Bread and Puppet draws on traditional circus troupes to focus attention on 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. Three shows are presented this year, with a different program each week.

December 4-8: The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus.
Director 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.”

December 12-15: A double bill of The Possibilitarian Imperative Everything Show & Gray Lady Cantata #9.
 Possibilitarians, operating on the Principle of Hope, put on their 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 include puppets large and small, music, up-to-the-minute politics, and spectacles not to be missed. After the show Bread & Puppet serves its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli.