StoneLion Puppet Theatre presents '1,000 Cranes and the Tree of Wishes'

This choose-your-own adventure featuring intricate puppets invites each audience to pick which cranes to let fly from the Tree of Wishes. No single performance will be the same – funny, touching, poignant and completely unique.

Wishes could be:

• What would happen if unicorns were real?
• What good is the smallest of us?
• What if your shoes could talk?
• What if the world was at peace?

At each performance, the audience will be shown how to make their hands into cranes to fly as the wishes are brought to life in interactive fun and to reinforce the idea that our actions can actually make a difference, especially as part of a community. Audience members are encouraged to leave their wish for the world to be added to the show.

Written by Heather Nisbett-Loewenstein. A collaboration with Dr. Ha Houng of Hong Duc University Thahn Hoa Vietnam and literally hundreds of children from Vietnam to Kansas City, Kenya to Overland Park, from Iceland to Leavenworth, and along so many more lines of longitude and latitude.

StoneLion Puppet Theatre

StoneLion Puppet Theatre (SPT) is a professional, nonprofit theater company dedicated to the mission of expanding the horizons of the young—and young-at-heart—through the art of puppetry, in an interdisciplinary community of ethnic and cultural diversity with a focus on environmental sustainability.

Founding Artistic Director Heather Loewenstein created SPT 33 years ago when she discovered puppetry-melded performance and design into one big lump of fun that could communicate complex ideas and messages in a way that traditional theater could not.

SPT has produced over 100 full-scale theatrical puppet productions and gained a world-wide reputation for creating giant puppet spectacles and interactions. This includes five years of giant illuminated puppets in Puppets a Glow, annually reaching 15,000 area citizens on the mall of The National WWI Museum and Memorial, as well as 15 years of The Calacas Light Up Giant Puppet Parade in partnership with Mattie Rhodes Art Center for El Dia de los Muertos.

Pre-Covid, SPT produced 15 years of Mother’s Day for Mother Earth giant puppet plays, which wowed audiences and grew to be the largest free community family art event in the Midwest, where the public helped participate in creating the giant puppets, all focused on creating community and protecting our environment. Among other awards, SPT was the puppet designer and performer that helped local Kansas City Public Television win a regional Emmy for “Bark Park Place” in 2001. SPT’s production of “Backyard Buggin” for Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium won the American Zoological Association (AZA) Award for Environmental Education in 2006. SPT has worked as a U.S. State Department Sponsored artist for nine years, training teachers and the community to use art to protect our planet and reduce plastic in Fiji, Laos, Vietnam, Ukraine, Israel, and Kenya.

SPT performances have been a regular part of programming at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Art Museum (Bentonville, Arkansas), Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The Smithsonian Institute, Midwest Trust Center, and St. Louis Art Museum. Their work has been sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Environmental Protection Agency, Missouri Arts Council, ArtsKC, Kauffman Foundation, Johnson County Stormwater Education, MARC, and many more. Last year alone, StoneLion gave 183 performances and produced 12 giant puppet events.

Currently, SPT is in collaboration with The St. Louis Symphony to create an original giant puppet play celebrating water to debut the spring of 2027.