Creating anti-capitalist, anti-genocidal puppet shows since 1963, Bread and Puppet theater, lead by director Peter Schumann continues to create theater about the world’s atrocities and possibilities for liberation from its hub in Glover, Vermont. The Circus Band has been an integral part of the Bread and Puppet experience for much of that time, providing a soundtrack to the great circuses of times past, present and future.

The Bread and Puppet band’s songs are rarely arranged, and sporadically rehearsed. Members of the theater were particularly inspired by the sounds of the Olympia Brass Band back in the ’70s, and the early jazz of New Orleans is still featured strongly. This is balanced by other influences such as French fanfare, Quebecois fiddle tunes, eastern European brass, American klezmer, calypso, and the band has many original tunes as well. Political music also remains important to the band and its repertoire has evolved to include songs from the Spanish Civil War, Chilean anti-fascists, central american revolutionaries, and old IWW labor tunes.