The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus
December 4-8
The circus is coming! The circus is coming! The 61-year-old Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater returns to NYC with its latest circus! This raucous spectacle attempts to address the heart of the current moment with a bright barrage of acts spanning many moods, from slapstick to the sublime, all powered by a riotous brass band.
Of this year’s show, The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus, director and founder Peter Schumann reports that there will be “tigers teaching the congress of cowards how to jump over billionaires and acquire the courage to not pay for the atrocities of the latest genocide; the proverbial sheep of the system refusing to be sheep and committing revolution against the system; and the blue horses of the peace and harmony terrorists of the Northeast Kingdom breaking through the wall of threatening clouds that hide the truth from the population and then galloping over the ruins of the truth industry.”
The Possibilitarian Imperative Everything Show & Gray Lady Cantata #9
December 12-15
Puppet show! Puppet show! This tour presents a double bill, directed by Peter Schumann, crafted for this exact moment: The Possibilitarian Imperative Everything Show, followed by Gray Lady Cantata #9.
The word “possibiltarian” is a Marc Estrin translation of Robert Musil’s term “möglichkeitsmensch” from his novel The Man Without Qualities, about the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The term was invigorated by Margaret Thatcher’s remark on capitalism: “there is no alternative,” to which we respond: “there are a thousand alternatives!” Of The Possibilitarian Imperative Everything Show, director Peter Schumann reminds us that, “at a time when Freedom and Democracy slaughter babies and moms by the dozen every day and don’t even seem to have any understanding of what they are doing to the world or to themselves, we Possibilitarians, operating on the Principle of Hope, put on our boots to kick aside impossibility and declare new possibility in response to this obviously despaired situation.”
Gray Lady Cantata #9 continues a series of shows made in the 60’s and 70’s in response to the Vietnam War. This new iteration features texts from Palestinians living through the war in Gaza. With the iconic gray lady puppets from the original production moving through vignettes both dreamlike and brutal, Gray Lady Cantata #9 offers meditations on grief, war and resistance.
As always, the shows will include puppets large and small, music, up-to-the-minute politics and spectacles not to be missed.
After each show, Bread and Puppet serves its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli, and Bread and Puppet’s “Cheap Art”—books, posters, postcards, pamphlets and banners from the Bread and Puppet Press—are for sale.
