APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2024 APPRENTICESHIPS ARE NOW CLOSED! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO APPLIED. Check back in winter 2024 for information about summer 2025 apprenticeships.
Bread & Puppet Theater Apprenticeship Info
Come spend part of your spring or summer in rural Vermont, performing shows on a working farm with a 61-year-old political puppet theater!!
Location: Glover, Vermont, USA
Duration: 3 available three-week sessions: The first is from Tuesday May 14th – Tuesday June 4th 2024. The second session is from Tuesday June 25th – Tuesday July 16th 2024. The third session is from Tuesday August 6th – Friday August 30th 2024. This third session is three days longer to allow for end-of-season cleanups and closeups.
Cost: $550 per week, for a total of $1650 per session. Fee reductions are available.
Puppeteers, farmers, dancers, musicians, truck drivers, sculptors, midwives, dreamers, grandmothers, the hypothetical proletariat, activists, lovers of papier-mache tigers & everyone above and beyond:
This opportunity is open to everyone who is interested in participating in Bread & Puppet style show making. We are committed to making Bread & Puppet a space for people of all ages, ethnicities, gender identities, nationalities and backgrounds. Not having theater experience and/or not being familiar with the work of the theater should not deter you from applying.
ALL applicants will be considered regardless of their ability to pay. We understand that our fees are too high for many people who might want to apply. Therefore, if you are selected for the apprenticeship program, we will work with your financial situation to enable you to attend this program. If you can afford to pay the full price, or have access to outside funding, your support helps us offer fee reductions for those who need it.
Please note that the focus of the apprenticeship program is specific to the shows being made and not a particular syllabus: We are not a school and we do not conduct classes in different styles of puppetry or puppet building. The apprenticeship program is an intensive and often intense (and often “in tents!”) communal living and working experience. To be a B&P apprentice is to be “thrown into” the ongoing life and productions of the theater, and to learn by engaging with this often chaotic but also highly structured environment. Apprentices need to be self-motivated and adaptable, and not just in it for “workshops”.
What to expect:
Apprentices will learn by engaging in different aspects of Bread and Puppet show production, which may include movement and dance experimentation, mask and puppet manipulation, vocal and instrumental music or organized noise making, printmaking, paper-mache, puppet making/repairing and stilt dancing. The interests, talents (or lack thereof!), musical instruments, and political perspectives that apprentices bring can be an important part of our show creating process. PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL APPRENTICES ARE EXPECTED TO PARTICIPATE IN REHEARSALS AND PERFORMANCES.If you don’t consider yourself a performer, that’s totally fine: this is an opportunity to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Much of the performance we do involves group movements behind puppets, rather than traditional “acting” with lines and solo performing.
Differences between apprenticeship sessions:
The apprenticeships are quite similar in terms of the role of the apprentice, which is predominantly rehearsing and performing in Bread and Puppet shows. Depending on when you come in the season we are working on slightly different projects. Regardless, all apprentices will also participate in agricultural chores and everyday tasks (like cooking, cleaning, firewood stacking, recycling, outhouse maintenance, painting posters in our printshop, etc.).
May/June apprentices will be our first apprentices of the year and will work with the theater’s founder, Peter Schumann, the summer staff of experienced puppeteers, and local & non-local volunteers towards a first draft of a brand new show that we will perform at our annual and epic Museum Opening Ceremony on June 2, 2024 (the final weekend of the apprenticeship). This is sometimes an indoor show and sometimes an outdoor show, and often continues on in different forms throughout the summer season.
June/July apprentices will work with us to get our summer circus and pageant programs on their feet, culminating in the first performance of these shows on July 13th and 14th, 2024 (the final weekend of the apprenticeship). July/July apprentices will also participate in Bread & Puppet’s performance at several local parades around the 4th of July.
August Apprentices will help us bring our Saturday & Sunday performances to their summer peak and will perform with us in 3 circus/pageant weekends, giving a real opportunity to get closer acquainted with these styles of shows. Additionally August apprentices will stay a few extra days to help us close out the summer season and transition into the fall touring season.
All meals are included and are prepared for everyone by the Bread & Puppet cooks (with collective help), except on Mondays, our weekly day off. On this day bulk foods and produce will be available to you for cooking. Dietary allergies and preferences within reason will be accommodated. We use outhouses, conserve water, compost leftovers and generally try to be thrifty. Accommodations are very simple, even rugged, and most apprentices live in tents. Additionally, we do not give out the wifi password and we attempt to live as screen-free as possible during the apprenticeship.
Apprentices must be 18 or older. Dogs, drugs, and underage drinking are not permitted. Sorry, no trailers or campers. All apprentices must be vaccinated against Covid-19.
To apply for the apprenticeship program, please snail-mail a letter of interest! No emailed letters of interest will be accepted unless you absolutely cannot mail it.
For Summer 2024, we are running 3 apprenticeships with a total of 27 apprentices per session. This is a larger apprentice pool than we have had in years- so if you have not been accepted in the past, you are encouraged to reapply this year!
You may apply for multiple apprenticeship sections with the same letter- just indicate in the first paragraph that you are doing so (and if you have a preference for one session over the other).
A HARD COPY OF YOUR LETTER OF INTEREST IS A REQUIREMENT.
LETTERS OF INTEREST MUST BE POSTMARKED BY MARCH 1, 2024.
To apply, please send your letter of interest to:
Esteli Kitchen
re: Apprenticeship
37 East Church Street
East Hardwick, Vermont
05836 USA
IN THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THE LETTER, PLEASE WRITE YOUR NAME, AGE, WHERE YOU ARE LIVING, YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, AND WHICH SESSION YOU ARE APPLYING TO. All communication after the initial letter will be via email.
Otherwise, this letter is free-form and is a chance for us to get to know you. Please talk briefly about your upbringing, where you were born and where you live now and why. If you care to, please reflect upon how your geographic/economic/religious/ethnic/cultural backgrounds have shaped you into the person you are today. If you feel comfortable talking about your family, blood or chosen, it’s great to hear about them and how you relate to them and how they have affected you. What are your values? What are your passions? What political issues that are important to you? What do you want to learn more about and what do you do but wish you didn’t have to? What are your hobbies?
Secondarily feel free to mention any art you may make, your current job, your hopes and dreams, and why you were drawn to the Bread & Puppet apprenticeship. Additionally, feel free to mention any artistic or rural living experience you may have (not required to be an apprentice). Let us know what your experience and comfort level with camping is. If you play brass, woodwinds, strings or percussion, please tell us in your letter. One paragraph form letters will not be considered.
You can also include any media you’ve made (drawings, tiny puppets, prints, whatever) if you like, though just sending a letter is totally fine, too. It is not necessary to include a resume, but if you really want to you may. PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, DO *NOT* INCLUDE PLANT MATTER IN YOUR LETTER. It dries out and then gets everywhere when we open them. It’s not as cute as you think it is. Thank you.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Puede escribir su carta en español si éste es su primer idioma.
A note on fees for college students
Talk to your professors about the potentiality of college grant money to help cover your apprenticeship fees. Often colleges have money earmarked specifically for their students participating in summer apprenticeships. It is also sometimes possible for students to receive college credit for completing the Bread & Puppet apprenticeship.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email. The email for the summer apprenticeship is:
We look forward to hearing from you!
