Puppet show! Puppet show! Bread & Puppet Theater is excited to announce that we will kick off our 61st year by traversing the Northeast and Eastern Seaboard with a brand-new play created with our director, Peter Schumann, for the exact moment at hand. Of the show–The Hope Principle Show: Citizens’ Shame and Hope in the Time of Genocide–director Peter Schumann says, “With mother dirt prologue, citizen despair gymnastics, massmurder victim’s traditional dance of death celebration, absentee humanity dance. Featuring a flock of disaster ravens and hope principle caribou and exorcism rites for the genociders.”
MUSEUM OPENING – an afternoon of music and puppetshows to celebrate the opening of the B&P Museum for the summer 2 p.m. June 2nd
JUNE SUNDAY SHOWS 3 p.m. June 9th-July 7th in the Papier Maché Cathedral Show Title(s) TBD
JULY -AUGUST
EVERY SATURDAY SHOWS July 13th-August 31st in the Circus Field 2 p.m. Sideshows 3 p.m. Circus (title TBD) followed by Mass (title TBD)
EVERY SUNDAY SHOWS July 14th-August 25th in the Circus Field 2 p.m. Sideshows 3 p.m. Circus (title TBD) followed by Pageant (title TBD) 5 p.m. Possible guest performer
FALL SCHEDULE
POLITICAL LEAF PEEPING – our last event of the season with music and puppetshows 2 p.m. October 6th
A bit about our summer circus: This summer Bread & Puppet will once again proudly present our traditional summer Circus, a brand-new show in the tradition of the iconic Bread & Puppet circuses that began at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont in 1970. As usual, the show will draw on traditional circus tropes as well as beloved Bread & Puppet characters and iconography to draw attention to the urgent issues of the day. Stilt dancers, paper maché beasts of all sizes and a riotous brass band make a raucous, colorful spectacle of protest and celebration.
The show, says Schumann, is “in response to our totally unresurrected capitalist situation…our culture’s unwillingness to recognize Mother Earth’s revolt against our civilization. Since we earthlings do not live up to our earthling obligations, we need resurrection circuses to yell against our own stupidity.”
After the show we will serve our famous sourdough rye bread with aioli, and Bread & Puppet’s “Cheap Art” – books, posters, postcards, pamphlets and banners from the Bread & Puppet Press – will be for sale at the Circus Field Store as well as in the Bread & Puppet Museum, right across Rt. 122.
Come join us for a Paper Mache Mass in the ballroom at the the B&P farm on Sunday, December 24th and 31st as well as Sunday, January 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th!
If you’d like to participate in the mass, please arrive for a brief rehearsal at 1pm prior to the mass.
Puppet show! Puppet show! The Bread & Puppet Theater returns to New York City with two urgently-needed political puppet shows. Ever focused on this exact moment, these new shows bring paper-maché politics, cardboard spectacle, and our sourdough rye bread to circus-goers and mass-attendees this December. Crystal Field, executive Artistic Director of Theater for the New City, has presented Bread & Puppet Theater for decades in the beloved downtown venue and is thrilled to host the company again this year––Bread & Puppet’s 60th.
Seating is limited. Tickets $15-$18 available here:
The Idiots of the World Unite Against the Idiot System Circus
Wednesday, December 6 @ 8pm
Thursday, December 7 @ 8pm
Friday, December 8 @ 8pm
Saturday, December 9 @ 3pm & 8pm
Sunday, December 10 @ 3pm
The circus is coming! The circus is coming! Bread and Puppet presents The Idiots of the World Unite Against the Idiot System Circus, a brand new show in the tradition of the iconic Bread & Puppet Circuses that began at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont in 1970. As usual, the show will draw on traditional circus tropes and familiar Bread and Puppet iconography to draw attention to the urgent issues of the day. Stilt dancers, paper maché beasts of all sizes and a riotous brass band make a raucous, colorful spectacle of protest and celebration.
The show, says Schumann, is “in response to our totally unresurrected capitalist situation, not only the hundreds of thousands of unnecessarily sacrificed pandemic victims but our culture’s unwillingness to recognize Mother Earth’s revolt against our civilization. Since we earthlings do not live up to our earthling obligations, we need resurrection circuses to yell against our own stupidity.”
The Mother Dirt Mass
Thursday, December 14 @ 8pm
Friday, December 15 @ 8pm
Saturday, December 16 @ 3pm & 8pm
Sunday, December 17 @ 3pm
Mother Dirt makes us and unmakes us ordinarily and extraordinarily, nourishes and nourishes us, and exposes us to her opposite: the idiot system of war waging human history, pretending to protect us from disaster and providing us with continuous disasters, if not here, there, if not there, somewhere else, uninterruptedly and tremendously, un-persecuted by international law, protected by national exceptionalism, paid for by taxpayer money, originally meant to fix the potholes in car roads, in actuality enlarging the forever biggest pothole: the abyss our all-together abyss – unless, unless we the idiots unite against the idiot system.
“Earthlings are now aflame and consequently need inflammatory rants, directed against the arsonist: Western Civilization and its incompetent government”, says Bread & Puppet director Peter Schumann. “The habitual pragmatic communication jargon won’t do, so the ranters have to resort to the original language which was tasked to employ the spells, charms, and incantations needed to confront the disaster in order to instigate change – with help from Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid ideology.”
Beginning next week (November 1-12), Bread & Puppet Theater will again tour its acclaimed Inflammatory Earthling Rants with Help from Kropotkin. This time traveling to cities and towns including Bennington, Geneseo, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Kingston, and Montreal. Times and ticket details vary by venue, so check out the full tour schedule for details.
Every Wednesday and Friday 3-5 pm in the Bread and Puppet Printshop
Want to give us a hand in the Printshop? Here is the form to select days you’d like to attend in May. Please note that Volunteer session times have officially changed to 3pm-5pm Wednesdays and Fridays. On Friday’s we paint posters and on Wednesday we do miscellaneous Printshop projects from sewing, ironing and painting banners to printing new prints on fabric and paper.
No Experience Necessary
Every Wednesday and Friday 3-5 pm in the Bread and Puppet Printshop
Want to give us a hand in the Printshop? Here is the form to select days you’d like to attend in September. On Friday’s we paint posters and on Wednesday we do miscellaneous Printshop projects from sewing, ironing and painting banners to printing new prints on fabric and paper.
Bread and Puppet will continue to put on our performances Every Saturday and Sunday at 3 PM rain or shine. But, due to the unprecedented amount of rain that has been hitting Vermont will have to cancel for major Flooding. A major issue we face is that our parking lot, which is mainly a grassy field, keeps getting compromised from all of the consistent rain and flooding. We are currently working on improving our drainage infrastructure and coming up with creative ideas to tackle this issue.
Any tickets purchased for any Cancelled performance will be accepted for all future circuses and performances, no check-in or logistical work required.
If anyone is in need of a refund, please feel free to email [email protected]
We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and disappointment this might cause in the future . We hope that the weather will lighten up as the summer goes on and this doesn’t continue to be a problem.
