The seven members of PigPen Theatre Co. first met as freshmen acting students at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2007. After working with each other in various classes, particularly movement and voice, the group decided to collaborate on a theater piece to present at the drama school's student-run theater festival Playground. The show, titled The Hunter and the Bear, was an original folk tale told through movement, music, and puppetry, and set the aesthetic for the group's projects moving forward. The production proved extremely popular, but the group did not seriously consider forming a theater company that could exist after graduation until they collaborated again for Playground the following year.
The group continued developing their plays, with plans to move to New York City as a collective theater company after graduation. During a residency in Martha's Vineyard in 2010, they were approached by a music executive who offered to help them also become a band after seeing one of their presentations. Prior to this, the company had only used original music as a "soundtrack" to support their works, but shifting to working as a band allowed them to focus more on individual songs, as well as the chance to increase their exposure by touring their music. Since then, the group has toured both their theatrical productions and recorded music as a band, with their debut album Bremen released in 2012. Recorded shortly after their graduation from Carnegie Mellon in 2011, Bremen consists of both music from their existing shows, as well as original songs. Bremen was acclaimed on release, with compliments to its layered harmonies and "Americana instrumentation" and comparisons made to British folk rock band Mumford & Sons. A second album, Whole Sun, followed in 2015. The group also have four EPs: The Courier's Wife, The Way I'm Running, PigPen Theatre Co. on Audiotree Live, and Out of the Overture. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PigPen_Theatre_Co.
