THE BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER TO PERFORM CARDBOARD CELEBRATION CIRCUS AT BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

The internationally renowned Bread and Puppet Theater will perform its Cardboard Celebration Circus on Saturday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m. in Thomas Cloisters. In case of inclement weather, the performance will take place on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m.

The appearance of Bread and Puppet Theater is part of the College's yearlong Performing Arts Series, featuring some of the country's finest performance artists and musicians.

Tickets are $15 for the general public; $12.50 for senior citizens and faculty and staff of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. Flexible subscription plans offer discounted ticket prices and priority seating. For tickets, call 610-526-5210 or e-mail Helene Studdy at hstuddy@brynmawr.edu.

Created in New York City in 1962 by German-born dancer, musician and sculptor Peter Schumann, the Bread and Puppet Theater is named for the sourdough bread that is distributed to the public after performances, and for the evocative puppets that are the essence of its productions.

Drawing upon ancient folk traditions, medieval morality plays, Sicilian and Balinese puppetry, Japanese Bunraku, and Punch and Judy, the Bread and Puppet Theater has been committed to increasing people's awareness of social and political issues, its productions often layered with pomp and sheer silliness. Schumann has created hundreds of different shows, from simple 10-minute performances to full-length theater pieces that require large casts.

Despite its celebrity around the world, the Bread and Puppet Theater remains one of the oldest, noncommercial, self-supporting theaters in the country. In its first decade, the company of puppeteers and masked performers appeared primarily in Coney Island and the East Village, and often took their theater to the streets where they participated in peace parades. Following its creation and performance of the 1966 show, Fire, the company was invited to the World Theater Festival in Nancy, France, in 1968. For the next few years, the performers toured throughout Europe in such shows as The Cry of the People for Meat and That Simple Light May Come From Complicated Darkness. In the 1970s, Bread and Puppet moved to Vermont, where for three years the group served as a theater-in-residence at Goddard College. Since 1974, Bread and Puppet has been located in Glover, Vt., the site of a museum for the company's hundreds of masks and puppets.

The Bread and Puppet Theater continues to bring its performances out into the streets with larger-than-life-size puppets, masks, stilt dancing and music. Schumann, who envisioned a rebirth of popular carnivals and festivals, believes that "puppetry and all the arts are for the gods, are wild, are raw material, are bread and sourdough … are for life and death, births, weddings, exaltation and sorrow, not for professionals and specialists of culture."

In its 40 years of performances, Bread and Puppet has won distinction in the United States and at a number of international festivals in Europe, including the Erasmus Prize of Amsterdam, two Obies, the Puppeteers of American's President Award and the Vermont Governor's Award.

This performance is suitable for all ages.

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