Bread & Puppet to Bring THE OVERTAKELESSNESS CIRCUS to the Boston Area This Fall

The award-winning Vermont-based Bread & Puppet Theater takes its annual Labor Day weekend "little big tour" down to the Boston area, this year bringing their new The Overtakelessness Circus to be presented outdoors on Sunday, September 6th, in Cambridge at Magazine Beach Park and on Monday, September 7th, in Lawrence at the 31st Annual Bread & Roses Heritage Festival.

The Overtakelessness Circus presents the most popular races and competitions of modern life and its economy, including the race between the proletariat and the CEOs, and the race between the limping city pedestrian and the sports car in a typical traffic jam. The Circus will also commemorate several historic events that do or do not influence modern life, such as the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta and the 30th Anniversary of the federally supported firebombing and destruction of the MOVE Family in Philadelphia.

A poem by Emily Dickinson serves as inspiration for the variety of "overtakelessness" themes and slapstick comedies that make up this year's Bread & Puppet Circus. As described by Bread & Puppet's founder and artistic director Peter Schumann, the Circus addresses: "The overtakelessness of all that which runs it's fatal or ridiculous course. The running of all aspects of modern life towards it's high-falutin' goals and pitfalls. The running itself is the subject matter."

As always with Bread & Puppet outdoor events, The Overtakelessness Circus features a brass band, a string ensemble, various birds, tigers and cockroaches, and a vast array of representatives from all categories of the human hodgepodge. If some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, accompanying kids can usually explain them. After each performance, sourdough rye bread will be served and the audience is welcome to stay and check out all the masks and puppets and to peruse the Cheap Art, posters, and banners for sale.

IF YOU GO:

Bread & Puppet Theater: The Overtakelessness Circus
Sunday, September 6, 3 pm [rain location provided]
Magazine Beach Park (along the Charles River), 719 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
[Located at the foot of Magazine St., across from Trader Joe's and the Micro Center; in close proximity to the Red Line stop: Central Square Station, less than 1 mile walking/biking distance.]
Free, pass-the-hat donations welcome; rain location: Morse School, 40 Granite St., Cambridge, MA 02139
For more information: www.magazinebeach.org/events, www.cambridgema.gov/arts/Programs/summerinthecity/summerinthecity2015, 617-286-6694.
Presented with assistance from the Cambridge Arts Council and the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association.

Bread & Puppet Theater: The Overtakelessness Circus
Monday, Sept. 7, 4:20 pm show (entire festival runs from noon on), rain or shine
31st Annual Bread & Roses Heritage Festival, Lawrence Common, Lawrence, MA 01840
[Located in close proximity to the Haverhill commuter rail stop: Lawrence Station, less than 1 mile walking/biking distance.]
The Festival is free & open to all, festival donations welcome.
For more information: www.breadandrosesheritage.org, 978-309-9740.
Presented as part of the Annual Bread & Roses Heritage Festival, an open-air social justice celebration.

Now in its 52nd year, the Bread & Puppet Theater is one of the oldest and most unique self-sustaining nonprofit theater companies in the United States. The theater champions a visually rich slapstick style of street-theater that is filled with huge puppets made of paper maché and cardboard, combined with masked characters, improvisational dance movement, political commentary, and a lively brass band. The company's performances are described by The New York Times as "a spectacle for the heart and soul."

Bread & Puppet is based on a farm in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. The theater was founded in 1963 on the Lower East Side of New York City by Peter Schumann, a German born artist-dancer, and for the next decade his giant puppets figured prominently in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in New York City, Washington DC and other cities in the US and abroad. Indoor performances were both simple and more complex, ranging from quiet, intense masked shows ("Fire", "Man Says Good-Bye") with 4-6 players, to huge, lengthy spectacles ("Cry of the People for Meat").

In 1970, an invitation from Vermont's Goddard College to be theater-in-residence, facilitated a longed-for change to country life. The theater's renowned "Our Domestic Resurrection Circus," a two day outdoor festival of music, art, puppetry and pageantry, began back then at Goddard, and ran almost every summer - first at Goddard from 1970-1973, then continuing up through 1998 at the theater's current home in Glover, VT -- drawing crowds of tens of thousands. Since then, a smaller (but with giant puppets intact), more dispersed version continues on Sundays in July and August; the company continues touring and workshopping the rest of the year in New England and around the globe; and Schumann continues as director and artist -- and bread baker -- with a vengeance! For more, visit www.breadandpuppet.org.

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