The Unicorn Theatre and What if Puppets produce Refuge, a multilingual migrant musical

The cast rehearses onstage with the pit bull and wolf rod marionettes. // Courtesy of Nathan Gwartney.

From Jan. 25 through Feb. 12, The Unicorn Theatre will produce Refuge, co-created by Satya Jnani Chavez and Andrew Rosendorf. Original puppets were created by Matthew Hawkins and the team at What if Puppets, including resident Puppet Artisan, Jamie Urban, and Director of Puppetry Arts, Mike Horner. The production was initially staged at the Curious Theatre in Denver, CO, and is now being brought to Kansas City as part of the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere initiative.

Co-creator, composer, and lyricist Satya Chavez describes the plot: “Refuge is about a young Honduran migrant who makes her way to the U.S. with the aid of human smugglers, and she is abandoned in the desert. We find her at the beginning of the play wandering aimlessly in the middle of nowhere, Texas. She’s on the verge of death, completely dehydrated, and she stumbles upon this rancher’s land. Then he and his pet pit bull and a lesbian, pregnant Border Patrol agent, who also happens to be Mexican-American, have to decide whether or not to deport her or help her.”

Chavez will also be starring in the production at the Unicorn Theatre as the head musician/troupe leader. She says there is a twist to her character’s role which should come as a surprising revelation to the audience.

Refuge provides a multilingual theatre experience that shows the audience the perspective of someone navigating an unknown language. According to Chavez, some of the show’s characters exclusively speak Spanish and some exclusively speak English, while some of the animal characters can speak both languages. However, there are no subtitles provided to the audience, so “we as audience members have to navigate language in real-time with the characters in the play,” according to Chavez.

Chavez says that monolingual speakers should not feel deterred from attending the play. “Whether or not you speak English or Spanish, there’s a myriad of other languages we use in the play, like music, lyricism, movement, puppetry, and all of the soundscape,” Chavez says.

Poster promoting Refuge at the Unicorn Theatre. // Courtesy of The Unicorn Theatre.

To Chavez, her play challenges the expectations theatergoers often have, and the audience who playwrights and stage producers typically privilege. “This play can seem intimidating to monolingual English speakers who are accustomed to walking into a theatre space and experiencing a piece that is written by them, for them, and for their entertainment,” Chavez says.

“We often assume we’re going to understand every single word and moment and joke in a play. I challenge that notion because this play is about what it means as an immigrant, as a migrant, as a refugee, to come into a new place out of necessity and be expected to conform to your surroundings.”

The rod marionette-style puppet characters include the rancher’s pet pit bull and a wolf—two characters whose relationship mirrors that of the rancher and the migrant girl, according to Chavez.

Other puppets include a desert rat, a rattlesnake, and a vulture.

The puppets, designed and constructed by Matthew Hawkins and the team at What if Puppets, are all made of recycled materials found abandoned along the Mexican-American border. According to Mike Horner, Director of Puppetry Arts at What if Puppets, the found objects that were turned into materials for the puppets include plastic bags, burlap, and cans. The pit bull puppet is made entirely of abandoned denim.

The pitbull puppet made of reclaimed denim. // Courtesy of Tess Koppelman.

The use of reclaimed materials provided a unique challenge for the puppet builders. While building puppet prototypes, the puppet-makers had to ask themselves, “Is this material going to do what we need it to do? Is it light enough for the puppet? Will it hold up for the run of a show?” Horner says.

Though Refuge is recommended for audiences 16+, What if Puppets mostly works with younger children in the community. “Our mission is to inspire, play, and cultivate connections through puppetry,” says Executive Artistic Director, Meghann Henry. What if Puppets achieves this mission not only by creating puppets for stage productions such as Refuge, but also by producing touring shows, creating puppets for commercial partners and events, and providing unique puppetry experiences for children through integrated arts residencies in schools.

What if Puppets also works directly with educators and their students in classrooms across KC. “Our goal is to inspire educators to become more playful to create deeper relationships with the children in their classrooms, because when they’re modeling playful behavior, the kids are more engaged, and that’s socially and emotionally how we create bonds with one another.”

Crux KC recently selected What if Puppets as the recipient of their $30,000 Crux for a Cause grant, to be used for marketing. “We, as a small nonprofit, do not have a marketing director,” says Henry. “For us to get this amount of support is almost overwhelming to think about, what this kind of focused marketing resources can do for an organization like ours.”

Aside from attending productions, community members can support What if Puppets by volunteering in the shop, or those with sewing skills can volunteer to help build educational puppets. Henry says What if Puppets also hosts a program three times yearly called Puppets in Progress, geared toward “artists, puppet enthusiasts, and folks that feel puppet adjacent.”

These programs are “a great, free way for people who have an interest in puppetry to get to know some people who are interested in the practice as well,” Henry says. The next Puppets in Progress event will likely involve puppet karaoke, according to Henry.

Refuge will run at The Unicorn Theatre between Jan. 25 and Feb. 12, 2023. It is a pay-what-you-can show, meaning audience members can donate what they can afford and be granted entry.