOut), Rough House’s Harrow House (Playwright & Performer) and others. As an actor Claire has performed on the Steppenwolf mainstage (Anne Frank, 2007 Jeff Nominee, Actress in a Principal Role), and in storefronts, on festival stages and in DIY spaces across the U.S. and U.K. In addition to arts-education with Rough House, Claire teaches puppetry at The Theater School at DePaul and theater at a K-8 Montessori school. Claire holds a BS in Theater and Classical Studies from Skidmore College and an MA in Physical Theater Directing & Actor Training from the University of Exeter, UK.

About Rough House Theater Company

Rough House is on a mission to connect individuals and communities through puppetry-art that celebrates the weird things that make us unique and the weirder things that bring us together. Born in 2009 in a storefront home-studio in Logan Square, Rough House’s work collides puppetry with physical theater, music, visual arts, with an appetite for experimentation. Through public workshops, artist incubation and performances, Rough House works towards a vision of Chicago as a national hub of contemporary puppet theater and epicenter of the Puppet Utopia.

We Missed the Train and Had to Wait was first developed with support of a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation and workshopped at Links Hall’s Co-MISSION residency in 2019-2020. A second iteration of the work-in-progress was presented within the Physical Theater Festival Chicago’s Scratch Night in July, 2022. The project’s 2023 development is supported in part by the Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation.

Artist Links: @theclearclaire//@RoughPuppets//@linesbyjacky