Author: Bread & Puppet Theater
The Honey Let’s Go Home Opera
The Honey Let’s Go Home Opera is a fantasy on flatness that takes cardboard as its muse and prime material.
In Honey, cardboard is bent, rolled, stapled, and vividly painted by Peter Schumann to create the precarious, exuberant costumes of the soloists, who celebrate the fact that “only flatness can save you” on a melody from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The chorus dresses in monochrome primary colors — some all red, others all blue or yellow — and operates flat cardboard puppets of the tools used to manipulate cardboard — a stapler, a pair of pliers, a box-cutter — as well as other basic cardboard objects — a goose, a bicycle, a cup and saucer.
Created in September 2017, Honey is the result of a collaboration between Gregory Corbino (tenor), Susie Perkins (soprano), Idith Korman (pianist, and director of New York’s Ensemble Pi), Peter Hamburger (sound-machine maker), the Bread and Puppet company, and a chorus of volunteer performers, under the direction of Peter Schumann. The Honey Let’s Go Home Opera was performed again in New York City December 14-17, 2017 at Theater for the New City.
We are currently seeking weeklong engagements for The Honey Let’s Go Home Opera, preferably in Europe or in the Eastern US. Please contact Joshua Krugman ([email protected]) us for details.
Bread and Puppet Museum Celebrates Opening Of 43 rd Season
BREAD AND PUPPET MUSEUM CELEBRATES OPENING OF 43 rd SEASON
Sunday, June 3 rd , 2 p.m.
The Bread & Puppet Museum celebrates the beginning of its forty-third season with a
Museum Open House on Sunday June 3 rd , 2-5pm. Visitors will be treated to live music, large and small puppetshows, and free sourdough rye bread with aioli.
Festivities begin at 2 p.m. with singing from The Sacred Harp, a collection of early American choral music featuring many Vermont composers. Then the Bread and Puppet Museum’s guard, a diminutive wood-carved puppet, will take up his post at his desk on the bench beside the door to the Museum and the Museum will be officially open for the season. The public will then be free to browse the Museum’s unique collection of more than 50 years of puppets, sets, banners, and paintings from the Bread and Puppet Theater – newly spruced up by a spring cleaning, and with a few new additions.
Meanwhile, in the Museum as well as on the grounds and in the other farm buildings, Bread and Puppet friends and neighbors will perform various simultaneous musical acts and puppetshows. Performers will include Clare Dolan of Glover, Meredith Holch of East Hardwick, Merry-Go-Round of Glover, Adam Cook and Hayley Lewis of Sheffield, and (for the 43 rd consecutive year) Burt Porter of Glover with his band.
At 4pm the Bread and Puppet Company, assisted by 15 students from Concordia University in Montreal, will perform their first shows of the season: Gun Dialectics in the small theater “Under the Barn,” followed by Grasshopper Rebellion in the Paper Maché Cathedral. “Gun Dialectics” grapples with the role of the gun in US politics, economy, culture, and psyche by throwing together various contemporary actors – judges, teachers, citizens, non-citizens, politicians – and arming them with questions, answers — and guns. Grasshopper Rebellion is Bread and Puppet’s latest attempt to understand
and learn from the 6,000 generations of human revolutions against human management in order to further the many revolutions underway in the present. To this end, the Bread and Puppet company takes inspiration from the grasshoppers, who carry on with their revolutionary business no matter who is the president.
Bread and Puppet’s famous sourdough rye bread will be available throughout the afternoon, as will fresh mint tea.
The Bread and Puppet Museum will be open daily 10am-6pm (as well as after shows) until
November 1 st .
The Bread and Puppet Museum is located at the Bread and Puppet Farm on 753 Heights Rd./Rt. 122 in Glover, Vermont.
Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts on Display at Towle Hill Studio
Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts by Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theater on Display at Towle Hill Studio
May 26 th -27 th and June 2 nd – 3 rd
Peter Schumann’s Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts for the ¾ Empire will be exhibited at Towle Hill Studio. Over 40 large scale woodblock print banners on exhibit. There will be a special reception on Saturday, May 26th at 4:00-6:00pm to celebrate the work, including a special appearance of “Garbage Man” who will present “The Mission Statement of the Bread and Puppet Theater”. Per Bread & Puppet tradition, bread and aioli will be served; cheap art, Bread and Puppet Press publications, and exhibit banners will be for sale.
Exhibit background:
As minister of Christian congregations in Asia Minor, John wrote ‘The Apocalypse’ in response to the Romans’ brutal persecution of those belonging to the Christian faith. The visions he outlined of divine justice and revenge inspired numerous Middle Ages artists, and Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was assuredly acquainted with several Flemish and German examples. Dürer’s 1495 apocalypse woodcuts are passionate portrayals of slaughter and supernatural mayhem, likely in response to the equally horrible contemporary atrocities committed by the Church and aristocracy against peasant uprisings in the 15 th and 16 th centuries.
Inspired by Dürer’s series, Peter Schumann cut his Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts for the ¾ Empire in the early months of 2017, addressing, “the brand new horror of our own Empire boss’s threat to eliminate whole countries for non-compliance with Empire politics.” Lila Winstead added assemblages of carved words, from the Bread and Puppet print shop archives, and printed them on large muslin fabric.
Towle Hill Studio is open to the public Saturday, 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm; and Sunday 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm.
On certain scheduled weekends only, please check the website for updates as they happen.
For more information visit:
www.towlehillstudio.com or 802-439-3730.
www.1284bf722a.nxcli.net or call 802-371-7239.
A few Studio Housekeeping Notes
Parking:
Please park on Center Road and in the driveway of 28 Center Road. Parking on Towle Hill Lane is limited to the area on the right just in front of the split rail fence. Please limit you’re driving on Towle Hill Lane to this area only and use only if you are need to. This is a private lane that several houses share, it is not my driveway.
Show times:
Please show respect for our neighbors by adhering to the posted show times.
Noise:
Please enjoy yourselves but quietly!
Dogs:
Dogs are welcome but only on Towle Hill Studio land; please do not walk your dogs up the hill on the private lane.
Woodcut Banner Exhibit at Towle Hill Studio, May 26th-27th and June 2nd-3rd
Giant Woodcut Banner Exhibit
May 26th-27th and June 2nd-3rd
Towle Hill Studio
28 Center Road, Corinth, Vermont 05039
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Inspired by Dürer’s series, Peter Schumann cut his Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts for the ¾ Empire in the early months of 2017, addressing, “the brand new horror of our own Empire boss’s threat to eliminate whole countries for non-compliance with Empire politics.” Lila Winstead added assemblages of carved words, from the Bread and Puppet print shop archives, and printed them on large muslin fabric. The text within the images is from the cantastoria of the same title.
Join us for our receptions on Saturday, May 26th at 4 PM with “The Garbage Man” and on Saturday, June 2nd at 4 PM with a small musical performance.
Join us for a special event on Sunday, May 20 at 3:00 pm in the Highland Center for the Arts’ Gallery
Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts by Peter Schumann
of Bread and Puppet Theater
Post-Apocalypse for 3/4 Empire
March 12 – May 28, 2018
Highland Center for the Arts
2875 Hardwick Street, Greensboro, VT
Join us for a special event on Sunday, May 20 at 3:00 pm in the Highland Center for the Arts’ Gallery, with a performance by Peter Schumann & Co.
Bread & Aioli served after the show, with cash bar. Cheap art, Bread & Puppet Press publications, and limited-edition exhibit banners for sale.
Over 40 large scale woodblock print banners on exhibit! Inspired by Dürer’s series, Peter Schumann cut his Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts for the ¾ Empire in the early months of 2017, addressing, “the brand new horror of our own Empire boss’s threat to eliminate whole countries for non-compliance with Empire politics.” Lila Winstead added assemblages of carved words, from the Bread and Puppet print shop archives, and printed them on large muslin fabric. The text within the images is from the cantastoria of the same title.
Announcing the 2018 SPRING TOUR! New England, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, DC
Bread and Puppet Theater will tour the Northeast, with shows in all of the New England states, as well as New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington DC!
We will be performing two brand new shows, The Basic Byebye Show and Cantastorias from the Possibilitarian Arsenal!
Check out our touring page for a detailed schedule and our Facebook page for updates!
Bread and Puppet Exhibit up until March 2nd in South Royalton, VT
Post-Apocalyptic Woodcuts by Peter Schumann
of Bread and Puppet Theater
Post-Apocalypse for 3/4 Empire
January 15 – March 2
White River Gallery
Inspired by Albrecht Durer’s 1495 apocalypse woodcuts, Peter Schumann cut this
series in masonite in the early months of 2017. Lila Winstead added assemblages of
carved words, from the Bread and Puppet print shop archives, and printed them
on large muslin fabric. These Post-Apocalyptic woodcuts for the 3/4 Empire address the brand-new horror of our own Empire Boss, who threats to eliminate whole countries for non-compliance with Empire politics.
Opening Reception February 3, 2-5 pm
with performance by Peter Schumann & Co. at 2 pm (snow date, February 10)
Admission by Donation, Bread & Aoli served
Cheap Art, Bread and Puppet Press publication, including the brand new 3/4 Empire
Books, and Exhibit Banners (limited edition) will be for sale
White River Gallery
35 S. Windsor St., South Royalton, VT 05068
- 498.8438
Monday-Friday, 10-4
And by appointment, contact Gallery Director, Dian Parker: [email protected]
https://balevt.org/white-river-gallery/
https://www.facebook.com/southroyaltonvt/
Diagonal Life: Theory and Praxis
“Diagonals are created from the leaning power of hurt verticals,” says Peter Schumann, founder and director of Bread and Puppet Theater.
We inhabitants of Western modernity are no strangers to verticality, from the architecture of our cities, to the “ladder(s) of success” we’re asked to scale, to the incessant wakefulness required of us, postponing the horizontal pleasures of sleep. Bread and Puppet’s Diagonal Life presents the diagonal as a potent and promising opposition to the dominating verticality of our culture. Puppeteers long ago realized that the most aesthetically radical movements for puppets are diagonals, because these movements are cannot be sustained by human actors or dancers for more than a moment. (Gymnasts upsidedown themselves frequently and with ease, but diagonal positions remain inaccessible without the use of puppet.)
Diagonal Life brings all the bewildering, beguiling, and downright funny possibilities and implications of diagonality to life with song, dance, magic, mechanism, and stunning cardboard and paper maché puppets painted in Peter Schumann’s exuberant, slapdash expressionist style.
The Diagonal Life Circus and The Normality Rebellion Pageant
Bread and Puppet begins its summer season with weekly performances of The Diagonal Life Circus & Normality Rebellion Pageant starting on July 7th. These shows explore the generic verticality that we as individuals and as a society participate in, and present the diagonal as an alternative to that verticality. According to Bread and Puppet director, Peter Schumann, “Diagonals are created from the leaning power of hurt verticals,” and the Circus & Pageant speak to this by displaying the power of hurt verticality.
The shows will be performed outdoors, with the circus occurring in a natural amphitheater made from a grown-over sand quarry and the pageant in the spaces around the top of the amphitheater, which include a pine forest and an expansive field. The circus is accompanied by live music, from fiddle to brass band and Georgian songs to Dixieland Jazz. The circus company is made up of 50-100 puppeteers, who work together to combine their skills and personal passions into many several-minute acts that, when placed back-to-back, make up the show. The pageant is a longer, more abstract piece that interacts thoughtfully with the landscape and audience to give a sense of closure after the speed and excitement of the circus.
The day begins with side-shows at 2p.m. in the circus field, with the circus field store open for purchase of posters, banners, books, and postcards. The circus begins at 3p.m., signalled by the opening brass band tunes and the traditional first flag act. After the circus at around 4p.m., audience members are directed towards the beginning of the pageant, which runs for another hour until 5p.m. At that point, fresh-baked rye bread and aioli are served in the bread house in the field, and guest performances take place in the Paper-Maché Cathedral when the museum bell rings. Throughout the day, the circus field store, museum store, and cheap art bus remain open and selling posters, banners, books, and postcards. The event in total runs from 2p.m. to around 6p.m.
Bread and Puppet begins Circus & Pageant performances alongside Friday Night Shows in the Paper Maché Cathedral, Shape-note Sings on Tuesdays, and a smattering of Circus performances in various locations around New England. All performances are by cash or check donation with no-one turned away for lack of funds. The puppet museum is open from 10a.m. to 6p.m. daily in the summer, and the museum store and cheap art bus are open and self-serve by the honor system.
The Circus & Pageant run every Sunday through August 25th at the Bread and Puppet Theater, 753 Heights Road, Glover, VT. Parking is in the circus field for the show, with accessible parking spaces available on request. Dogs are welcome if they are well-behaved and leashed, and kids generally enjoy the show as much as adults. The suggested donation for all shows is $10-20, but no-one will be turned away – we would much rather have audience members than money.
