The characters of Bread & Puppet Theater are a natural fit for Saturday’s Active Community Teach-in VII.

This year’s theme for ACT is “Creative Dissent for Sustainable Security,” and for more than 40 years, Bread & Puppet has been addressing social, political and environmental issues through colorful spectacles and productions.

The Obie Award-winning Bread & Puppet was founded in 1962 by Peter Schumann in New York City, and is one of the oldest nonprofit self-supporting theatrical companies in the country.

Also, like ACT, the internationally known company requires local volunteers, both onstage and off, to make its production happen.

Linda Elbow, who has been with the group for more than 25 years and now is its touring and business manager, explained that Bread & Puppet’s bigger spectacles, for which it is best known, generally are staged outside during the spring through fall.

During the winter it offers smaller productions on high school and college stages and at town halls.

The show that’s coming to Orono is “How to Turn Distress Into Success: A Parable of War and Its Making.” The production, which will be mounted 7-8 p.m. Saturday, March 26, in Minsky Recital Hall, involves mostly masks, with some cardboard puppets.

“It’s a pretty serious show,” Elbow explained from her home in Vermont. “It starts with the bombing of the World Trade Center, and shows how the government and the media present that to the public. We use archetypes, like truth and population, and the butchers, who are faceless bureaucrats. Our productions aren’t message-oriented. We just want people to think.”

The show will involve seven to eight puppeteers and 15 or 16 volunteers.

“We’ve cut back on what the volunteers do to make the rehearsal time easier,” Elbow said. “They will do a chair dance, to protest the forces of evil, and also sing a song from the sacred harp repertory.”

Volunteers are needed to set up for Bread & Puppet from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., for rehearsal from 1 to 4 p.m., for the performance from 7 to 8 p.m., and for cleanup afterward.

The company also will be offering a workshop, “On the Street with Bread & Puppet,” at 4:15 p.m. Participants will learn how to mount a small show and how to sing a story in the cantor style.

ACT VII is co-sponsored by the Maine Peace Action Committee and the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine with the support of the Cultural Affairs Committee at the University of Maine.

Simultaneous workshops will be offered from 1 to 2:45 p.m. The choices are Making Art for Peace, with artist Susan Lehnen of Baring; Singing for Peace, with members of the newly formed Peace Justice Choirs; Poetry for Peace, with poet Terry Crouch of the University of Maine; and Yoga for Peace, with Kria yoga instructor John Yasenchak of the University of Maine. A discussion about future activism will follow the workshops.

Bread & Puppet’s regular winter show, “World on Fire,” recently has been through Maine, with shows in Unity, Boothbay Harbor and Temple.

That made taking part in ACT that much easier, Elbow said.

“It’s not something we’d drive over and back in one day to do, but we were going over for paying jobs anyway,” she said. “What they’re doing is something we like to support. Also, with the anniversary of the war in Iraq this month, it’s a very good time to do it.”

Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.

Active Community Teach-in VII

What: ?How to Turn Distress Into Success: A Parable of War and Its Making?

When: 7-8 p.m. Saturday, March 26

Where: Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono

How much: All daytime activities are free. A $5 donation is suggested for the evening show.

Contact: 942-9343 or visit www.peacectr.org