[act-ma] 1/23-1/29 Bread and Puppet Theater's "Attica" and "Man of Flesh and Cardboard" w/ "Man=Carrot Circus" at the Cyclorama -- week of Jan. 23rd, 2012

Charlie Welch cwelch at tecschange.org
Sun Jan 22 06:03:24 PST 2012


**BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER***
*
*/Attica/**/
/*and*/
Man of Flesh and Cardboard/**/

/*along with
*/Man = Carrot Circus
/*(family-friendly)*/

/***Boston****Center****for the Arts***
**Cyclorama**
January 23 through***January 29***

*presented****in partnership with the**
**Boston Center for the Arts ****as part of the**
**Cyclorama Residency Series***

*/"Part carnival, part protest, all pageant,
Bread and Puppet productions
express political outrage and satire ...
//Mr. Schumann shows that he remains
urgently invested in the politics of the age."
/[New York Times, review of
/Attica/ and /Man of Flesh and Cardboard,/
Dec. 12, 2011]



(Boston, MA 02116) **Bread and Puppet Theater 
****presents*******/Attica/**//*and*/Man of Flesh/*/*and Cardboard*/**, 
along with****//***/Man = Carrot Circus****/***(family-friendly): 
performances presented in partnership with the ****Boston Center for the 
Arts******as part of the Cyclorama Residency Series. Performances, as 
well as an Art Exhibit and Cheap Art Sale, run the week of January 23 
through January 29. All held in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for 
the Arts (BCA), 539 Tremont St., South End, Boston [conveniently located 
near the MBTA Orange Line & bus connections]. Wheelchair accessible. 
Tickets for the performances available for purchase [cash or check only] 
in the Cyclorama one hour before each performance. For advance tickets, 
log onto www.breadandpuppet.org <http://www.breadandpuppet.org/> or call 
866-811-4111 (toll free). For further information regarding the week's 
events, call the BCA's Bread and Puppet Theater information line at 
617-800-9539 or visit www.bcaonline.org <http://www.bcaonline.org/>.

The award-winning *Bread and Puppet Theater*, featuring Artistic 
Director **Peter Schumann** and his troupe of Vermont puppeteers, 
returns for a sixth year to the BCA's Cyclorama bringing their signature 
powerful imagery, masked characters, and giant papier-mâché puppets. 
This year, their residency includes the evening program, 
*/Attica/***//****and ***/Man of Flesh and Cardboard****/***(**January 
26-29, recommended for ages 12 & older), the matinee */Man = Carrot 
Circus****/***(January 28-29, for **children of all ages), along with 
*/Upriser Calisthenics/*, a week-long political art installation 
(running January 23-29, with an art opening on January 23), and the sale 
of Bread and Puppet's legendary *Cheap Art*.

Although all Bread and Puppet events have a seriousness of purpose --- a 
few laughs are always thrown in!

/"... //surprisingly warm and lively,
despite the grim subject matter ...
It's hard not to be charmed by
[Schumann's] twinned passions
for puppetry and lefty politics,
still vibrant after all these years/./"
/[Village Voice, review of
/Attica/ and /Man of Flesh and Cardboard,/
Dec. 7, 2011]


_Detailed listings information_:

_Evening Performances_ [recommended for ages 12 & older]:
*Bread and Puppet Theater: /Attica///*and*/Man of Flesh and Cardboard
/***Jan. 26**-Jan. 29, Thurs.-Sun., 7:00 pm
$12 general admission [$10 students, seniors, & groups of 10 or more]
_Description_:
The evening's prologue /Attica/ marks the 40th anniversary of the prison 
riots at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York State. /Attica 
/was created in 1971 in direct response to the prison uprising, and was 
first performed in Bread and Puppet's Coney Island theater. The second 
part of the program is /Man of Flesh and Cardboard/, the story of PFC 
Bradley Manning who is charged with supplying restricted material to 
WikiLeaks. Bread and Puppet confronts the irony of a soldier who faces 
conviction of a war crime for bringing war crimes to the light of day. 
This piece will be performed by director Peter Schumann and the Bread 
and Puppet resident company, along with a large number of local 
volunteer puppeteers and musicians. After each performance, the audience 
is invited to join an informal talk-back with the artists, to eat the 
company's home-made sourdough rye bread spread with garlic-laden aioli, 
to view the art exhibit, and to peruse the Cheap Art, posters and 
banners for sale.
Evening performance segments taken by DeeDee Halleck:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQ71VDwU6w&feature=youtu.be 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQ71VDwU6w&feature=youtu.be> (/Attica/),
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDQ8u7tW1DY&feature=youtu.be 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDQ8u7tW1DY&feature=youtu.be> (/Man of 
Flesh and Cardboard/).


_Family-Friendly Matinees_:
*Bread and Puppet Theater: /Man = Carrot Circus/*/
/Jan. 28 & Jan. 29, Sat. & Sun., 2:00 pm
$12 general admission [$6 students, seniors, and pre-school children (2 
& under free)]
_Description_:
The family-friendly /Man = Carrot Circus /is based on the revelation 
that an upright man rooted in dirt was created in the image of the 
upright carrot rooted in dirt. The production is recommended for 
audiences ages 1 to 101. Performed by Peter Schumann and the Bread & 
Puppet Company, along with a large number of local volunteer puppeteers 
and musicians. Take note that some of the circus acts are politically 
puzzling to adults, but accompanying kids can usually explain them. 
After each performance, the audience is welcome to examine all the masks 
and puppets and to peruse the art exhibit and Cheap Art, which will be 
for sale.
Circus performance segment taken by DeeDee Halleck:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ISHcfeLVA&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ISHcfeLVA&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1> 
(opening sequence).]

_Visual Art Exhibit_:
*Bread and Puppet Theater: /Upriser Calisthenics/*//visual art 
installation created by *Peter Schumann*
Jan. 23-Jan. 29, Mon.-Sun.
Free and open to all.
_Description_:  Bread and Puppet Theater Artistic Director Peter 
Schumann's most recent visual art exploration, a collection of large 
posters with offbeat slogans which speak to matters that concern us all.
_Exhibit details_:
---Mon., Jan. 23, 6:00-9:00 pm: opening reception, with refreshments, an 
art talk given by Schumann, short skits performed by the touring 
company, and live music performed by the touring company and members of 
the *Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band*.
---Tues.-Fri., Jan. 24-27: regular Cyclorama hours: 9:00 am-5:00 pm 
[Thursday & Friday hours extended up to and after the evening performance].
---Sat. & Sun., Jan. 28 & 29: one hour before and after each matinee and 
evening performance.

For this residency at the Cyclorama, the Bread and Puppet touring 
company includes Schumann, along with *Maura Gahan*, *Greg Corbino*, 
*Katherine Nook*, *Susie Perkins*, among others. Both the evening and 
matinee performances will be performed by the company and a large number 
of local volunteers and musicians, including the popular 
Somerville-based **Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass 
Band****(www.slsaps.org <http://www.slsaps.org/>), which serves as the 
house band for Bread & Puppet's Boston performances and is also the host 
band for the annual HONK! Festival (www.honkfest.org 
<http://www.honkfest.org/>) held in Davis Square.**

All the visuals are created by Schumann, including sculpting and 
painting of all the major masks and puppets, with input from the 
company. After each evening performance there will be an opportunity to 
savor Schumann's famous sourdough rye bread, smeared with garlic aioli; 
and there will also be many opportunities during the week to purchase 
the theater's legendary "cheap art."

Bread and Puppet Theater is an internationally recognized company that 
champions a visually rich, street-theater brand of performance art that 
is filled with music, dance and slapstick. Its performances are 
political and spectacular, with huge puppets made of paper maché and 
cardboard, a brass band for accompaniment, and anti-elitist dance. Most 
are morality plays --- about how people act toward each other --- whose 
prototype is "Everyman". There are puppets of all kinds and sizes, 
masks, paintings, buildings and landscapes that seemingly breathe with 
Schumann's distinctive visual style of dance, expressionism, dark humor 
and low-culture simplicity.

_A SHORT HISTORY OF BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER

_*Bread and Puppet Theater* is one of the oldest, nonprofit, 
self-supporting theatrical companies in this country. It was founded in 
1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City's Lower East Side. Besides 
rod-puppet and hand-puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first 
productions were rents, rats, police and other problems of that 
neighborhood. More complex theater pieces, in which sculpture, music, 
dance and language were equal partners, followed. The puppets grew 
bigger and bigger. Annual presentations for Christmas, Easter, 
Thanksgiving and Memorial Day often included children and adults from 
the community as participants. Many performances were done in the street.

During the Vietnam War, Bread and Puppet staged block-long processions 
and pageants involving hundreds of people. The theater was briefly 
located in Coney Island, in a building that formerly housed Boston's 
hotel and restaurant. The insider's history, "Coney Island: Lost and 
Found" by Charles Denson relates, "The theater became a hangout for 
curious young people who stopped in to see the avant-garde productions. 
A children's workshop on bread and puppet making was held on weekends... 
Before each weekend performance, the puppeteers used to 'bally' on the 
streets of Coney Island. Oddly dressed performers beating drums marched 
down Surf Avenue with giant dancing marionettes, attracting a crowd that 
followed them to the theater. Bally was a traditional Coney art form 
that hadn't been used since the days of the sideshows in the 1950's, and 
no one knew what to make of it."

In 1970 Bread & Puppet moved to Vermont as theater-in-residence at 
Goddard College, combining puppetry with gardening and bread baking in a 
serious way, learning to live in the countryside and letting itself be 
influenced by the experience. In 1974 the Theater moved to a farm in 
Glover in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The 140-year-old hay barn 
was transformed into a museum for veteran puppets. "Our Domestic 
Resurrection Circus," a two-day outdoor festival of puppetry shows, was 
presented annually through 1998.

Through invitations by Grace Paley, Bread and Puppet Theater became a 
frequent attraction at anti-Vietnam War events in the '60s and '70s. By 
the '80s, the puppets had become emblematic of activist pacifism and a 
sine qua non of American political theater, as exemplified by the 
massive, ascending figures that are burned into the memory of anyone who 
marched with or saw the haunting, massive June 12, 1982 Disarmament 
Parade in New York City.

For more information on the Bread and Puppet Theater, log onto 
www.breadandpuppet.org <http://www.breadandpuppet.org/>.

_ABOUT THE BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS

_The *Boston Center for the Arts* is a not-for-profit performing and 
visual arts campus that supports working artists to create, perform and 
exhibit new works, develops new audiences, and connects the arts to 
community. Visit www.bcaonline.org <http://www.bcaonline.org/> for more 
information.

###END###


--submitted by marycurtinproductions [on behalf of Bread and Puppet Theater]
c/o Mary Curtin
PO Box 290703, Charlestown, MA 02129
617-241-9664, 617-470-5867 (cell), marycurtin at comcast.net 
<mailto:marycurtin at comcast.net>
"dedicated to staging insightful entertainment, particularly in 
non-traditional venues"
www.marycurtinproductions.com <http://www.marycurtinproductions.com>
www.facebook.com/marycurtin <http://www.facebook.com/marycurtin>
http://twitter.com/marycurtin
www.myspace.com/marycurtin <http://www.myspace.com/marycurtin>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://act-ma.org/pipermail/act-ma_act-ma.org/attachments/20120122/a70bac1c/attachment.html>


More information about the Act-MA mailing list