For the first time since June, 2019, B&P will host our traditional Museum Open House Sunday, June 5th at 2 p.m. As always, this celebratory afternoon of performances, bread, and museum appreciation will mark the beginning of a bustling summer season at the B&P farm.

The Open House will begin at the entrance of our Museum, where local singers will gather to sing songs in the "Shape Note" tradition, an early American sacred singing tradition with deep roots in Vermont, in four-part harmony. Next, the Museum will receive its ceremonial opening for the season: the museum guard will be woken up and reinstalled at his post for the summer. The public will be invited to peruse the museum and share in bread and aioli on the second floor. A string band will regale viewers from the top of the stairs by the Sun Beast.

In keeping with tradition, the middle of the afternoon will feature performances by B&P friends and guests. This year we're pleased that Sylvia Manning, Marie Hamilton, Francesca Ter-Berg, Maura Gahan and others will contribute original music and short puppet shows at locations around the B&P farm.

The afternoon will conclude with a brand-new Bread & Puppet show, The Theory of Our Needs, created this week by Peter Schumann and company in collaboration with Lisa Nelson, Steve Paxton, and a cohort of students from Montreal's Concordia University. The piece will be the first-ever collaboration between long-time North East Kingdom neighbors, Peter Schumann, Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton, and serves as the culminating work for the Canadian students' ten-day residency at Bread & Puppet.

About this show Peter Schumann says, "Singing the hymn of need and dancing pragmatic utilitarianism into the moment-at-hand is reserved for toddlers only. The mature homo sapiens has lost that intelligence. We need dirt on our feet and whistles to drive our brain from its prison into the void. This show is about whistles and dirt."

Finally, this Museum Opening will be the first since the death of Elka Schumann, who co-created, curated, defended and cared for the Museum, led Museum tours, led the Sacred Harp sing that began each year's Museum Opening, and was the radiant center of the Museum and the Museum Openings. This year's opening will also be the first since the death of beloved B&P neighbor and collaborator, the poet and musician, Burt Porter, who for more than 40 years played banjo and fiddle with his band on the second floor of the Museum during this event. Elka and Burt are with us as we continue this tradition that they created and shaped.