SOLD OUT 8/25 & 8/26

The circus is coming! The circus is coming! Bread & Puppet, the iconic political puppet theater company, brings Our Domestic Resurrection Circus: Apocalypse Defiance to Reed College as part of a rare cross-country tour.

Fifty-two years ago Bread & Puppet Theater performed Our Domestic Resurrection Circus for the first time at Goddard College in Plainfield, VT. Since then, this capacious and provocative title has served as the basis of annual spectacles that generations of audiences have come to rely on for satire and celebration in the face of intolerable circumstances. This year, B&P will take up the tradition again, albeit with a timely subtitle: The Apocalypse Defiance Circus. 

The show, says founder Peter Schumann, is “in response to our totally unresurrected capitalist situation, not only the hundreds of thousands of unnecessarily sacrificed pandemic victims but our culture’s unwillingness to recognize Mother Earth’s revolt against our civilization. Since we earthlings do not live up to our earthling obligations, we need resurrection circuses to yell against our own stupidity.”

The Bread and Puppet Theater is an internationally celebrated company that champions a visually rich, street-theater brand of performance art filled with music, dance and slapstick. Believing that theater is a basic necessity like bread, the company frequently brings its work to the streets for those who may not otherwise go to the theater. Its shows are political and spectacular, with puppets often on stilts, wearing huge masks with expressive faces, singing, dancing and playing music. 

Show Length: Approximately 1 hour.

This visit is made possible thanks to the Reed theatre department, art department, the Dean of the Faculty office, and the President's office. Free and open to the public.

MASKS REQUIRED FOR ALL AUDIENCE MEMBERS.