The Bread and Puppet Theater (often known simply as Bread & Puppet) is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, based in

Glover, Vermont Glover is a town in Orleans County, Vermont, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the town's population was 1,114. It contains two unincorporated villages, Glover and West Glover. The town is named for Brigadier General John Glover, w ...

. The theater was co-founded by Elka and Peter Schumann. Schumann is the artistic director. The name Bread & Puppet is derived from the theater's practice of sharing its own fresh bread, served for free with aïoli, with the audience of each performance to create community, and from its central principle art should be as basic as bread to life. The Bread and Puppet Theater participates in parades including

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

celebrations, notably in Cabot, Vermont, with many effigies including a satirical

Uncle Sam Uncle Sam (with the same initials as ''United States'') is a common national personification of the United States, depicting the federal government of the United States, federal government or the country as a whole. Since the early 19th centu ...

on stilts.

History

Peter and Elka Schumann founded the Bread & Puppet Theater in 1963 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It was active during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...

protests, primarily in New York City, prompting ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' reviewer T.E. Kalem to remark in 1971, "This virtual dumb show is as contemporary as tomorrow's bombing raid." A Sicilian puppet show had inspired Schumann, and Bread & Puppet inspired other groups across the continent, including

Gary Botting Gary Norman Arthur Botting (born 19 July 1943) is a Canadian legal scholar and criminal defense lawyer (now retired) as well as a poet, playwright, novelist, and critic of literature and religion, in particular Jehovah's Witnesses. The author o ...

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

-based People & Puppets Incorporated, which in the early 1970s also used effigies yards-high to depict political themes and social commentary in radical street theater. In 1970 the theater moved to

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

, first to

Goddard College Goddard College was a Private college, private college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle. The college offered undergraduate and graduate degree programs. With predecessor ins ...

in Plainfield, and then to a

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

in Glover where it remains. The farm is home to a cow, several pigs, chickens, and puppeteers, as well as indoor and outdoor performance spaces, a printshop, a store, and a large museum showcasing over four decades of the company's work. Bread & Puppet has received

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

grants, awards from the Puppeteers of America, and other organizations. In 1984 and 1985 they toured colleges with an indoor play, ''The Door'', which told the story of "the massacre of Guatemalan and El Salvadorian Indians and the plight of refugees trying to escape through a diabolically opening and closing door to the North." With "only minimal use of the spoken word", the play made its points "with great simplicity and beauty". Until 1998, Bread & Puppet hosted its annual pageant and

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

(in full, ''Our Domestic Resurrection Circus''), in and around a natural

amphitheater An amphitheatre ( U.S. English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ('), meaning "place for vie ...

on its Glover grounds. In the 1990s, the festival began drawing crowds of tens of thousands, who camped on nearby farmers' land during the annual summer weekend of the pageant. The event became unmanageable, and concerned itself less with the theater's performance. In 1998, a man was killed by accident in a fight while camping overnight for the festival, forcing director Peter Schumann to cancel the festival. Since then, the theater offers smaller weekend performances all summer, and traveled around

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, with occasional tours around the U.S. and abroad. The theater runs a program where apprentices help produce and act in performances. In New York City, Bread & Puppet performs at Theater for the New City during the holiday season each year. In August of 2021, at the age of 85, Elka Schumann suffered a stroke and passed away. She was buried in a pine grove, on the grounds of the theater's farm.

Beliefs

"Cheap Art" and theater funding

The Bread & Puppet Theater operates under what they call the "Why Cheap Art" manifesto. This principle states that art should be accessible to the public, not "a privilege of museums & the rich". The theater is quoted as claiming: "art is not a business". Bread & Puppet productions are free or paid for by donation, and related art is for sale "for very little money". The theater operates on a "shoestring" budget. This means that staff are historically paid as low as $35 a week (in 1977) and that many items used in the production of the theater, including clothing and raw puppet materials, are obtained second hand or by donation. The theater typically has been known to generate the funds necessary for production by going on tour. Although government grants are available to the theater, Schumann rejects the "absurdity" of grants for protest, insisting the lack of aid "leaves him freer to experiment". This attitude towards business led Schumann to disband the communal company of the theater in 1973 out of concern that the theater was coming too close to a "pattern of the professional theater". Disbanding the company gave Schumann "uncompromising control" over production. "Cheap art" is said to be a core principle of the theater, and is reflected both in its ethics and in its aesthetics. Ethically, the theater is described as anticapitalist and generally is regarded as having a "

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

" viewpoint, Aesthetically, the theater is often described as "slapdash" or "unsightly", as well as modest and "distinctively homemade".

Causes

Specific causes supported by the theater include: * Opposition to warfare * Opposition to registering for the

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

* Opposition to the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...

* Support of the shut down of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant * Support for the

Sandinista National Liberation Front The Sandinista National Liberation Front (, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistan ...

revolution in

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

(1979–1990) * The Zapatista uprising of 1994 * The

MOVE Move or The Move may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Move (company), an American online real estate company * Move (electronics store), a defunct Australian electronics retailer * Daihatsu Move, a Japanese car * PlayStation Move, a motion ...

organization

Works

Selected performances

''Fire'' (1965)

An hour long play that critiqued the ongoing war in Vietnam. It was dedicated to American protesters who died after setting fire to themselves and depicted life for Vietnamese villagers during the war.

''Birdcatcher in Hell'' (1971)

kyōgen is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. It developed alongside '' Noh'', was performed along with ''Noh'' as an intermission of sorts between ''Noh'' acts on the same stage, and retains close links to ''Noh'' in the modern day; there ...

that critiqued President Nixon's pardoning of soldiers involved in the My Lai massacre.

''Stations of the Cross'' (1972)

Described by Larry Gordon, at the time the general manager of the company, as a "partially metaphoric ndpartially literal" rendering, ''Stations of the Cross'' was a contemporary interpretation of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

story of Jesus' suffering on the way to his eventual

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...

. Gordon provided the music direction for the production, the first time

Sacred Harp Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music which developed in New England and perpetuated in the American South. The name is derived from ''The Sacred Harp'', a historically important shape notes, shape-note tunebook printed in ...

music was performed at Bread and Puppet. Elka Schumann stated that the production was also a metaphor for the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

''Joan of Arc'' (1979)

A show that incorporated musical instruments and puppetry into a retelling of the story of St. Joan. This work also had a revival in 1999. Taiwan is the first Asian country to show the new version of ''Joan of Arc'' in 2009.

''Mending the Sky''/''Bu Tian'' (1994)

A collaboration between Bread and Puppet Theater and the 425 Environmental Theatre in Taipei, Taiwan. The play focused on current pollution issues in Taiwan through references to traditional Chinese mythology. In particular, the show depicted the goddess

Nüwa Nüwa, also read Nügua, is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humani ...

and called attention to the pollution of the Tamsui River in its first performances. Later performances focused on different geographical features affected by pollution depending on where the show took place. For example, the work focused on the Love River when it was shown in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Overall, the effectiveness of this collaboration was called into question because many of the members of the 425 Environmental Theatre engaged in environmentally harmful practices (such as smoking) and a part of the show involved burning a puppet which created a considerable amount of black smoke. Still, the work received praise from critics for its relevant social messages.

''Bread Baker's Cantata'' (1999)

Performed alongside the revival of ''Joan of Arc''. It was a slow paced play that depicted an old woman's last day on Earth using singers and actors.

''Combined Insurrection/Resurrection Services (2020)''

Their first production after the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

forced them to cancel a planned tour. Featuring

cantastoria (; also spelled , or ) comes from Italian for "story-singer" and is known by many other names around the world. It is a theatrical form where a performer tells or sings a story while gesturing to a series of images. These images can be paint ...

-style paintings, skeletal dancers and a " fiddle lecture", the performance was critical of the public response to the virus, as well as police brutality. It highlighted themes of uprising and grief, including "lamentations" for those killed by the virus, and for

George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit tw ...

Other performances

Shows not described above are shown in chronological order in the tables below, by decade of their first performance.

Books and publications

In addition to the theater, some of the Bread & Puppet puppeteers operate the Bread & Puppet Press, directed by Elka Schumann, who is Peter Schumann's wife (and granddaughter of Scott Nearing). The press produces posters, cards and books on the theater's themes as well as other forms of "cheap art". Publications from the Bread & Puppet Press include: * Cheap art manifestos ** ''10 Purposes of Cheap Art'' ** ''Importance of Cheap Art'' ** ''Why Cheap Art?'' * Comics ** ''40 How Tos'' ** ''Courage'' ** ''Life and Death of Charolette Solomon'' ** ''Off to Lubberland'' ** ''Planet Kasper Volume I'' ** ''We Grass''

Notable contributors

Notable writers and performers who have participated in the theater, include * Children's theater performer Paul Zaloom. * Writer Grace Paley. * Artist and writer Suze Rotolo

Conflicts

2000 Republican National Convention

Bread & Puppet volunteers were among the 79 people arrested at a warehouse in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

during the 2000 Republican National Convention. The

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

reported the scene of the "SWAT-style" raid was broadcast live by news helicopters. Years later, the AP explained there "was tense talk (later proved unfounded) of terrorist plots being hatched in the 'puppetista' headquarters, of bomb building and anarchist-fueled mayhem". Its report did not include the police's side of the story. "A couple of our folks were down there, helping to build puppets", said Linda Elbow, company manager for Bread & Puppet. "The cops went into the studio ... arrested people, and took the puppets. So, now, puppets are criminals."

2001 Halloween Parade

The Bread & Puppet Theater is a regular participant in New York's Village Halloween Parade, noted for its use of giant puppets. In 2001, Bread & Puppet did not march in the parade. The theater's plans that year included a presentation protesting the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

. The Halloween parade was to occur fifty days after and 1.5 miles away from the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. It was this attack which was the pretext for starting the war which Bread & Puppet Theater was protesting, and the company's "anti-war stance" reportedly "already placed it at odds with some New Yorkers", according to Dan Bacalzo of TheaterMania.com. Many of the parade's macabre elements were suspended that year by its director Jeanne Fleming. It was not known until October 25 whether it would even take place. Linda Elbow commented, "We certainly weren't saying 'Hooray for the terrorists.' We were saying, 'Look what you're doing to the people of Afghanistan. An unattributed quote in Bacalzo's report — "What you're bringing, we don't want" — suggests it was the group's selection of material that was unwelcome, not the group itself. The report did not make it clear how the decision was made, or who made it; the incident was included as secondary background material in a piece publicizing an upcoming Bread & Puppet show. Fleming, who was not interviewed by Bacalzo (but is quoted as if she was), says that Bread & Puppet was not "disinvited", adding that it was she who first invited the company to march in the parade when she took over as organizer. In December 2001 the theater returned to New York with ''The Insurrection Mass with Funeral March for a Rotten Idea: A Special Mass for the Aftermath of the Events of September 11th''. It was presented at Theater for the New City, and billed as "a nonreligious service in the presence of several papier-mâché gods". "Insurrection masses" are a common format for the Bread & Puppet Theater, as are such "funerals", though the "rotten" ideas change.

Critics' comments

Writers who praised Bread & Puppet include historian

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn ...

, who cited its "magic, beauty, and power", and poet and

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

commentator Andrei Codrescu, who wrote: "The Bread & Puppet Theater has been so long a part of America's conscious struggle for our better selves, that it has become, paradoxically, a fixture of our subconscious." The theater's protestations of the Vietnam war and message of peace generally received positive television coverage, as noted in peace focused magazine '' WIN''.Lampe, K. (1976)
"Bread & Puppet Theater"
''Win: Peace and Freedom thru Non Violent Action'', 12 (15), 18–19. Keith Lampe, in ''WIN'', also positively comments on the theater's 1966 anti-war demonstration by commending Peter Schumann's "concern for movement", "sound", and "appearance". In a 2015 criticism of the theater's production ''The Seditious Conspiracy Theater Presents: A Monument to the Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera'',

Gia Kourlas Gia Kourlas is an American dance critic. Since 2019, she had written as the dance critic for ''The New York Times''. Early life and education Kourlas was raised in Columbus, Ohio. She began dancing at age 5; a few years later, she switched to f ...

described the show as "patchy", at times "more cute than pointed", and seemingly "preaching to the converted" in an article for the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

Influence

The Bread & Puppet Theater has a visual reference in the 2007

Julie Taymor Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of ''The Lion King (musical), The Lion King'' debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Awards, Tony Award nominations, with ...

film ''

Across the Universe "Across the Universe" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song first appeared on the 1969 various artists' charity compilation album ''No One's Gonna Change Our W ...

''. The movie replicated characters such as Uncle Fatso, Washer Women, White Ladies, and the many armed Mother head. The Bread & Puppet Circus Band also has a reference in the costumes of the circus band during "

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is a song recorded by the English rock band the Beatles for their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written and composed primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. ...

". The difference between the real life costumes and the ones made for the movie is the real life ones are red and black, whereas in the movie they are white and black. The Bread & Puppet Theater is in the film's credits. In her 2008 memoir ''A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village In The Sixties'', New York painter and illustrator, Suze Rotolo, notes she worked a fabrication job with Bread & Puppet early in 1963 near

Delancey Street Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City. It runs from the street's western terminus at the Bowery to its eastern end at FDR Drive, connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge and Brookly ...

, on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

of Manhattan. She described Peter Schumann as a "very sincere and committed man" and a "true visionary". In his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One,

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

mentions Peter Schumann's presence at a party held in honor of fellow folk singer,

Cisco Houston Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of traveling and recording together. Houston was a reg ...

. In his description, Dylan made reference to the Bread and Puppet Theater play, ''Christmas'' ''Story''. In the Czech Republic, a puppet troupe named ''Buchtky a Loutky'' () was formed in Prague in the 1990s. Their name is an allusion to the Bread and Puppet theater.

References

External links

Bread and Puppet Theater official Web site

Photos of Bread and Puppet Theater
*

Videos of the Bread & Puppet Theater from Green Valley Media

TheaterMania
news feature December 3, 2001 *
Archive.org Bread & Puppet Archive
{{authority control 1962 establishments in New York City American anti-capitalists Anti–Vietnam War groups Art museums and galleries in Vermont Glover, Vermont Museums in Orleans County, Vermont Arts organizations based in Vermont Performing groups established in 1962 Political theatre companies Puppet museums in the United States Puppet theaters Theatre companies in Vermont Puppetry in the United States Postmodern theatre