Bread and Puppet Theater

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For Immediate Release: September 16, 2003
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker
610-328-8534
tkratte1@swarthmore.edu
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Bread and Puppet Theater to Perform at Swarthmore College

The Bread and Puppet Theater will present "The Insurrection Mass with Funeral March for a Rotten Idea" at Swarthmore College on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 3 p.m. in the Arthur Hoyt Scott Outdoor Amphitheater (in case of rain, the performance will be held in the Pearson-Hall Theatre, Lang Performing Arts Center). "The Insurrection Mass" lasts about one hour and is followed by the distribution of sour dough rye bread baked fresh in a brick oven which Peter Schumann, founder and director of The Bread and Puppet Theater, will build on campus. This event is free and open to the public. Families are welcome. For more information, please call 610-328-8200.

Peter Schumann says: "The Insurrection Mass with Funeral March for a Rotten Idea" is a non-religious service in the presence of several paper maché gods. The rotten idea, which gets explained and buried, is usually derived from some recent political-economical event or idea which deserves burial. The Mass comes complete with secular scripture readings, a fiddle sermon, and hymns in which the public is invited to participate. The puppets are made of cardboard; the music is live and includes an ancient Georgian chant. As part of "The Insurrection Mass," Bread and Puppet will show "How to Turn Distress into Success: A Parable of War and Its Making."

The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 on New York City's Lower East Side by Silesian-born sculptor and choreographer Peter Schumann. After a four-year residency at Goddard College, the Theater moved to their permanent home on a farm in Glover in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in 1974. Until 1998, an annual performance known as Our Domestic Resurrection Circus was held at the farm in late August, drawing crowds of up to 40,000. Now the Theater produces a lively ongoing summer season from June through the end of August with the help of an internship company. During the rest of the year, The Bread and Puppet Theater tours its indoor shows and massive outdoor spectacles in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. Their pageants have a broad theme-oriented appeal to large non-elite audiences. They address social, political, and environmental issues, or simply the common urgencies of our lives. Peter Schumann and The Bread and Puppet Theater have received the Obie Award, the Erasmus Award from Amsterdam, the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Puppeteers of America Award.

Bread and Puppet's performance is sponsored by the William J. Cooper Serendipity Fund, the Departments of English Literature, Religion, and Theater, the Dean's Office, Drama Board, and the School in Rose Valley.