Behind the Masks:
Bread & Puppet’s Elka Schumann

By Margaret Michniewicz

Bread & Puppet is a name that, through the years, has evoked the image of larger-than-life masks and figures emerging at dusk on the crest of a distant hill in silent procession. It has been personified by the perennial spectacle of the troupe’s founder, Peter Schumann, in the guise of Uncle Sam, soaring high on impossibly tall stilts and blaring “When the Saints Go Marching In” on not just one, but two, trumpets.

A description of Bread & Puppet from its museum literature celebrates the unique contributions of the internationally renowned group and the artistic genius of Peter Schumann. But a name that is glaringly infrequent in mention is that of his wife, Elka.

Elka Schumann’s influence on all that is encompassed under the signature woodcut print banner of Bread & Puppet is profound and extensive. She is curator of the museum, operator of the press, and author of its publicity materials, yet she refrains from broadcasting her own role in the group. But anyone who knows her does not find that surprising in the least.

As former puppeteer Clare Dolan puts it, “Elka is a highly intelligent, engaged, kind and generous person with strong opinions and a fascinating life history. I keep telling her she has to write her memoirs. Now that would be a book I’d love to read. However, she is also a very modest person, self-effacing and private, so probably that is a book I will never get to read.”

Diana Sette, 25, is currently performing with the company, and likens Schumann to one of Bread & Puppet’s signature characters: “She is the true Washerwoman, with her handkerchief over her head and simple apron dresses and clogs and tall socks. She is also that Washerwoman who stands up and resists, with all her might, oppression and injustice in the world.”

And while Schumann herself may be reluctant to tout her contributions to Bread & Puppet, there is no shortage of people affiliated with the group, past or present, willing to share their perspectives on who she is and what she has brought to her community through the years.

John Bell was a full-time member of Bread & Puppet Theater for over a decade and has written extensively on the group’s history.

“But in a way, the most important aspect of Bread and Puppet's move to Vermont was how it dovetailed with the experience of Elka Schumann's grandfather, the radical economist Scott Nearing, 36 years earlier. In 1934, Nearing and his wife Helen had left New York City for southern Vermont, to live the "Good Life" by creatively combining subsistence farming with political and intellectual activity.” – from Bell’s article The End of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus: Bread and Puppet Theater and Counterculture Performance in the 1990s.

Bell shared the following thoughts about Schumann by phone.

Elka’s family is really interesting. Her father, John Scott, who went to Russia [where he met her mother] in the 1930s. Her grandfather, Scott Nearing who, together with his wife Helen Nearing, sort of pioneered the back-to-the-land movement [in Putney, Vermont]. Those folks are really amazing. Scott Nearing for example, was an idealist who incorporated or acted upon his idealism in everyday life. The principles he decided were valuable were ones that he pursued in his daily life and oftentimes that led him into confrontations with the political system, like when he was charged with sedition in 1918, for opposing WWI. And the way he approached life in a very organized manner: he would spend a third of the day doing physical work, a third of the day playing music and then a third of the day writing – and Elka, to my mind, has that same combination of conviction in certain ideas or ideals, and the strength of character to pursue those ideas or ideals in daily life…

In the 70s, while the Bread &Puppet Theater was touring in Europe, the Dancing Bear Children’s Theater was a project that Elka started, because B&P doesn’t really do children’s shows per se, and there was the need for a good children’s theater that could be answered with some interesting puppet shows that didn’t talk down to kids. Elka would be the narrator, [speaking from behind] an ironing board that she would use, with various musical instruments and other props. It was a project that she did for a number of years – but stopped after a while as her activities became folded into B&P Theater more…

She started playing tenor saxophone a few years ago. We had the Circus brass band, and she played the recorder, which she still does (she’s a great recorder player). She probably wouldn’t consider herself an accomplished musician but music is very important to her and so she took up the tenor saxophone and she learned how to play it, and played it in the Circus band. And, it’s a little bit incongruous because I don’t think of Elka as having the look of a typical tenor saxophone player but she did it and it’s very inspiring, the idea that you can say, ‘You know, I want to play this instrument in this brass band, and so I will!’ It’s a great example for young people or for anybody – it’s inspiring for me, you know, that okay, if I think I’d like to do this challenging thing, learning an instrument, I can just go out and do it.

I think the way that Bread & Puppet Theater has pursued its path in a pretty unusual and actually unique nature in American culture is in large part because of Elka’s persistence and consistency in saying, ‘Yes, this is a good thing to do, we should do this, it’s a valuable project we should pursue’ – because I think otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. Her role is really essential. Peter is a brilliant artist and director but, I think, not such a – you probably could say not such a practical organizer in certain ways – but Elka is. She’s made Bread & Puppet Press really viable and an important part of B&P’s work … Also, she and Peter talk a lot about the aesthetic of the B&P shows; in my experience working in the theater, we’d be working on a show and Peter would come back the next day and say, “Well I was talking with Elka last night, and her opinion was this…” and then, he would change things.

Her presence is infusive, everywhere in the theater.

Tamar Schumann, eldest of the Schumann’s five children. She spoke by phone while visiting the family farm in Glover – our conversation accompanied by the frequent input of roosters in the background.

Elka’s been with the theater from its inception – and the only person who’s been through it, along with Peter, from the beginning to this point. She has been everything from the manager of things like tours, finances. She started the Bread & Puppet Press – that’s been a big branch of what B&P is doing now. And the Bread & Puppet Museum – she does everything around the museum. She has been in shows, she has gone on tours (though she no longer can) – she has been a musician in the band and has added the whole vocal interest – [incorporating] the different vocal traditions, especially Sacred Harp; that was directly from something she started…

She’s the sounding board and she’s the critic; so, she’s the biggest fan and the most keen critic.

Any discussion about any theater matters Elka’s right in the middle of it and it will usually be a discussion, and somewhat heated discussion, between the two of them – and she will usually represent a very opposing view, sometimes the devil’s advocate and sometimes the counter-energy to Peter. And so decisions are made usually from within that and then that’s brought to a larger group of people [on the B&P board] and the discussion will continue – but the beginning discussion happens between the two of them.

When she and Peter got together – she was an artist – a beautiful graphic artist. She was a woodcutter; and in the B&P theater, she has pursued her own sensibility – like starting her own children’s puppet company, Dancing Bear – and made puppets for that. They’re very strong, very lovely – it’s not Peter Schumann’s style at all. But, that’s not where she’s been putting her energy [of late] because Peter is so overly prolific in that way.

[For Our Domestic Resurrection Circus] she would bring in women’s issues when she felt like there wasn’t anything – such as the [World Conference on Women] – I’d say that was her contribution to the big circuses – she would always make sure there was something about women.

She was one of the first people who brought the Sacred Harp [singing tradition] forward in Vermont, and then brought it into the theater.

When we moved to Glover in particular but also at Cate Farm [at Goddard College] – we had big gardens – and that was all Elka – she was a total, as much as possible, grow your own food [advocate] – and also, we were poor, so we kind of needed that. And we [the Schumann children] had to work with her and help with that – she was strict. She’s a total bookworm and lover of literature and song and lyrics, and I think all of us were really influenced by that. And from her I think we had that love and assumption of learning and the possibilities of education – she gave that to us without pushing it or hovering – no hovering! [Schumann chuckles]

She was brought up in a very post-War, American nuclear family and was given the best of everything – here’s someone who goes to the best schools, and gets the best of everything – and then she [goes on to] grow her own food and barely has enough to clothe her family and doesn’t have a home – I mean she just chose a life that was so different from what that generation that came after the war was really brought up to conform to, to have certain things – and she rejected it full.

She’s a little older than the ‘back-to-the-land’ people of the ‘70s – she was already in her 30s and she had five children by then; she did that in the ‘50s. Her parents were very distressed by that and didn’t understand it.

She has a very strong conviction and found a partner who had that same conviction – I think in a way she really helped him articulate it and be more politically aware of it and they’ve stayed with it, through their entire lives. And for my mother, this was a hard life, not an easy life – [she was] not choosing the easy way. At. All.

Maura Gahan, 28, from Ohio; began as an intern in 2006 and is now a full-time company member living at the Glover farm.

As fulltime members we live on the farm and share work responsibilities that range from artistic (developing shows, making props/puppets, music, dancing, etc.) – to more utilitarian jobs (stacking wood, raking compost, hauling heavy objects, pretending to be carpenters, raising chickens, etc). We work together to host a summer internship and perform weekly (every Friday night and Sunday afternoon) in Glover, as well as touring throughout the fall, winter, and spring (performing shows, parading, and hosting workshops).

 I came to B&P specifically to observe how political content was woven into shows and how the company overall functioned. Within the first 24 hours in Glover, I realized not only was I working on the same compositional and theoretical structures I had been toiling over, but also with a focus on lifestyle (gardening, composting, touring, living simply) AND that it had been happening [here] for over 40 years!

Every morning (June through September, and sometimes longer), no matter how cold, even in a slight rain, Elka swims. A very calculated swim. Different types of strokes are counted, with an accumulation that develops over the entire summer. She never winces at the early morning temperature. Slowly, she glides right into the water. Always, she observes the natural surroundings with a daily comment on the loons. I find this simple habit very telling and extremely inspiring.

The first time I came to B&P I was immediately struck by the strength and intelligence of the women running the place. It was, and still is, empowering.

Maryann Colella, 23, from Los Angeles, began as an apprentice in 2006 and is a full-time resident puppeteer.

Because my mother raised me to always care about others and the world around me, and because she was a single mother struggling to support two girls in an unjust economy, I understood at a very young age the concept of class struggle. In high school, during the Bush era, and after 9/11, I became more purposefully politicized and identified with leftist politics, but it never occurred to me that there were people out there doing intentionally political theater. When I met Bread and Puppet, my heart rejoiced.

Because I love the museum and the print shop (the two major parts of the theater that Elka runs), I get to interact with her in those capacities. I [would like] to give tours of our museum, but it's intimidating because I am so new, such a tiny speck on a very vast history, most of which I wasn't even alive for. So to stand in front of a group of people who are likely older than me and talk about the history of the theater is scary. But when I asked Elka if I could train to do tours, she didn't seem to have any doubt that I could do it. I love taking her museum tour because she has the best perspective of anybody, having lived through it all, of course.
I love shape note singing, and because she loves it to, and organizes the sings, I feel she has been a musical mentor to me, whether she knows it or not. We also sing in the same section (soprano) so I try my best to snag the seat next to her because she knows many of the songs by heart.
I can guess that our presence in small town parades weirds some people out, but I also get the sense that most people are excited to see us because we bring something very different, lively, and beautiful to these parades. Obviously the big circuses brought a lot of attention to Vermont and probably caused the immigration of some percentage of leftists and political radicals to the state. I meet people on the road who used to attend the Domestic Resurrection Circuses, and I can tell that Vermont holds a very special place in their hearts because of those summers.

I also think that the residencies we do in Vermont schools has a strong impact on the kids. It shows them that there is a way to be active beside athletics; and also, that you don't have to be a talented singer, dancer, or actor to make theater. By the end of the residencies, all the kids are theater makers. And they realize that there is a different kind of theater to be made.
The community around the theater has shaped my identity as a woman very much. I have met so many strong women, including Elka, who somehow managed to raise a family in the middle of a world-famous theater company. I imagine that the struggle to keep some separation between her family and the theater was difficult while also supporting and participating in the theater.

I would describe Elka as very strong and giving. She has strong opinions which she is never afraid to voice or defend, and that is really inspiring. She cares and worries for so many people, whether they are family or not. She is very modest, and doesn't like a big fuss to be made about her, even though she is extremely deserving of recognition.
A memory that sticks out in my mind is when I picked her and Peter up from the airport in Boston. I'm sure they were very tired. My car is very old and slow, the weather was rainy and it was late at night. Peter talked with us for a bit and then fell asleep in the back seat. I was nervous about the weather and getting sleepy at the wheel, because I was transporting such precious cargo. As we wound through the rainy mountains late at night, Elka started singing rounds (which she teaches all the apprentices every summer), and we sang together all the way home. I know she must have been exhausted but she stuck it out with me and taught me a new song. It put me at ease and also made me feel very grateful to have her in my life.

Clare Dolan, former resident puppeteer and touring company member, from 1990-2002.

Elka has been many, many things to me. When I first joined the theater she impacted my life because she was an important force in the theater, shaping the theater's work profoundly, giving valuable and nuanced input on a whole range of things. Since then, as we have moved beyond the basic employer/employee relationship, our connection has become complex and deep. She has become a dear friend, a mentor, an advisor, and an inspiring enthusiast whose conversations I savor. Her presence in my community is a vital piece of what keeps me in the Northeast Kingdom, really. I learn so much from the way she remains engaged and interested in such a breadth of things, and how she navigates life in the theater, rural domestic life, family life, and the multitudes of people that she comes in contact with because of Bread and Puppet.

When I think of Elka, in a free-associative way, the following things spring to mind:  The evening invitations to neighbors and the company of puppeteers on winter nights for reading poetry out loud. The way whenever I stop by unannounced she somehow always serves me lunch or at least tea and some kind of delicious snack. The fights she has with Peter about the woodcuts he makes for the Bread and Puppet calendar every year. The rounds she teaches all the interns to sing every year during the summer internships. How she always seems to be reading some interesting article or book or something, discussing what she's heard on the news. The funny quirky circus acts she comes up with for the summer circuses, particularly one which was my favorite, which used a children's rhyme that sort of described the different ages of life from baby to old person, then ended with skeletons and a Sacred Harp song about death… but not too creepy, just right. The little hand puppet shows for kids she's done over the years, particularly watching the ones she made with her daughter Maria, recently...
Bread and Puppet, and Elka in particular, has had an impact on me as a woman. I was deeply involved with Bread and Puppet from the age of 23 to 36; I more or less "grew up" with the theater. All of my struggles within that time to define myself as an artist, a female human being and to clarify and articulate my feminist vision and understanding of the world, occurred with Bread and Puppet at least in the background, but most often as the central element/context of the struggle. I was continually referencing Elka and other strong women during those years, both critically and with admiration. I was continually chafing against the limitations/burdens of my place as a woman in the company as well as being inspired and educated about my agency and responsibilities and power as a woman in the company. And also, of course, as a woman in the wide world. Elka has played an important role in all of that. She would probably be embarrassed to hear me say that her presence and influence in my life has been quite significant, and most incredibly valuable to me. But despite her embarrassment, undoubtably it is true.

Diana Sette, 25, from Pennsylvania; was an apprentice in 2007 and is a full-time resident company member.

I enjoy our many meals or meetings with Elka, Peter, and the puppeteers up the hill in their sweetly crammed wooden house for elderberry juice, roibos tea, ramps, and some delicious baked good with poppy seeds. Elka always has some amazingly beautiful and very delicious baked good to offer. And she is well known for her blue cheese spread that goes well on Peter's rye sourdough.
Elka is so many things, and I am so glad that someone is writing about her, because she is incredibly foundational to Bread & Puppet – to all that it is, and to all that it has become and all that it was. She is incredibly hardworking, diligent and persistent. She can be stubborn and conservative with her views, and yet also incredibly heart-felt, passionate, and kind. She appreciates things done by hand with a consideration to the future. She has a very "Old World" feel to her and writes everything by hand and on the typewriter. She can be quite firey and very honest with what she thinks. Especially with Peter and whatever piece he is working on, from the yearly Calendar project to the latest puppet show. She will call us at the puppeteers' house to let us know the full moon has a halo around it and that we need to go out and see it.

She speaks Russian and German. She plays the recorder. She gives tours of the museum that include the history of Bread & Puppet theater, which is so interesting because it is not just some museum tour, it is true stories from her life, and told in that way. She has deep roots. She is curious about the world.
I feel that B&P has had a great impact on me as a woman. Specifically when I think about Elka and I see her role in the theater and the Bread & Puppet Press and the Museum. Elka and Peter have been married for many many years now, and yet they have remained incredibly individual people with strong convictions, passions, and hobbies. I am inspired by the way that Elka has kept at it all these years, even when much of the limelight falls on Peter. But the truth of the matter is, Bread & Puppet Theater would not exist like it is, or maybe not even at all if it weren't for Elka. Just looking at Elka's work with the Bread & Puppet Press – Peter is an amazing artist who is constantly producing, but if he didn't have Elka, who would be printing all those woodcuts he's busy making? The images of Bread & Puppet, generated by Peter, are spread all over the world at this point with incredible assistance of Elka's work in typesetting, printing, cutting, sewing, etc. When I think about the first things I knew of Bread & Puppet, it was The Cheap Art Manifesto written by Peter and typeset print by Elka, and the ‘Listen’ banner with a big purple iris on it – Peter's woodcut & Elka's printing.
That is inspiring to me – to see the ways they challenge each other and support each other after so many years of marriage. They have raised a beautiful family together, as well, in addition to the great family of Bread & Puppet. It truly amazes me to see the ways in which Elka has remained an artist in her own right alongside Peter, while at the same time raising a family in what was at times incredibly cramped city-living.
For many years now, day after day, Elka has been the caretaker of the little puppet museum guard who sleeps on the bench outside the museum door. That bench is also the museum guard’s place of work.  So, at 10am everyday, Elka has rung the little bell that rests on the table next to his bed, has woken him out of bed, out of the sheets, out of his night cap, and put his red working cap that has a little weight sewn into it to make sure it stays on, and positions him to standing at the little table that has the "On Duty" sign.  In the winter, when the museum is closed, Elka likes for the little museum guard to stay in his bed on that bench with his little sleeping cap, even when there is a few feet of snow just below him.

Emily Anderson, former puppeteer and fulltime company member from approximately 1989 to 1997, who has remained involved with Bread & Puppet to date.

My involvement with B&P began in 1989 when I went to work on The Domestic Resurrection Circus in Glover and then was asked to join the company. When I first met Elka my relation to her was that she was the wife of my director. But, as she is such a huge part of the theater she was so much more than that. The role she played with me as a person having just left college and starting to figure out their life was mentor. She did this in simple ways such as nicely suggesting I not sleep too late on Mondays (our only day off) because I could then attend to my own personal pursuits. But also in big ways by welcoming me and my fellow company members into her home for meals, to work with her on printing projects, and telling me stories of the past. All the while she was pursuing her own musical and theatrical ideas within and without the theater.
I just saw her recently … I was with friends who’d never been to the theater. We found her outside wearing an electric blue blouse. She looked so wonderful in front of a forest of fresh green leaves. She was tossing firewood that had tumbled onto the path she was clearly intending to take into the woods for walk.

Elka feels like she’s from somewhere else and like I’ve known her always. She has an amazing intellect, can speak many languages but then also has a real appreciation for old, cheesy movies that she stays up too late into the night to watch.
Elka taught me how to talk with children. The first time I noticed this I don’t think I was watching her so I was really able to take in the fact that she did not change her voice to speak to them. She spoke to them as she would speak to an adult. I then looked at the children and saw that they were 100 percent engaged in their experience with her. I thought about that a lot and then I tried it out and realized that it works and not just with kids. It makes for a real genuine respectful connection with other humans.

We have an “Old Puppeteer” expression called “Reducing the Drab” … This phrase was coined by a tollbooth operator once when the Bread and Puppet bus pulled up to him. “Man, you guys really reduce the drab.” 

In the nineties I was often quite overwhelmed by all the thousands of people who would come to Glover for the big circuses. It helped me to talk with some of the audience members to see what had brought them there. Many I spoke with came every year to have their spirits revitalized by Bread and Puppet’s beauty, politics and simple way of life.  Though we were preaching to the choir it felt like an important mission to fill. Though the big circus no longer happens people can still experience that on a weekly basis as the theater has Friday night and Sunday afternoon shows each week in the summer. The shows may not be as expansive as the old, huge circus but I think they are every bit as magical and hopeful.

I’m constantly amazed that people here in Vermont have not been to Glover to see the museum or attend a show. So, I think Bread and Puppet is one of Vermont’s hidden gems and people should find ways to get over there whenever they can.

Margaret Michniewicz is editor of Vermont Woman.

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