The Vanishing Elephant

Vanishing Elephant - Sensory Friendly Cheat Sheet


Vanishing Elephant - Know Before You Go

Vanishing Elephant - Social Narrative

This incredible story of resilience and friendship, inspired by true events, comes to life through large-scale puppetry, illusion, and magic.

Jenny, a young elephant, is born in the 1900s in Bengal, India and full of curiosity about the world around her. But one day her life changes dramatically when she is captured and separated from her family. She must learn the ways of humans, which is sometimes cruel and hard, but her friendship with a young boy called Opu carries her through this time.

When Jenny is sold to a circus in America, she must make the strange journey across the sea to a new world filled with many adventures, but she never stops thinking of home. She eventually meets the great Harry Houdini who plans to make her disappear from the stage of the Hippodrome, New York. Meanwhile, far away in India, her old friend Opu is now an old man and he recognizes his dear friend in a newspaper story. Despite ill health, he makes the same difficult journey to New York that Jenny once made. There on the stage, they meet again one last time, and together they are part of an amazing and moving magical vanishing.  

This large-scale production premiered in NYC on October 14 2023, presented by the New Victory, and was declared a Critic's Pick by the New York Times -  "This alluring spectacle..., which aims to dazzle audiences 8 and older, makes powerful statements about the rights of both animals and human beings."