Category: Tour Events

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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.

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:
TICKETS

NYC Publicity: Press Release, Poster, Shareable Image, Facebook event

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.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Shape Note Singing, short performances from guest political puppeteers and a performance of our Mother Dirt Mass followed by Potato Pancakes for all.

Join us for the opening reception of 60 Years of Bread & Puppet on Friday, September 8th from 6–9pm! Founder Peter Schumann will perform a Fiddle Rant, and a silkscreen workshop will be offered by Iskra Print Collective in collaboration with Bread & Puppet Press. Works on exhibition span the 60 years of Bread & Puppet history, including puppets, prints, and painted bedsheets and banners. Printed material by Bread & Puppet will be available for sale during the opening reception and Monday through Saturday, 8am – 3pm.  Bread & Puppet will be providing their bread and aioli. This event is free and open to all!

Mother Dirt Mass: Every Sunday at 3:00pm in The Paper Mache Cathedral. No tickets necessary.

Join us at Bread and Puppet for our 2nd Annual Wayzgoose to honor and celebrate printers and the trade of printing! This one day event is based off the traditional printers’ holiday that marked the end of summer and the start of the season of working by candlelight. Later, the word came to refer to an annual outing and dinner for the staff of a printing works or the printers on a newspaper.

Printers and print enthusiasts are invited to join us for the full day. More information and registration is here. 

The public is invited to join in the afternoon for an open house, printing activities, print fair and performances! No registration is required, just show up with your friends. We hope to see you there!