We are happy to announce that the Summer/Fall 2025 Theater Apprenticeships are now accepting applications. There are 3 apprenticeships offered this year:
Please click the relevant links for more information about how to apply! Note: These are Theater apprenticeships. Please stay tuned for information about Printshop Apprenticeships.
Questions about the theater apprenticeships? contact the apprentice coordinator at [email protected]
For questions about printshop apprenticeships, contact [email protected]
The Bread and Puppet Theater presents “The Christmas Story” at 7 pm on Friday December 20th at the Greensboro United Church of Christ, and at 7 pm Saturday December 21 at the Old Labor Hall in Barre Vt. The show was created by Peter Schumann in 1962 at a residency in Putney Vermont and was performed every year at Christmas time until the mid 1980’s. The puppeteers are reviving the show with the help of archival video and photos as well as interviews with the original performers. The show is necessarily updated to reflect the horrors of the current situation, and contains a strong anti-war message.
From a 1967 New York Times review: “… a dramatization of the first Christmas that combined reverence and impudence exactly as they are combined in the medieval mystery plays. The scene is at once the holy land and super America; the time then, and now. Joseph and Mary sleep with the cows because they don’t have $26.50 for an oasis size downstairs at the Sandy Arms motel. King Herod prates about the balance-of-payment deficit. The bubble-headed bourgeoisie of Jerusalem dismiss the star in the east as a publicity stunt for a new picture. The approach may seem campy or sacrilegious. It is neither.”
$15 suggested donation, at the door.
For the Greensboro show, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Hardwick Area Food Shelf.
Bread & Puppet welcomes the public to our Annual Political Leaf Peeping, where we will celebrate the glorious fall landscape and the completion of another summer season with an afternoon of music, puppet shows and potato pancakes.The event will take place Sunday, October 6th at the Bread & Puppet farm in Glover, VT.
Kicking off at 2 pm, our Political Leaf Peeping will include Sacred Harp singing and the opening of the autumnal landscape for political viewing. Bread and Puppeteers of the past and present will regale you with cantastorias, songs and puppet shows performed around the property. This will be accompanied by a performance of our brand new show, Gray Lady Cantata #9,directed by Peter Schumann. The Museum of Anti-Modern Art will also be open for viewing of Schumann’s latest painting series. The afternoon will conclude with the serving of the traditional political leaf peeper’s dinner: potato pancakes with fresh applesauce.
About Gray Lady Cantata #9: In the late 60’s through the mid 1970’s, Peter Schumann created a series of shows in response to the Vietnam war called “The Gray Lady Cantatas“. The shows featured the iconic gray lady puppets moving through vignettes both dreamlike and brutal. This new version, Gray Lady Cantata #9, directed by Peter Schumann, uses texts from Palestinians living through the war in Gaza, and, like the older versions of the show, is a meditation on grief, war, and resistance.
The Bread & Puppet Museum—showcasing one of the largest collections of giant puppets in the world—and the Museum Store—featuring a selection of new and old posters, books, and banners from the Bread & Puppet Press—will be open throughout the afternoon.
Tickets are $10 each. Each ticket provides access to all performances happening during the day. We ask that you purchase tickets ahead of time. However, it’s central to our philosophy that our performances are as accessible as possible and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Admission by cash donation for kids 6 and under. You can purchase tickets on our website here. If online tickets sell out, tickets will still be available at the door, space allowing.
EVERY SATURDAY SHOWS July 13th-August 31st in the Circus Field 2 pm – Sideshows 3 pm – The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus
4:30 pm – Gaza Gray Lady Cantata
EVERY SUNDAY SHOWS July 14th-August 25th in the Circus Field 2 pm – Sideshows 3 pm – The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus followed by Pageant.
5 pm – Guest Performance (TBA)
**Dogs are discouraged, though well behaved dogs on leash are allowed. If you bring your dog, PLEASE SIT IN THE BACK of the audience, AT THE TOP OF THE AMPHITHEATER as far away as possible from the brass band and bring plenty of water (there is none onsite).
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.
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.
