Bread and Puppet Theater (former Boston's building)

Object Type

Documentary photograph

Date of Creation

1960s

Themes

color slides, puppet theaters

Places

Bread and Puppet Theater

Related

This photo shows the Bread & Puppet setup in (most likely) the late 1960's. Basically this is the Boston's building (as seen in SK.Photo.135). Boston's was a hotel and restaurant. Later it housed a sideshow (as in SK.Photo.135), and finally it was headquarters for the famous and influential Bread and Puppet Theater. Started by Peter Schumann, the Bread and Puppet Theater, a group using large puppets to make political statements, was originally housed in the East Village in Manhattan and eventually moved to Vermont after a stint in Coney Island. The Bread and Puppet theater troupe occupied the Boston Theater for two years. "The theater became a hangout for curious young people who stopped in to see the avant-garde productions. A children's workshop on bread and puppet making was held on weekends... Before each weekend performance, the puppeteers used to 'bally' on the streets of Coney Island. Oddly dressed performers beating drums marched down Surf Avenue with giant dancing marionettes, attracting a crowd that followed them to the theater. Bally was a traditional Coney art form that hadn't been used since the days of the sideshows in the 1950's, and no one knew what to make of it." (from: Coney Island: Lost and Found, by Charles Denson)



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