The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle and Circus at Theater For The New City's Johnson Theater

For the 37th year, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater will return to Theater for the New City 4 - 21 Dec 2008 with two new works, one for adults and one for children.

For the grownups, it'll be The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle and Circus, a play which was developed out of the company's 2008 summer work. For kids of all ages, there will be matinee shows of The Sourdough Philosophy Circus on Saturdays and Sundays

The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle and Circus is about the need for human fermentation. It takes a lesson from how apple cider is made. Our republic teases us with the possibility of democracy, but citizens are raised like military apple orchards, pruned down to their predictable minimums, yielding controlled fruits that lack the ecstasy of nature. However, human fermentation occurs in parts of the human body that are not governed by the government, like the guts and the gutsy parts of the brain. Fermented citizens are corrupted by the ecstasy of nature and from that corruption, derive strength to corrupt military-orchard citizens. The show is run by a bunch of cooks, specialists in cooking the various stews and pancakes of our everyday first world existence.

The family version, The Sourdough Philosophy Circus is also about the need for human fermentation, but the concept is also applied to dancing zebras and turkeys and free range cows. The cooks are featured again. Additonal commentary is provided by the Rotten Idea Theater Company. Music is by the Sourdough Philosophy Brass Band.

Both shows will be performed by the Bread & Puppet Company and a large number of local volunteers, who will also be part of The Brass Band. The theater will be decorated with the unique Bread and Puppet collection of powerful black-line posters, banners, masks, curtains, programs and set-props. Once again, all pieces will be created by Schumann with input from the company. Both plays will be accompanied by a brass band, singing and miscellaneous gongs and horns. Schumann will sculpt and paint all of the major masks and puppets.

The Bread and Puppet Theater is an internationally recognized company that champions a visually rich, street-theater brand of performance art that filled with music, dance and slapstick. Its shows are political and spectacular, with huge puppets made of paper mach� 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, sculptural costumes, paintings, buildings and landscapes that seemingly breathe with Schumann's distinctive visual style of dance, expressionism, dark humor and low-culture simplicity.