The Marvelous Bread & Puppet Theater

Story by Ed Atkeson
Photographs by Cathy Frank

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s the Bread and Puppet Theater’s Domestic Resurrection Circus festival was a regular part of our summer. 1998 was the last year for the big fest, and we hadn’t gone since then. Then this last August we made the trek up to Glover in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

I am happy to report that everything is as it was. The Museum is still there. There is a big new theater. Peter Schumann is baking bread, creating plays and walking on his tall stilts in the Circus. On the weekends in July and August, there is a Friday night drama in the new theater, and the Circus and Pageant is on Sunday.

It’s wonderful.

It’s incredible.

The Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont is an East Coast North America “must see.” If you live this close, you gotta get up there. Maybe put it on your calendar for next summer…

And if you want to get a taste of the Bread and Puppet Theater right here in Nippertown, you’ll have the opportunity on Saturday (October 20) when they come to Troy as part of the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s StoryHarvest. The festivites kick off at 3pm with a street parade with Bread and Puppet Theater and the Korean percussion ensemble Sonagi Project. The parade starts at Troy Central Little League field (Swift and 7th Avenue), pauses for soup at the Collard City Growers’ garden, and concludes at Freedom Square (6th Avenue and 101st Street), where B&PT will present their new work, “The Circus of Possibilitarians” at 4pm. The Sonagi Project percussionists will perform at concert at 5pm. Then at 6pm the Sanctuary for Independent Media will host a community potluck dinner (bring something to share) in conjunction with the opening of the photography exhibit, “Four Lenses on North Troy.”

Also, from 11am-3pm, members of B&PT will be conducting the Be The Media! Institute for Subversive Papier Mache workshop. Learn how to make picture stories (cantastoria), create signs and use found musical objects… then join in the parade. It’s free (although donations are appreciated to cover expenses); registration is requested.