At the age of 22, Matthew (Mattyboy) Hart left Philadelphia to travel around the country. When he arrived at the renowned Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont, Hart witnessed powerful outdoor pageants, attended by thousands of people. It was the first time he had seen potent images created around progressive social themes in a way that engaged people and the environment, yet something nagged at him. The whole enterprise was divorced from the urban environment, and there was a disconnect between the mostly middle-class, white performers and their subject matter (rebels in Chiapas). In the bucolic surroundings of central Vermont, Hart made the decision to come back to Philadelphia to bring with him his evolving puppet artistry and his burgeoning ideas about the transformative power of civic theater and pageantry.

Upon his return to Philly, Hart founded Spiral Q as a shadow puppet theater, staging performances at local benefits and events. Social change groups came to Spiral Q to make puppets, props and effigies for demonstrations and education campaigns. Through these building sessions Philadelphia activists started to discover new ways of working together and communicating their issues.

In early 1995, volunteers from the Pentridge Children's Garden in West Philadelphia approached Spiral Q. Hart and a friend created a toy theater show about an aboriginal creation myth for this group of little gardeners. After the outdoor performance, they led the children in a parade through the garden and blessed all the plots. The children were ecstatic, and Hart glimpsed the power that puppets and pageantry could have in a community setting.

In 1997 and 1998, Spiral Q mounted the Full-On Puppet Festival. This week-long event showcased puppet artists from around the country and many performances sold out. However, the organization opted not to continue the festival in succeeding years in order to devote more time and resources to its expanding roster of neighborhood projects.

Shortly thereafter, Spiral Q was invited to do a project with Taller Puertorriqueno in North Philadelphia. The open workshops became a lab where neighborhood residents discovered common values and perceptions of their community through art-making. What emerged was a pageant that displayed a common visual language celebrating the specific cultural identity of this Philadelphia neighborhood. Hart had arrived at a synthesis of Bread and Puppet's compelling social pageantry and an urban vernacular that was created and presented by neighborhood residents themselves. Spiral Q had discovered its primary function.

Over the next few years, Spiral Q saw a dramatic growth in the number and scale of projects and a corresponding development of its organizational structure. Community groups began to contract Spiral Q for neighborhood projects in increasing numbers. Over the past three years the Q has worked with over 100 groups covering a broad range of issues, services and ideas.

In the winter of 2000, the Spiral Q Puppet Theater moved to a new space in East Mantua. In the time we have been here, we have doubled staff, created a living museum for the hundreds of giant puppets and parade items and vastly expanded our programs to meet the growing demands of our partners.