Keith Shubert takes people’s trash and breathes new life into it. He gives it a chance at permanence that can outlast those that disposed of it and even the re-animator himself.

Shubert is a puppeteer. He creates small beings out of dead wood, disposed toys and anything else he can get his hands on.

The majority of people, when thinking of puppet theater, view it as an event for children along the lines of Jim Henson’s “Sesame Street.” Puppets can break out of the confines of counting the lower digits and deal with subjects deeper than TV’s adult dramas, especially when they are at the whim of Shubert.

Shubert has been working seriously now in the puppet arts for more than five years. He has traveled from Chicago to Atlanta performing his one-man show. He has studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and continues to work under Blair Thomas, one of the nation’s most-respected puppeteers. Unfortunately, puppetry doesn’t receive a lot of public attention.

“[Puppetry] is viewed, generally, as a dying art form,” Shubert admits. “But then again, it has been viewed as a dying art form for a hundred years now.”

In spite of puppetry’s approaching demise, Shubert continues to work at his pieces and performances with incessant fervor, the fervor of one obsessed.

Puppetry, for him, is the arena where one can have god-like control over all the characters and dialogue. Catharsis comes, for Shubert, through this splintering of his psyche.

Recently, Shubert has worked with a local band, the Bunko Musical Circus and the Great Influence Machine, to create a surreal cast of puppets to share the stage with the musicians. Shubert has worked alongside NIU’s theater department in the past to create a version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” where live actors shared the stage with puppet counterparts. Shubert’s credits also include his own one-man show adaptations of “Faust,” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” and most recently, “The Cabinet of Dr. Calligari.”

Shubert works with rod-and-glove puppets, popularized by Jim Henson, but does not shy from using variations on shadow puppets and marionettes. For Shubert, often one character will come to him as the voice in a piece that he most associates with.

“When I have that initial character … then often that will be the initiation to build the rest [of a performance] to go along with it,” he said.

Currently, Shubert is working on a long-delayed piece; he expects to reshow “The Cabinet of Dr. Calligari” sometime in early October and is in the early stages of planning a local puppetry workshop. Shubert also curates a monthly animation festival, the next of which will be held 10 p.m. Sept. 17 at Otto’s Niteclub, 118 E. Lincoln Highway.

Shubert also encourages any and all interested in puppetry to contact him at 815-758-8821.