Name: Bread & Puppet’s 60th Anniversary Celebration & Residency
Start: 2023-12-06T17:00:00
End: 2023-12-07T00:00:00
Location: Francis Kite Club

Bread &amp; Puppet at the Francis Kite ClubDecember 6-17, 2023All Events Free to the Public!The Francis Kite Club presents a celebration of Bread &amp; Puppet’s 60th anniversary! In conjunction with Bread and Puppet’s annual performances at the Theater for the New City, the Francis Kite Club presents a three-component residency to mark 60 years since the troupe’s founding. In the early 1960s, a group of young people rented a cheap space on Delancey Street and began putting on weekly performances. Peter Schumann made bread for those who came by, and they chewed and watched the shows. In 1963 it was christened the Bread and Puppet Theater. Their ethos has been clear from the outset, reused and recycled sheets, wood, and paper are the materials for their puppets; community need and connection are central; and their work in its collective and creative nature is an affirmation that art and activism is life. We are deeply honored to celebrate their anniversary with them within our very new space which attempts to uphold these same ideals. The program:The Kite will be decked out in the paintings of Bread &amp; Puppet founder, Peter Schumann (12/6-18) whose personal art practice and imagery has been embedded in the company’s iconography for decades. His paintings, made on donated sheets of various sizes, hang from the walls and ceiling of the Kite, communicating in their conviction through an intensity of both meaning and gesture. On two consecutive Fridays in December (12/8 and 12/15), Bread &amp; Puppet will hold a FREE performance at the Kite at 4:30pm. The troupe will perform their signature “cantastorias,” literally “sing stories”, told through images with a narrator and a chorus.On each Friday, following the cantastorias, the Kite will screen films of Bread and Puppet early histories in New York City. Anyone attending Bread &amp; Puppet’s performance at the Theatre for the New City can bring their program and receive $1 off their tab!