The Graduate Student Theatre Organization (GuSTO) of Bowling Green State University has announced its sponsorship of the renowned “Bread + Puppets presents The Beginning After the End of Humanity Tour.” This thought-provoking performance will take place on Wednesday at the Wolfe Center for the Performing Arts Terrace Lawn on the BGSU main campus.
This free event, open to the public, promises an unforgettable experience as it combines puppetry, theater, and social commentary.
Bread and Puppet Theater 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 the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. 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.
As one of the oldest, nonprofit, political theatre companies in the country, the company tours new and old productions both on the American continent and abroad, with shows ranging from tightly composed theater pieces presented by members of the company to extensive outdoor pageants which require the participation of many volunteers.
