Something Beautiful and Powerful: Politics, Art, and Bread and Puppet Theater

The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963, and in 2022, is one year away from its sixtieth anniversary, making it one of the oldest theatre companies in the United States. Its founder and director, Peter Schumann— now eighty-seven—discovered an inspiring and flourishing performance world in early 1960s New York, where his dreams of a masked dance theatre troupe became a reality in downtown Manhattan. The rise of ensemble theatre companies like the Living Theatre, the Open Theater, and the Performance Group, alongside the interdisciplinary world of Happenings, dance, and music centered around Judson Church, created a fertile and supportive environment in which Schumann found like-minded and willing collaborators to realize his visions of ritualist dance theatre with puppets and objects. The influence of visionary artist Richard Tyler (founder of the Uranian Phalanstery in a disused Hungarian synagogue on East 4th Street), and activist novelist Grace Paley led Schumann away from loft performances and art-world happenings, and onto the streets and sidewalks of New York where Schumann could present crankie scroll performances and create giant puppet happenings as part of parades organized by the burgeoning anti-Vietnam War movement.