Written By:
Thomas G Tirney
Greg Romero
Robin Rodriguez
Bob C Wuss
Jeremy Gable
Valdemar F Zialcita
Eric R Balchunas
The Fringe Blog
PDC Residency @ Plays & Players
by Valdemar Zialcita
posted: 2011-02-02 15:53:37
It has been a good start for this pilot program.
We kicked off with a reception to introduce our Residents--Joy Cutler, Quinn Eli, and Greg Romero--to members of the theatre community who might want take an interest in the work generated by the Residency. Afterwards, Dan Student, representing Plays & Players, and I sat down with the playwrights to discuss their goals and interests. Since then the focus of our work has been on meeting with a variety of people intended to help move our Residents outside of their respective artistic boxes. We've met with Robert Smythe, who introduced the Residents to a conceptual framework surrounding the creating of work for puppets, as well as leading the writers through some puppet-making techniques. We met with Alan Turner, a landscape architect who presented an alternative paradigm for how an artist might see his relationship to his working conditions, his audience/clientele, and his work. And we have met with Isaiah Zagar, the mad genius behind the Magic Gardens and other outsider artwork around town. We also took the opportunity to present a private reading of a play by Joy Cutler, something she had been working on during the Residency.
Later this month you will have an opportunity to speak directly to the Residents about their experiences. Stay tuned to your mailing list notices! An announcement if in the offing. In the meantime, here are the Residents in their own words, acronym-style ....
The acronym is RESIDENCY.
Greg Romero:
ROMERO:
Everybody
Says
"I
do".
Each
Night=
Creativity.
Yes!
Joy Cutler:
Right-brained
Exploration
Stirs
Imaginative
Developmental
Endeavors
Not
Cramped
Yearnings!
Ripe'nready
Explorers
Shake-up
In-house
Dull
Energy
Neatly
Causing
Yahweh'sYammering
Quinn Eli:
Re-imagining
Existing
Strategies
In
Drama,
Expression,
Narrative &
Collaborative
Yarn-spinning
Greg Romero:
Reminder:
Exploring
Shit
Is
Damn
Exciting!
Now
Create,
You
Reorganize
Every
Situation
Inside
Dan's
Energetic
Nerd
Calendar.
Yee-Haw!
Robots,
Eat
Shit!
I
Don't
Even
Need
Computer
Yokes
Comments:
Todd Holtsberry said on 2011-02-02:
Sounds like good things are happening with the program. Please continue to report the great happenings and experiences of the residents and the residency program. I want to see cool programs like this thrive in the PDC and think it would be a shame not to toot our collective horn about the great work and resources of the PDC, as well of those of our writers and other members. Here's hoping to more informative reports like this about this exciting new residency done in collaboration with Plays and Players and a fine group of writers!
"Meg and Rob Show" - PHIT's Side of Sketch 8pm
by Eric Balchunas
posted: 2010-09-19 05:13:58
Before the Meg and Rob Show even started I was already into it. Why? Because the price was cheap at $10, the temperature in the theatre was comfortable, and the running time was 60 minutes. I love it when shows are around an hour long. For me, unless it’s mind-blowing theatre, 60 minutes is right at the point where I become antsy and look at my watch and start debating what flavor ice cream to get on the way home, or which college football game I might catch the end of. Maybe I’m weak-minded, but it’s the truth.
Comments:
Samuel Felman said on 2010-09-19:
I'm going to try to come and see this!
Inside look into Olive Prince Dance
by Bob Wuss
posted: 2010-09-17 14:29:59
Over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity of working on Olive Prince Dance's I DESIRE which premiered as part of Live Arts eight/ eight new choreographed works. Led by Artistic Director, Olive Prince, I DESIRE takes a look at our deepest desires and current needs. The performance, which took place in the Live Arts Studio space, delivered an explosive piece where time seemed to melt from moment to moment as bodies clung to their individual spaces. My task during performances; hang up a tree structure composed of ropes and stitched brown fabric onto a beam clamp in the air.
Months ago Olive had approached me and asked if I wanted to take the challenge of helping her with administrative tasks as well as consulting on future creative projects. At first I was hesitant because I’ve never been a part of a dance company before, but after a few meetings I found Olive to be as strong willed as the dance she creates. I was then challenged to create a marketing campaign using post cards to gather information of people’s greatest desires. I found myself in neighborhoods such as Old City and Northern Liberties, even Clark Park , approaching strangers to simply write on the cards. Olive had asked friends to do the same as well as her students at Drexel University. I then took those cards and created a stop motion animation of the cards constructing themselves into a tree encased in chicken wire and interesting shapes, while Olive constructed a dance inspired by the content on the cards.
The video http://vimeo.com/14344786
then was available via the Live Arts Blog a few weeks ago. It is still there if you want to look for yourself. My video was inspired by Michel Gondry style animation and Wes Anderson’s sincerity.
Olive’s I DESIRE featured 4 dancers( including herself), composer Chris Farrell, and many other collaborators who found themselves spiraling gracefully into the festival. Rehearsals were long but I was always interested in what in the dance would be repeated the next day. My observation in the creation of Olive’s piece is that it has a very living and organic nature to it, as movements evolve (or are eventually cut). Every rehearsal had it’s own unique grasp of theme and motive. It’s almost like a kinetic musical riff. Some dancers rest in the pocket like a fat funky snare beat, while others create ornate saxophone melodies. In my opinion Olive drives the tempo with her snare beat, as Maria Brown lays down a punchy bass line with Nora Gibson on a jazz grand piano,Lindsay Browning wailing her sax. (packed image) Coltrane style.
The insight provided by everyone on the project has definitely given a lasting impact; Every day with everything we do, will always bring something new. Only ourselves can stop our desires from coming true.
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"Iron" - Theatre Exile
by Jeremy Gable
posted: 2010-09-12 20:58:15
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"Between Trains" - Gas & Electric Arts
by Jeremy Gable
posted: 2010-09-11 22:40:53
I wanted to love Gas & Electric Arts' Between Trains, which I saw on Saturday night. After all, the cast was fantastic, the staging was consistently engaging, and its premise had a great amount of promise. However, when the 90-minute piece ended, I felt that neither my brain nor my heart had been reached.
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"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" and "The Madwoman of Chaillot"
by Valdemar Zialcita
posted: 2010-09-11 13:49:07
I want to say amen to Greg Romero, writing to playwrights about dance. In the same spirit, I celebrate Philadelphia's two companies dedicated entirely to the Modern tradition: The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium and Egopo. I see the works of both companies as often as I possibly can. The 20th Century, it seems, still pushes me out of my complacency.
These productions are opportunities to think about what can be wrought.
Jean Giraudoux's Madwoman, still sharp and timely in its themes, invites playwrights to crowd a stage--in this case the intimate stage of Walnut Street 5. Crowd. Cram. Close enough to sit on your lap, and yet close in an entirely different way. Because the fullness of the thing on stage is not simply about the body count (17 actors playing 25 characters, by the way). It's about ideas. Sometimes, when you write about the thing you know best, you find yourself writing from a point of view, not from the edge of a kitchen sink. Let a Madwoman show you how it can be done, and damn the financiers. Damn the subtext, too.
Marat/Sade damns much the same things, bless its heart, with the added reminder, in bold, that a play happens in space, texture, and motion, just as dance does, and not simply within a picture frame, as seems to be the case for the overwhelming majority of productions in Philadelphia. This may not be your father's Marat/Sade (since theatre is not strictly a playwright's medium), but it's big and splendid (thanks to an echo-y Rotunda, played like giant toy piano by director Brenna Geffers), as we should all aspire in our heads to be.
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TAKES/Nichole Canuso Dance Company
by Greg Romero
posted: 2010-09-11 12:32:08
In addition to TAKES continuing to spark some of the questions ignited from my experience of SANCTUARY, this multi-dimensional, multi-media collaboration between choreographer Nichole Canuso, media designer Lars Jan, sound designer Mike Kiley and performers Canuso and Dito Van Reigersberg brought out a series of new questions as well.
As with Sanctuary, Takes is performed in an open warehouse space (the same building, in fact). Takes has transformed the space, however, by placing a polygonal performance area (perhaps 12-15 feet by 12-15 feet?) in the center of the warehouse, with sheer curtains that hang suspended above each side of the playing area, opaquely enclosing the dancers in a sort of living box while simultaneously projecting both real-time and recorded images of the dancers on all four sides of the screening.
Surrounding/encircling the performance area an almost continuous single-row of folding chairs for the audience.
As the audience enters, we're confronted with choices-- where do we look? Where do we sit? I began to think about the question-- what do people do when given an open space?
In fact, just before the performance begins (but as the recorded music and recorded images have been playing on a continuous loop) a disembodied voice tells us to turn off our phones, but that we are allowed during the performance to walk the space. We are given the freedom to witness the performance from all different sides of the space.
At that time I wondered if the audience would take the creators up on their offer (they did) and what relationship the movement of the audience would create with the performance (I am still unsure, but interested in continuing to think about it).
Other big thoughts popped for me during this performance:
** How does performance change space and time? I found myself many times during TAKES to come in and out of different levels of awareness. I'm not sure if it was due to the repitition of some of the movement, or music, or the overload of images and information (and realities?) that made my brain sort of skip a beat.
** What effect does a naked body have on an audience?
** What does the performance achieve by offering the gift of participation and/or intimacy to the audience?
And a big question about the creation of dance as compare to the creation of a performance of a script--
** How does the learning process effect the work? Meaning-- most times in dance, the choreography is learned through an oral and muscular process. Dancers/movers learn and work from the process of storing information in their bodies and the body becomes the place to access memory. This is different than a script, which is an object, outside of self, that can be referred to and is more fixed. How different is it to learn and re-learn through communication with the body/self versus through a document? And how do these different approaches effect the people looking for discovery?
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Wawapalooza 4: Damaged Goods at Society Hill Playhouse
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-11 07:34:55
And thus, the fourth installment of Eric Balchunas’s Wawapalooza, a sketch comedy show that takes aim at all things local and all things ridiculous, is underway. There is no narrative thread; the local angle only loosely informs the evening. Each sketch contains it’s own little world. Wawa moves swiftly and the laughter doesn’t stop until the curtains go down. Only the last sketch—a highly scatological pub dinner where the patrons spout about the “supreme pleasures of life”—fell flat for me.
Eric mixes up the evening with live sketches and filmed shorts. My favorite live sketch consisted of two vegan couples striving to out-green each other with extreme reductions in their carbon footprint and eating habits.
The strongest pieces are the filmed shorts which can be compared favorably to any professionally filmed comedy appearing on the Internet. Or TV. Eric himself takes a star turn as a citizen-reporter talking good-naturedly about his grandmother being a better environmental role model than Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Thom Yorke. It’s witty without being snarky. One can imagine Green-Nazis such as Carol Browner and even Al Gore himself chuckling.
Much of the art seen in the Fringe blooms for a short time and is then gone forever. It’s rare to see productions repeat. For four years in a row Balchunas, aided by his wife Trang, have been staging a brand new show every year. They take their comedy seriously; conducting focus groups and vetting material through a tight circle of friends. I’ve seen their shows from previous years and can see an improvement in the pacing as well as the choice of material. By now, Eric and Trang knows what works and doesn’t work. And the payoff is there for the audience.
What’s rarer still for Fringe shows are those that break-out of the festival altogether. Certainly, Eric and Trang and their ensemble have the talent to go pro. There is no reason why something like Wawapalooza couldn’t have its own (successful) run outside of the festival and it certainly calls to mind the work of 1812 Productions. I can only think of a handful of shows out of dozens in the Fringe where I can make the same statement.
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"Thom Pain" and "Superheroes Who Are Super!"
by Jeremy Gable
posted: 2010-09-10 22:55:00
On Friday night, I witnessed two shows that used minimal staging to conjure up entire worlds, one through a fantastic performance and the other through sheer energy and abandon.
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Playwriting Rules in the Fringe--Romeo & Juliet
by Robin Rodriguez
posted: 2010-09-10 13:47:41
Writing good dialogue supposedly means leaving out the extraneous crap that people actually say. Yet The Nature Theater of Oklahoma has successfully made shows solely from recorded phone conversations. They so faithfully recreate the speech of their friends and relatives that the actors hear the recordings through earpieces and follow the pacing of the original, including all repetitions, side-trips, “umms” and awkward pauses.
Why does it work?
For one thing, they’ve not abrogated the responsibility of shaping their work even if it’s not classic structure. Most conversations didn’t make it in. Their show “No Dice”, seen at the 2007 Philly Fringe, was four hours condensed from a mind-boggling one hundred hours of recorded speech.
Also, as mentioned in a talkback for this year’s “Romeo & Juliet”, there’s the reality-show aspect of it. We know the conceit going in. We can identify with, and laugh at, people just like us screwing up as they try to remember Shakespeare’s play. Or in the case of the previously-seen “No Dice”, as they try to tell a story of any sort and end up rambling on about the silly details of daily life.
And the actors are wonderful. Anne Gridley, who plays Juliet, can stretch her face in ways that are often laugh-out-loud funny.
Mostly though, I think it’s contrast. For R&J it’s, as Tom Tirney said in another blog entry, “the juxtaposition of antiquated theatrical histrionics and contemporary vocabulary.” In general with this company, gestures and grimaces are overdone. Words get stretched out, sounds played with, sincere ideas intoned with wide-eyed incredulity or disbelieving sneers, absurd things uttered with huge sincerity. The familiar is made strange without completely losing its familiarity. Primarily actor-driven here, but there are many ways to create bizarre juxtapositions in a script.
Or maybe the thing to take away from theater that technically shouldn’t work is: if you’re going to break a rule, don’t just chip off a corner or two, smash the whole, damned thing to bits.
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SANCTUARY/Brian Sanders' JUNK
by Greg Romero
posted: 2010-09-10 09:00:12
In my journey towards becoming a playwright, it is my experience with modern dance that has guided me as much as anything.
This became clear to me when collaborating with choreographer Ray Eliot Schwarz seven years ago while creating a project called The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting, in which we created a 25-minute performance piece in collaboration with an electronic music composer (Mike Vernusky) and five really talented dancers.
The performance I witnessed of Brian Sanders’ SANCTUARY brings me back to that place of original revelation, in which these truths offer themselves to me again, even more naked this time:
1. ** Live performance is about action
2. ** There are very few things more majestic than the human body expressing itself to its full imaginative possibilities—witnessing the body pressed to its limits and beyond is enlarging and transformational
3. ** There are many forms of expression that are both beyond and more expressive than words
4. ** The creative use of space opens up worlds, over and over again, that were never here before
5. ** Artists don’t need to be enslaved by the chains of narrative
In my own observation, these points are at the heart of what is indigenously theatrical. And the tragedy for me is that these truths are ones that many (most?) playwrights either aren’t aware of, or choose to ignore. And the result is that most plays I see don’t capture my imagination at all. It makes me ask big questions about how and why this has come to be. I am working on discovering my own answers, but in the meantime I know that I almost always feel more alive while watching dance and listening to live music than I do while watching plays.
It makes me wonder how other writers feel about their own experiences with the live event. Are we all just pretending—creating a shadow of something that is less expressive, more obedient, than other performance forms?
A few thoughts specific to SANCTUARY:
** Upon entering the space (which is a converted warehouse with a performance area sectioned off by a long, narrow river-like trough of water bordering it and the temporary risers), there are signs posted on the first two rows of seats which read:
“Audiences seated in the front row will have best view of SANCTUARY, however may experience a momentary sprinkling of water during the performance”.
If you take in this performance (which is what I wish for you) I encourage you to sit on the front row as you will experience the joy of feeling the performance—you will become part of the communitas.
** The human body itself becomes a glorious work of art
** Finding how best to express/capture sex is a work of art as well
In short, SANCTUARY offered me a return voyage to some important discoveries I have made but too often forget. And it made me want to live more deeply connected to my own body, and then write a new (old?) kind of play (ritual?)—the kind of play/ritual that demands bodies, space, and offers the gift of transformation.
Or it makes me want to quit writing plays and begin dancing again.
--ROMERO
ps: I cut and pasted from a Word.doc, so please forgive any possible formatting eyesores (perhaps the document is dancing).
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Romeo & Juliet at Plays & Players Mainstage
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-10 08:56:14
This isn't Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet but a derivative. An actor and actress deliver a series of spoken transcripts. The monologues are from the cast's coterie of friends describing the play R&J. All of this is delivered in 19th century stentorian stage diction. This mostly hilarious 100 minute piece from the Nature Theater of Oklahoma looks to be one of the standout productions of this year's fest.
While a knowledge of the story helps, it isn't necessary to have read or seen Shakespeare to enjoy this show. Conceived and directed by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, each recollection of the play takes the audience back to an oral tradition of storytelling but in a modern guise. Much of the humor derives from the juxtaposition of antiquated theatrical histrionics and contemporary vocabulary; as well as the universal neurotic tendency to self-edit.
Every re-telling reflects the individual voice but also takes the audience deeper into the familiar themes of the play itself: young love, true love, individual will vs. society (or the family), the consequences of violence, and reconciliation. And rather surprisingly, a few current themes are foisted on Shakespeare that have nothing to do with the play itself: pop culture, 9/11, and sexual obsession.
The remaining shows are Friday 9/10 at 8PM and Saturday 9/11 at 8PM. Keep your eye on Nature Theater of Oklahoma (based in NYC)...this play will likely be touring.
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NPL's FREEDOM CLUB. Freedom... Freedom... Freedom..
by Bob Wuss
posted: 2010-09-10 07:56:27
As the nature of live productions becomes more demanding by the audience, the true power of collaboration keeps breeding sensations that are waiting to be discovered.
Darlings of the experimental theater scene in Philadelphia, New Paradise Laboratories , Artistic Director Whit MacLaughlin, has teamed up with Princeton’s The Riot Group lead by Artistic Director Adriano Shapin, in the creation of a dark and mystic FREEDOM CLUB. The show features 3 founding members of New Paradise and 4 members of The Riot Group, as the plot forms itself into a central aesthetic of the show. The teaser exclaims “America! You need an actor to save you”, as Wilkes Booth’s vision of revolution unfolds around the dark and depressed Lincoln. The second act mirrors tails of revolution as the actors find themselves in 2015 Virginia (post assassination of Barack Obama).
What makes this production so special is that NPL and Riot Group have found a very inspiring relationship, feeding off of Whit’s knowledge of spatial directing and Adriano’s weight of words. Over the last few years NPL has worked with college and high school students searching for an identity as founding members have dissipated to other experiences. It’s not that FATEBOOK or PROM fell short without the founding members, on the contrary these shows truly showed the producing power of such an extraordinary company. I have had the pleasure of working on numerous NPL shows these past years and am always amazed on their ability to acknowledge that the worlds they create are governed by laws they have discovered in process. Whit has always talked about the meteorology system that stems from creating a specific world. Space reacts to the actors like droplets of rain on a windshield. Space is created by not only what the audience see’s but what they hear and can practically taste. FREEDOM CLUB took the traditional acting form of The Riot Group and expanded on Suzuki acting technique, as physical gesture becomes part of intensity present in the air. The set, just a square line of white gaff tape and a movie screen acting as a cyc, seemed to always be changing as actors positioned themselves against the backdrop. Silhouettes became part of an alternate reality, governed by rules created in the rehearsal process. Each moment is filled with texture, intent, and an overwhelming visual aesthetic.
Most companies enter tech with a clear set agenda. NPL usually takes a complete different view, as tech becomes more of a workshop of discovery for everyone involved. Each moment is ripped apart and reassembled, as this becomes the perfect time to understand the connections between actors, space, and character. All elements need to be present in order for the story to react to the mysteries of the space (world they are creating, like a dream). Tech for most companies usually goes from two 10 hour days, but in NPL’s case months of tech workshops full of questions and of course the best answers. Over many different tech periods, each workshop yields new continents of emotion and exploration.
As Designers of theater I believe it is very important be constantly reminded that we are indeed constantly creating an alternate world. A world that breathes and grows. It has color and smell. It listens to us as we listen to it. A world can come in any shape (even a simple square) and when cared for with action and intent the world becomes alive and gains consciousness. Even though we think we have all the responsibility to nurture our Frankenstein monster, we must remember that we have a family (collaborators, audience members, friends) who are there to help shape and build our worlds. A toast to them and the bonds we make in the journey.
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M@& Improv Comedy at the Adrienne Mainstage
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-09 13:51:39
Although Mr. Holmes was handicapped by a small audience--comedy works much better as the volume of laughter increases--he made a game of it with a tall, good-looking, Philly girl. This young lady had a great attitude and played a series of personas chosen by Mr. Holmes.
The first sketch saw them both try on horrific Mexican accents so that Mr. Holmes could take her to task for writing a crap thesis on the Chupacabra phenomenon. This segued into a conversation where Mr. Holmes played a bitchy schoolmarm to his audience member's recalcitrant Catholic schoolgirl (who retained a penchant for channeling her inner Mexican now and then). Then they switched to a tween-girl banter. And on and on.
I must say that Matt Holmes can do an excellent American tween girl. Probably better than the real thing.
Pacing could improve a bit but it was fun and I will undoubtedly look for more of Holmes's stuff in the future. M@& is only one of seven shows sponsored by the Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) this year at the Fringe. As explained to me before curtain, PHIT is the only long-form improv troupe in Philadelphia. Founded in 2005, the organization is influenced by Chicago's Second City and New York's Upright Citizens Brigade. PHIT has a weeklong residency at The Shubin Theatre each month and offers classes year round.
M@& plays Sep 8 at 10PM, Sep 11 at 7PM, Sep 12 at 7PM, and Sep 16 at 8:30PM. Other PHIT shows include King Friday, Activity Book, Fletcher, PHIT's Improv Tasting, PHIT's Side of Sketch, and The Improvised Soap Opera.
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7 Sins in 60 Minutes at the Adrienne's Playground
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-09 06:49:56
The title of the production describes the well-worn conceit. Also, each scene that depicts a sin was penned by a different female author. Thus, the show has seven voices for the seven mortal sins of Catholic doctrine. Lastly, each writer must use the same characters.
To review, the sins are as follows:
1. Sloth
2. Greed
3. Lust
4. Gluttony
5. Anger
6. Envy
7. Pride
There are four characters in the show or two couples: Amadea and Mike, Dante and Willow. While it was easy to follow the scenes and the sins each one explores, it was much more difficult to discern a narrative thread or understand what the artists and the director (the show was conceived by the director Melanie Sutherland of AAI Productions) wanted to say about each them.
For instance, in the first scene, Mike's "sloth" results in his decision to become a homeless beggar after quitting his teaching job--to the apparent shock of his erstwhile girlfriend, Amadea. He spouts a kind of street wisdom about freedom that smacks of Jainism. The third scene describing Lust, is a black out where the Dante and Willow characters have noisy, unprotected, life-affirming sex. The climax after the climax has Willow opining that she must be ovulating.
Are the sins supposed to lead the characters to wisdom? Do the characters flirt with the deadlies and overcome them through their own relationships? Ultimately, I couldn't tell if the characters were the same or fundamentally changed as they tracked the course of the sins.
Part of the problem may lie with a lack of understanding of what the sins are or why the church doctors promulgated them in the first place. The Deadly Sins are so classified because they were seen as destroying life or one's ability to attain grace. Any sin in excess had the power to send a soul to hell. The play's characters merely flirt with the sins so we can believe at heart that they aren't bad, just wayward. This does not save them from damnation of a kind: indifference from the audience.
There are some truly funny scenes in this play--greed and lust, in particular--and in the end, the writers and the director keeps things light. One wishes for more coherence with characterization and plotting although that doesn't seem to be the point.
Remaining shows are Friday at 8:30PM, Satuday at 2:30PM, and Sunday at 5:30PM. The venue is the Playground Theatre at the Adrienne. Expect a moderately rehearsed reading. Stage directions are read.
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Welcome to the PDC Fringe Blog
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-08 07:07:33
Welcome to the Philadelphia Dramatists Center’s Fringe blog.
From September 3-18, Philadelphia plays host to the 14th Live Arts and Philly Fringe; which includes over 150 performances of (mostly) new and experimental work. The Philadelphia Dramatists Center will be chronicling this year’s festival on these pages with entries contributed by our member writers, officers, and dramaturgs.
It’s hard to know where to start. By the time you read this, a number of shows will already have premiered and closed. The sheer number of productions coupled with the extremely limited running times means that finding shows to recommend is nothing more than a trial and error process. The 2010 festival has 17 shows participating as Live-Arts partners and roughly 150 productions in Fringe. While there are slightly more Live-Arts shows in 2010, the number of Fringe participants tracks to a similar number from the prior year.
Let’s begin with our own members. This year, three of our members are self-producing at the Fringe. There is Wally Zialcita’s Zacherle, Eric Balchunas’s Wawapalooza 4: Damaged Goods, and Alex Drehmann’s company, Secret Room Theatre is producing a number of shorts including one of his pieces called “X”
Wawapalooza 4: Damaged Goods--$15/tkt, remaining shows@8pm 9/9, 8pm 9/10, 6pm & 8pm 9/11
Eric Balchunas exuberantly skewers everything local in a production that features short films, live sketches, music, and artwork. Taking satirical aim at environmentalists, mustaches, Taser victims, sex, vegans, Wawa Food Market, and sports-mad Philadelphians, this 65 minute show was dubbed "terrifically abnormal" by the City Paper.
I saw Wawapalooza 3: The Dark Roast last year and commend Eric's commitment to a high production values (particularly his short films) and his "I'm just an average Joe" approach to the weirdness of the tri-state area. As Eric puts it, “I want to write a show that is like a postcard to someone who doesn’t live here.”
Each of his Wawapalooza shows is designed like an album with eleven "tracks" which average about 5 minutes each. This year's Wawa looks like this:
1. Straight to DVD (stand-up)
2. Torturing the Audience (play)
3. A Clockwork Green (play)
4. Suburban Scorpians (play)
5. environMENTAL (play)
6. The Accidental Environmentalist (short film)
7. The Fear of Intimacy (play)
8. Birdwatchers (play)
9. Too Much Cheese in the Mousetrap (play)
10. The List (short film)
12. Shitheads (play)
The show runs to 70 minutes and is at the Society Hill Playhouse. Wawa will sell out at the door in spite of the large theater.
Dirty Laundry--$15/tkt, remaining shows@8pm 9/9, 6pm 9/10, 6pm & 2pm 9/12
Playwright Alex Dremann has assembled five short comedic plays, mostly from our member writers but all from Philadelphia playwrights. This 75 minute production is taking place at the 3rd floor of Plays & Players. Every play runs approximately 10-15 minutes although Alex's is 20 minutes long and the theme of each one is laundry.
Alex's Sally Sock was featured at the Spark Festival at Plays & Players in July 2010.
I saw it. Funny and strange.
The other shorts and playwrights are as follows:
Chris Braak, Mamet: on Mamet
Katharine Clark Gray, Mr. Squeaky
Quin Eli, Running Amok
Elle McComsey, 100% Cotton
The show's promotional material succinctly sums up the evening: "We’ve got sock puppets, passive aggressive t-shirts, a laundromat musical, and much more in our laundry basket. Come clean. Leave dirty."
Word has gotten around. While the space can seat up to 60 people, Dirty Laundry turned away twenty or so patrons on Monday. The upstairs at Plays & Players is also a fun hangout; the adjacent room to the stage is the fully stocked bar, Quig's Pub.
Zahcherle--$15/tkt, 7pm 9/12, 7pm 9/14, 7pm & 10pm 9/15, 10pm 9/15, 10pm 9/16, 1pm & 4pm 9/18
Wally Zialcita's Zacherle has yet to open and will premiere Upstairs at the Adrienne. The play is inspired by Gothic horror as well as old horror movies...though Wally says it's not a horror play. The figure of John Zacherle was a TV host for "shock" theater and creepshows in the late 50's. Wally calls his play an
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