Peter Schumann is the German-born artist who founded Bread and Puppet TheaterBread and Puppet Theater is an American political puppet com... in 1963, and the central figure in American political puppetry.
He came from sculpture and dance
rather than from puppet theatre, which shows in everything the company makes. Bread and Puppet’s figures are built as moving sculpture — huge, rough, expressive at distance — rather than as characters designed for close inspection.
The bread is not a metaphor
Schumann bakes sourdough rye and serves it free at performances, on the argument that art should be as ordinary and as necessary as food, and priced accordingly. Sixty years on, this is still the practice.
The construction philosophy
Papier-mâché over armatureAn armature is an internal wire or jointed skeleton inside a..., cardboard, cloth, scrap timber, house paint. Nothing expensive, nothing precious, everything repairable and replaceable. The associated Cheap Art manifesto argues directly against art as a luxury commodity, and the company sells its prints and publications for very little as a matter of principle.
Why a builder should take that seriously
It is the most complete working counterexample to the idea that good puppetry requires specialist suppliers and expensive foamFoam is the structural material most soft puppets are built ... More. Bread and Puppet has made internationally significant work for six decades out of materials you could gather this afternoon.
The politics are inseparable
from the work — the company formed around Vietnam-era protest and has continued in that vein since, performing at demonstrations and processions as readily as in theatres.
Based in rural Vermont
since the 1970s, where the company farms, performs outdoors in summer, and keeps a museum of accumulated puppets in a converted barn.