Formed in New York City by German artist Peter Shumann in 1963, the renowned Bread & Puppet theater collective presents carnivalesque pageants, circuses, and battles of Good and Evil with gaudy masks and gigantic puppets. This unique museum consists of a two-story barn crammed with puppets and masks from the company's past performances. The high-ceilinged top floor is especially arresting, with its collection of many-headed demons, menacing generals, priests, bankers, everyday people, animals and gods (some as large as 15ft).
In July and August, performances take place at the theater's home base in Vermont. The rest of the year, Bread & Puppet is on tour. In summer, audience members are still treated to the traditional home-baked bread that gives the enterprise half its name.
The street theater of Bread & Puppet's early performances gave voice to local rent strikes and anti–Vietnam War protests as well as an epic parade down Fifth Ave in the early 1980s to protest nuclear proliferation. By then, it had moved its operation to its current home in Glover.
To get here, take I-91 to exit 24, then head west on VT 122 for 13 miles.
