‘Funeral March for the American Dream’; Puppeteers prepare for 20th Richmond Halloween Parade

Devynn Alston, Contributing Writer

Richmond has a lot of Halloween traditions; spooky movies at the Byrd, Terror on the Farm and P’s and Q’s Annual Spooktacular — but perhaps the most iconic is the All the Saints Theater Company’s annual Richmond Halloween Parade. They will celebrate their 20th anniversary this year. 

All the Saints Theater is a politically-charged group that uses papier mache masks as a form of activism and community building. Each year, Lil Lamberta, the director and master puppeteer, organizes a team of artists, activists and volunteers to help build their pieces, according to their website.

All the Saints does a “funeral march” themed around a relevant political topic, which extends to the puppet and float designs. This year’s theme is “A Funeral March for the American Dream.” 

With executive overreach by the Trump Administration, voting rights and birthright citizenship in peril and a surge in immigration enforcement actions across the country, many Richmonders are expected to turn out and mourn at the funeral.

Marches in years past lamented the genocide in Gaza and the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. 

The parade’s theme gets selected based on current events, social ecology and social justice issues the puppeteers feel are immediate concerns, Lamberta stated in an email. 

The puppets follow pageant-style puppetry throughout the parade, meaning they play out a story in motion with a beginning, middle and end, Lamberta stated. 

Anyone can participate in the parade — as long as they wear a costume. Attendees can hold puppets, volunteer to build one or just stand and watch. 

The parade is designed to be accessible to all, regardless of age. The route is less than a mile, starting at Monroe Park and ending at Pleasant’s Park in Oregon Hill, where the marching band riffs back and forth. 

Musicians are welcome to join the parade’s marching band, which is made up of a mix of local artists, members of VCU’s Peppas, music students and plain old music lovers. No prior knowledge is required, as the music is taught to attendees right before the parade by John Hulley, a member of the Richmond mainstay band No BS! Brass.

There will also be a pre-Halloween fundraising extravaganza, giving people a sneak peek at the puppets. It will be at Studio Two Three and begin at 7 p.m. on Oct. 30. 

“Our online fundraiser is moving slowly this year and we totally honor that the capitalist death cult has put us in an uncertain place with housing, finances, healthcare, basic right to exist and migrate, being indigenous and/or a brown person, it IS in fact ridiculous to use your hard earned dollars to support a puppet parade,” the company stated in an Instagram post. “However, we artists coexist in the same time and place and we use what we got to do this parade every year because we love it, we can’t live without making art and purging this discourse, rhetoric, ideas, puppet flotillas and satirical subversive radical puppetry from our minds and body.” 

Goad Gatsby, a journalist for RVAmag who has covered the parade for the past three years, said it is a “walker’s paradise.”

Gatsby uses the parade as a chance to see old friends and meet new ones. He also participates in the event himself, dressing up as the “white trash can.”

“My character, the white trash can, where I give out candy and incorrectly guess people’s costumes,” Gatsby said. 

The purpose of this event is to build community by bringing together a large group of people and “keep the Halloween magic alive,” according to the official parade Facebook page. 

“I love the amount of people it brings out, and the amount of community that’s involved, we get lots of trick-or-treaters,” Oregon Hill resident Emily Czachor said. 

Richmonders looking to catch the parade should hang out on Laurel Street between Monroe Park and Oregon Hill at 7 p.m. on Halloween.