This photo is from France, which is briefly referenced in this article, but otherwise has no bearing upon it.

I began to attend Philadelphia theater in earnest about a decade ago, in my early mid-twenties. Consistently, my companion and I would be the youngest people in an audience made up mostly of gray-haired, well-dressed white couples. Now in my mid-thirties, I feel less of a demographic anomaly, my increasingly salted salt-and-pepper hair blending into the aging crowd. But just as going to an indie rock show at the TLA can make me feel decidedly old, certain theater crowds still make me feel teenager-ly young.

Memorable cases of this included a show at the Walnut Street Theatre, during which several older audience members received (and took!) cell phone calls in the middle of the show, and I had to endure the distraction of several wives seated near me provided hearing-assisted recaps for their hard-of-hearing husband. But this fact was really brought home to me last season, at a Lantern Theatre Company performance of Vigil by Morris Panych.*

It wasn’t that the audience at the Lantern was particularly superannuated—several youngish couples were camped among the standard middle-aged theatergoers—it was that the dryly comic subject matter, which I found hilariously dark, fell flat to the older patrons around me.

Quickly paced with an abundance of droll one-liners (“Why are you putting on makeup? Why don’t you let the mortician do that?”), absurd monologues (on cross-dressing, religious guilt, and a disillusioned magician father), and even farcical slapstick, Vigil won its author Vancouver’s top award for best play. A British adaptation (the Lantern’s source, judging by the language and cultural references, but thankfully not any attempted accents) won critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe. So it’s not as if the play didn’t have what it needed to be a success, and it was hard to see how the production, which featured Lenny Haas and Cael Phelan in spot-on performances, could have better served the material. Perhaps Vigil would be better received at Philadelphia’s own Fringe, where audiences are generally younger in age and more comically inclined. Because, unfortunately for the Lantern, much of the humor—laughter in the face of mortality—came at the expense of the old.

The audience’s reaction was mixed, with some people laughing and others sitting in unamused silence. Of course, humor is subjective, and what is a series of laughs to one person can be interminably unfunny to another. If you only read published reviews, you might assume there has never been a good production of a comedy in the city, so anti-humor is the criticism in town. Certainly, when a play is advertised as “darkly funny,” I often discover that means “not funny” (I thought the recent August: Osage County at the Arden was a good exception.) Perhaps I was just more sympathetic than most to Vigil’s wicked humor, but the timing and absence of others’ laughter makes me think it was a generational problem.

Last decade, my regular theater companion was a French live-in girlfriend, who criticized the age of Philadelphia play audiences with irritatingly justified Gallic arrogance, claiming that Parisian theaters offer five euro tickets to all buyers under 25-years-old. I’m sure hundreds of arts management theses have been written about this topic, and I suspect that that outreach efforts need to reach even younger viewers. (My own love of theater, piqued by annual holiday pantomimes, was cemented when I saw a performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of eleven.)

Theater audiences are generally upper middle-aged, running to elderly at the more established (read: expensive) theaters in town. (Though even many of the smaller theaters can be obnoxiously overpriced.) This would seem inauspicious for the future of the craft, but it could just be that social activities which seem fun in our twenties (loud rock shows, dance clubs, near-death drinking experiences) become unappetizing, while a nice night at the theater or opera seems more refined and appealing. Still (and I haven’t bothered to look up any statistics to back me up . . .  mmm, could I run for the Republican presidential nomination on that claim alone?), audiences in London, where I irregularly see plays, seem younger on average, as do audiences for independent local theater.

Whatever the causes or potential cures, the age of the local theatergoing crowd is sure to remain troubling high as long as the already old audiences reject fare that would appeal to younger-minded viewers, discouraging theaters from putting on such work in the first place. That was what was so worrying about being the most amused person in the Lantern’s surprisingly sparse audience.

Vigil lacked profundity, and the one major (well-signposted) plot twist does not survive scrutiny, but it was the type of wickedly entertaining fare of which I’d like to see more. My experience at Lantern bodes poorly for established Philadelphia theaters. Thankfully, Philadelphia has an abundance of independent companies willing to take risks, shunning subscribers to put on shows that will appeal to new audiences. It is there that I will have to continue to look for more cutting-edge shows (and old people jokes).

But then, the admonition on the tomb in Masaccio’s Florentine Renaissance masterpiece, “What you are I was, what I am you will become,” works for aging as well as dying. Soon enough, I will see an old man on the bus and think “look at my reflection in that glass” and the Vigil character’s thought in the same situation, “what a waste of a seat,” will seem just plain unfunny.

–Christopher Munden

*This piece is adapted from my BroadStreetReviewwrite-up of that show

Another in our irregular video of the week series! (Actually I’m just adding this as filler because it’s been so long since ppaa has posted, and we’re getting back at, so, you know, we’d like to pretend were at it the whole time.)

Ed Miller, shortly after disposing of the body.

Ed Miller has been acting in and creating theatre works in Philly since the 90s (the new 60s). Or at least, that’s when I first encountered him, sometime in the late 90s. He’s best known for his comedic roles, thanks to his superb timing, and the ability to really tweak a line, gesture, or joke so that it plays on many comic levels. It’s not surprising that he is drifting more solidly into writing, directing, and creating works: even as a performer he seems keenly–and accurately–aware of the big picture, and is constantly trying to push it forward. (I’ve been fortunate to work with Ed recently, particularly on a couple of video shorts about a fictional naturalist/educator named Gary Pierce, which I wrote with Ed in mind. See them here and here.)

For the 2011 Philly Fringe he has teamed up with his Secret Room Theatre collaborators Alex Dremman,  Elle McComsey, and John D’Alonzo to produce Wired, a series of scenes, ranging from comedic to demented to serious, that explore what it means to be living in a world that is so wired into everything from our iPods to our energy drinks. For the show, Ed wrote and directed a number of the pieces, and in general he is turning his creative eye (that would be his left eye, he can barely see out of the right one*) towards creating work that is new (both in subject and presentation) and reflective of the world we live in.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: What’s your role in Wired and how did the project come about?

Ed Miller: I wrote and directed a few scenes for the show. Two scenes are from a full-length play I’m developing. I also wrote and directed three short videos. The project came about from the desire to work with my talented friends, John D’Alonzo, Alex Dremman, and Elle McComsey and, of course, find and make new friends in the process.

PPAA: What’s the subject you’re working with, and why did you want to make a work out of it—or did it start more from an idea that just popped into your head?

EM: Popping out of the head is the best way to describe it. Elle McComsey, Alex Dremman, John D’Alonzo, and I were kicking around names for a show and Wired was blurted out. We all liked it because it speaks so much to our current situations. We are all wired to iPods, drinking energy drinks or espresso, constantly on our smart phones and the internet, but are we really more connected to each other? We felt that it offered us a range of topics to develop comedic and more serious material.

PPAA: You’ve been experimenting  with video/technology lately in your direction. What has been the appeal for you? How are you incorporating these elements in Wired?

EM: Yes! I’m a huge fan of film and feel it can bring a fuller experience for the audience if it is complimentary to the performances on stage. For this show, the use of webcams and their potential addictive qualities felt like an easy fit for our theme and we found ways to take it beyond a simple video blog.  We were extremely blessed to have the very talented Melody Tash help out with some shooting and editing which made our work that much richer.

PPAA: Are you getting more interested in the writing, conceiving and directing of work, rather than the acting? What do you get from it that you enjoy?

EM: Come on Josh, you like playing god too, no? I’m definitely finding myself enjoying writing and creating the most.  It’s a rush to develop something that simply didn’t exist before. Having others involved and bringing their own ideas and talents makes it all the better . . . unless we disagree on something.

PPAA: You’ve been doing work in Philly since 1950.** You were in Korea teaching English for 3 years and came back in 2008.  What were your impressions of the Philly theatre scene and performing arts scene upon your return? Any changes?

EM: Yes, the 50s were a magical time in Philadelphia Theatre for sure. I didn’t fall into the cool cat musicals of the time and stuck mostly to movement pieces influenced by doo-wop groups.

I would say that the biggest change in theatre was the sheer number of theater companies. It feels as though the number of companies doubled in the three years I was gone.

PPAA: You’ve done a lot of industrial commercial work. What is your approach when audition for a job like that, as oppose to a theater audition? Any tips for a novice?

EM: I actually really enjoy industrial work. I don’t know many actors who would say that. I have a background in business and training so I feel very comfortable being cast in business scenarios because it’s so close to my experience.

In the auditions, I try not to make the fact that it’s a paid job a source of stress, I just try to be as real as I can with the material.  I actually don’t do a heck of a lot theater auditions because I’m finding myself enjoying the creative side mostly in that world and I’m lucky to slide in to a couple projects with people who I’ve worked with in the past.

If I was getting work regularly I’d feel more qualified to give a tip, but the best I can say is let the camera find your performance instead of performing for the camera.

PPAA: Can you tell us your strangest industrial work without naming names and jeopardizing your career?

EM: I don’t want to label this as strange as much as interesting. I had a run of jobs with a company west of the city for a series of “tolerance” videos. I played a gay character, then another gay character, and another, and then finally moved on to a transgender role.  So I had to do an emotional scene with a blonde wig and wearing a halter top and bra. Oddly, I never worked for that company again after that shoot.

PPAA: What kind of new theatre work are you interested in getting involved in/creating in the next few years?

EM: There is a longer piece stirring around based on some of the work done for Wired this year. It’s a pretty dark piece, which surprises a lot of people who are used to me doing comedy, but I would like to see where this material leads me.

Additionally, I think I want to role up the sleeves, loosen up the pants, and just do a really, really, silly show.

PPAA: What kind of work would  you like to see happening in Philly from an audience perspective?

EM: I want to see theatre leave the theater and hit the streets. I want to get on a trolley in West Philly and be surprised by a small theatre event going on. I want to bump into a performance inside the subway concourse in center city, or on a random street corner. And year-round, not just during this wonderful Fringe festival we have each year.

Thanks Ed, and good luck with the show!

Wired
Produced by Secret Room Theatre (part of the 2011 Philly Fringe)
Dates: Sept 5 & 8 at 7pm, Sept 10 at 4pm, Sept 15 & 17 at 7pm
Venue: 2nd Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
 Tickets Tickets Tickets

–Josh McIlvain

*That’s a joke, I have no idea which eye is his weak eye.

**This is also a joke, Ed has been a staple of the Philly scene since the 30s.

Annie Wilson photo by Erin Desmond

Annie Wilson is a local dancer-choreographer-performer-art maker type who has been making her presence known these past several years since graduation from the University of the Arts. I first met Annie because she had written a story (“Hoagie”) which we published in Philly Fiction 2, and only later found out that her primary art was dance. Yet she loves to tell stories, something she often incorporates into her work. She will be performing her work in Grab Bag (thefidget space, 1714 North Mascher Street, Fishtown) this Friday and Saturday (Sept 2 & 3 at 7pm) along with a number of other choreographers.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: You are involved in the Philly Fringe show Grab Bag. How did the show come about and what will you be doing?

Annie Wilson: The folks at thefidget space asked me to present work in the show.  They described it to me as a “festival within a festival,” in that it was a smaller, curated festival within the melee of other Fringe performances that takes place over the first weekend of the festival. Seven artists will be presented over four nights, with a different lineup each night.

The piece I am presenting is a solo that has slowly been developing over the past year, although I realized recently that it is the same solo that I do every time I make a solo, just in a different form. There’s a passage from Beckett’s novella “Company,” that echoes the piece, and I think the passage is something along the lines of “Whether standing or sitting and lying down in the dark.”  This time I’m directly addressing the audience, as well as dancing to Girl Talk, as well as transposing spaces.

PPAA: In the solo work you do—or even the live, more improvised, work you do with other dancers in which you are the creator or co-creator of the piece—aside from being a performer, how do you see your role? Is choreographer an accurate title, or is there another word that more properly describes how you go about creating these performances?

AW: This is funny because it reminds me of improvising last summer.  A colleague and I both adopted the mantra “I am a human.”  I think in a lot of dance styles, there is an emphasis on being superhuman, on transcending our humanness through physical feats.  I find ballet to be a great example, and although I haven’t seen the show, I also imagine the Live Arts [urban circus] show Traces will probably be a great example of that. A lot of my work in dance is to integrate the humanness. So, I guess I start as a human. And often a piece will need choreographic tools, and often it will need theatrical tools, and sometimes it will need performance art, sometimes stand-up comedy. The solo in Grab Bag was described as stand-up when I performed it at Hybridge’s “Last Mondays.”  I think that holds true both for making set and improvised work.

PPAA: How difficult is it to dance with someone whom you don’t like personally at all, but who you may meld with really well in a work? Or on the other side, someone whom you love personally, but as dancers sharing the stage, it just doesn’t work at all. At the core of this question is how important are personalities when it comes to both creating/performing work with someone, or in a group collaborative project?

AW: This is a really excellent question.** The solo in Grab Bag actually addresses this. I think a collaboration is eerily similar to a romantic relationship. You bring your entire self to both collaboration and romantic intimacy, both the good and the bad. And some collaborations are one-night stands, some are short-term gigs, and some are really deep, long-term, slow-growing relationships. I actually have a hard time thinking of anyone that I dislike personally that I enjoy dancing with, although I’m sure it’s happened. I do, however, know a number people that I love as people that I’m not so excited to work with. I think in either case, if you want to make work, you have to focus on what will make work. To continue with the romantic analogy, you could have really great sex with someone and that makes you think you can build a great, long-term relationship, and that’s just not true. Building a relationship is way more than really liking or even loving someone. There’s nuts and bolts to it that have nothing to do with your emotions.  But you have to have the right personalities.

PPAA: Now that you are 4 years out of the UARTS dance program, are you living the life/involved in dance the way you anticipated/hope? What might be some of the biggest differences and surprises between your former expectations and now, and what has turned out so far pretty much as you envisioned it?

AW: Oh Josh, I am living a version of what I imagined, only it’s not at all how I imagined it would be. I actually achieved a great deal of my long-term goals within the first couple years out of college.  Definitely not all, but some big ones. Which was tough: I thought I would achieve those goals and then, yeah! I’d have made it. And then I got the things I wanted, and it was like what happens after the cowboy rides off into the sunset. Oh shit, there’s like, the rest of your life ahead of you. What happened then was that I had time to contemplate how utterly meaningless any human achievement at all actually is in the grand scheme of things. Hand in hand with that, I was shocked to learn that life does not AT ALL travel in the linear fashion that the structure of traditional education would have you believe. So in the past year or so, I’ve had to readdress what I actually want to  be as a human (back to the human mantra) and then what I want as a dancer-performer-choreographer, and to integrate those things.

PPAA: Did you ever consider dancing on cruise ships while at UArts? Was it ever suggested to you?

AW: I actually considered dancing on cruise ships before UArts, which was part of my decision to go there. I had gone on a cruise as a teenager and it sounded like the life! And then I got to UArts, America’s premier cruise ship training ground and immediately realized how completely fucking terrible and soul-crushing and wrong a life path that would be for me. I think if it’s soul-nourishing for someone they should totally do it because the good parts of it sound like a lot of fun, and I’ve had worse jobs, but it’s not for me.

PPAA: You seem to be constantly involved either by performing or training or working with others in the dance world—i.e., it’s clearly part of your regular routine.  In the cases where talent/ability is more or less equal, what do you see as the biggest differences between those who are doing shit, and those who are on the path to giving it up (amongst your peers)?

AW: That’s a great question.**  My relationship to dance has changed so drastically since I first entered college. I often wonder what the hell I was thinking when I went to school to study dance, knowing who I was when I was 18. I mean I thought dancing on cruise ships would be fun! I think the way that dance feeds you changes when you start having to repay your student loans. It may still feed you in the way that it did when you were younger, or it may just shift a bit, or you realize that the thing that inspired you about dancing has nothing to do with being a professional dancer. It may be that you’re interested in body-centered healing, or you’re interested in the type of community that develops in making a dance, or that you actually want to be a lawyer and use your income to support the arts as well as other causes. So not “doing shit” in the “dance world” may mean that you’re doing shit in another world, and if you’re doing shit in another world because it nourishes you the most, then that is way way way better than doing shit in the dance world and not being your best self. However, I have seen a few people who have “given up” because the art world can barely nourish the number of people that it’s supporting right now.  And seriously, when you’ve got massive amounts of student loans to repay, a path in the arts is often just not an option.

America’s current stance on education is a major stake driving the separation between the rich and the poor. Kids are being told their entire lives they’ll end up working at Wendy’s if they don’t go to college, and then banks and handing out loans to students and parents that they cannot possibly afford to pay. Bankruptcy doesn’t even ease the burden of student debt, and the annual tuition for UArts is $33,500 per year. PER YEAR! Which is ten grand more per year than when I went, and I only went for three years.  The amount of debt professional dancers are graduating with is astronomical. The worst thing about it is that the debt that you carry for studying dance is exactly what precludes some people from being able to pursue it professionally.  I feel like when I talk about it people shrug, “What are you going to do?” And I don’t think that is an appropriate response if you want to continue to sustain the USA, and have the USA sustain you as a citizen.

PPAA: Is Philly a viable city for a dancer whose primarily motivation is to dance for a company? If you were not someone who had this urge to create performances , and was more of a dancer who focused solely on her craft (as actors often do), would you even be here?  

AW: First, almost no one dances on salary for one company anymore.  That model doesn’t work. But if you were looking to dance for several companies purely as a dancer, then no, Philly is not the place.  We don’t offer a great deal of technique classes, although Chi Mac and the Performing Arts Research and Development (PARD) studios are working on that. For that I would go to NYC or Amsterdam.

PPAA: Is there anything you think of as being down the road that you would like to delve into, dance-wise?

AW: I just took a breakdancing workshop, which was so awesome.  I really want to study aikido and butoh.  I took an Embodied Anatomy class with Nicole Bindler this past year which was pretty revolutionary.  The delicacy and intricacy and strength of the human body is astounding; I’d like to explore that work some more.  I also really want to participate in a performance that’s endurance-based, whether that means doing a piece where I just do pushups (it would last about 1.4 minutes), or somersault for as long as I can, or take part in a performance that lasts 8 or 36 hours.  As far as choreography, I’d really like to make a piece that’s only a beginning, or several beginnings.

Thanks Annie, have a great show!

Grab Bag

Lora Allen, Ellie Goudie-Averill, Christina Guesaldi, David Konyk, Gina Hoch-Stall, and Annie Wilson
September 2 at 7pm*, 3 at 6pm*, 4 at 4pm, 5 at 8pm
thefidget space
1714 North Mascher Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Tickets ($15) at www.livearts-fringe.org and at door.

*Annie will be performing in the Friday September 2nd, and Saturday Sept 3rd shows.

–Josh McIlvain

**Thanks.

P.S. Annie will also be showing her work in Wild Punch: 3 by Annie, John and Josh this November at the Papermill Theater, a performance we’ve dubbed “Dance Theater Adventures in Kensington.” I say “we” because am the Josh referred to in the title.

James Tolbert, Anna Watson, and Sebastian Cummings prepare to do damage.

California born and bred, now entrenched in Philadelphia, the playwright-director John Rosenberg debuts his latest work Queen Of All Weapons this Saturday at 2pm at the Papermill Theater (2528 Ormes Street) in Kensington. I first met John about a year ago at a play reading of his I hosted at the Walking Fish Theatre, a bunch of strange, brutal, and funny shorts that would later appear in his 2010 Philly Fringe show Cheap Guy Hall of Fame. I later cast John in my Christmas show Merry Fucking Christmas, in which he excelled at being creepy, and had no fear of cajoling the audience to say, “I love Al Qaida” in order to win a donated trip to Miami that did not actually exist. This past winter, also at the Papermill, which John runs, he presented California Redemption Value, an autobiographical full-length about his drama-teacher mother, and the needy castaway drama students she supports under her roof in Los Angeles.

Queen Of All Weapons is quite a different play. Set in the 70s, it concerns a German terrorist (Anna Watson) who comes to San Francisco and teams up with members (James Tolbert, Sebastian Cummings) of a fading Black Panther movement to defeat capitalist scum. I caught up with John to get the lowdown.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: Your new play Queen Of All Weapons opens this Saturday July 9th (at 2pm), can you tell me about how this show came about?

John Rosenberg: I met Anna Watson in your Christmas show [Merry Fucking Christmas, SmokeyScout Productions]. She is German and fearless. I asked her if she wanted to be in a play I was writing which I had not written and she said yes. Then I had to write a play starring her. I had never written a show built around an actor and it was a great experience. We would sit in her apt and talk about Germany, a subject I didn’t know anything about.

PPAA: What was it that having a Nazi anarchist revitalize the dying 70s San-Fran Black Panther movement that appealed to you?

JR: I don’t know shit about Germans or black people outside of the racist shit tv and America inculcated me with so I thought it would be great to write a play about people I didn’t know about.

As for time period, I didn’t know anything about the time around I was born (1976) and wanted to ground a story there. I always hated the 70s when I was a kid because I was dumb. When you get older and start linking generations you see the crazy shit that happened. The time after the great social upheavals of the late 60s and 70s and what became of that movement is fascinating to me and tragic and that is where I wanted to set the play.

This is a play about things I know nothing about.

PPAA: Why have set the play in San Francisco?

JR: Well, I miss California and don’t know shit about out here. And a way to be closer to there is to write a play about it. As for the subject matter, I went to school at Berkeley. I knew people who were involved in protest movements whist I was getting high. It is amazing to think that people put themselves on the line for something larger their selves.

PPAA: Have you written plays for specific actors before?

JR: No, but I like it. I see a future in writing scripts around actors. It is fantastic. I want to forever now write plays around specific actors.

PPAA: Since you were writing this play even as you had begun rehearsals, how much of the rehearsal process influenced the writing of the play, or was it completely separate?

JR: Everyone has a way, but I wrote this and then when rehearsals started shit change based off the actors. Nothing is worse than watching actors uncomfortable saying shit.

PPAA: What did you enjoy most about writing this play?

JR: The actors making the play their own .

PPAA: Who are your actors? I understand they all have German connections.

JR: Anna Watson. She is from Germany. James Tolbert who starred in Starlight Express the musical in the early 90s in Germany. Sebastian Cummings who was born on a military base in Germany. All three of them were in Germany at the same time. Freaky as fuck.

PPAA: What’s the week like before opening a show?

JR: It is always different. This time, it is drunk on Yuengling. Haha. It is 3am right now and we had a party and I am watching Golden Girls while working on this.

PPAA: Is Queen Of All Weapons family-friendly?

JR: Yes.

Thanks John, and see you at the opening!

Queen of All Weapons
Written and Directed by John Rosenberg
Featuring James Tolbert, Sebastian Cummings, and Anna Watson

July 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 + 31 at 2pm
Papermill Theater
2528 Ormes Street 
$10

For tickets and more information go to www.queenofallweapons.com.

–Josh McIlvain

Another in our irregular video of the week series!

Polly Edelstein, yet another out-of-towner putting down roots here.

It’s a common complaint: few good roles exist for female actors in Philadelphia. Indeed even your most ardent male feminist (self-proclaimed) tends to turn his theatre company into a boys’ club. It’s a ridiculous situation, honestly, the lack of female voices and good characters on the stage. For an art form that considers itself so forward thinking, in practice it is hopelessly archaic when it comes to gender issues, whether on stage or in the office (you will find lots of women in low-paying admin, but few at the top). There are too many reasons for this to get into (including the fact that women generally tire of the bullshit for little reward and go find success and happiness elsewhere, leaving their loser male theatre compatriots to stew in their own nastiness), but one theatre artist has decided to do something about it. Newly arrived in Philly, Polly Rose Edelstein has founded Crack The Glass Theatre Company to provide an outlet for women playwrights, actors, and other theatrical inclined folks. PPAA’s faithful correspondent Christopher Munden talked to her about the new company and its inaugural production, “An Evening of One-Acts,” running through this weekend.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: Tell me a little about Crack The Glass and “An Evening of One-Acts.” Why did you put together this event?

Polly Rose Edelstein: Crack The Glass Theatre Company is a brand new company I started here in Philadelphia. We are dedicated and committed to showcasing women in theater, including actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. I had the idea to start a company similar to this while I was in college. I noticed that, even at my small women’s college (Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri), there weren’t enough opportunities for women in theater and figured it was up to me to make the opportunities happen!

PPAA: What brought you to Philadelphia? How do you like it and its theatre scene so far?

PRE: My senior year of college I had a theatre business class called Nuts and Bolts. We were given cities to research that we thought we may consider moving to and mine was Philadelphia. We had to learn about everything from the theater scene to the average rent to the best place for 3am pizza! After that I visited Philly in January 2010, liked it, and figured if I liked it in January I could like it in most months! I graduated that May, worked through the summer, and then packed up my car in late August, left my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and drove here looking for opportunity! The theatre scene is phenomenal. It is a city full of talent, not afraid to do new and edgy pieces, and super welcoming of new companies and ideas!

PPAA: What is the state of Philadelphia theatre for female actors?

PRE: I can’t really comment on the state of Philadelphia theatre for female actors as I haven’t been in Philadelphia for a full year yet. I will say I recently attended an audition that had around 30 women attending and 3 males and that in general the state of theater for women all across the country is constantly competitive in all aspects of theater. While competition is good, I feel there are so many talented female voices out there that go unheard and I would like to give those voices as much opportunity as possible

PPAA: I just said “female actors.” What do you think of the word “actress”?

PRE: Most women I know refer to themselves as actors and if I am performing, refer to myself as one. I personally am fairly indifferent towards the terminology as long as it isn’t used in a demeaning way.

PPAA: Are there female-centric themes or issues in them that are often ignored in male-dominated theater?

PRE: Often I have heard from playwrights, male and female, that it is harder to write plays with female protagonists than male ones. I think often women don’t want to be considered “stereotypical” by writing plays that deal with the condition of women for fear of being labeled “feminist writers.” If writers write what they know, then male playwrights—whose plays are more produced—are not going to write about being taken to the Harvest Ball or being raped by their stepbrothers [plot points of the plays in Crack the Glass’s one act series], even if that makes for good theatre. I think the female voice is a powerful one that is heard throughout all of the one acts in this production and hopefully will be heard in future productions.

PPAA: How did you find and choose the plays in the production?

PRE: I found some of these playwrights and some found me! Nothing gives me more joy than to meet random playwrights on the street and give them my card for future productions! To be less vague, I went on a lot of websites searching for one-acts written by females. I also tapped into theatre companies that had done one-act festivals and wrote to the female playwrights I found there. Also, I have done some 24-hour theatre festivals in Philadelphia and met very talented writers at those.

PPAA: Are there any themes that run through the plays?

PRE: The only theme is that all of these plays are written by very talented women! The eight plays run the gamut with different themes, ranging from the light-hearted—including stories from the Garden of Eden, the trials of staying in shape, and how frustrating it is to have a car break down in the middle of nowhere—to more serious themes of familial abuse and the consequences of war. One has the hilarity of Southern drama, another the dramatics of Hollywood divas, and another the unease of being stalked on a subway train.  All in all, they are a wide variety of good writing and fun storytelling.

PPAA: What were the challenges of directing eight separate one acts with a revolving cast?

PRE: Where do I start? Originally I was supposed to have a co-director to make casting and scheduling much easier. She was going to take four of the one-acts and I was going to take four. Unfortunately that didn’t work out, two days before auditions. From the auditions I found my wonderful assistant director Kari Delany who has kept me sane throughout this process. Another challenge we had was not having an official rehearsal space. We were “borrowing” rooms from a public place that closed down about 2 weeks ago. Since then we have been rehearsing in my house, which has gotten very hot recently as we don’t have central air.

PPAA: So, Philadelphia has a magic theater? How did you come across that and what challenges or opportunities does the space present?

PRE: Grasso’s Magic Theatre is the only place in Philadelphia dedicated to the art of magic. I came across it online, came in and met the owner, Joe Grasso, who has been great throughout this process, and started to do volunteer box office for him. There have been very few challenges with this space, minus a few staging quirks and the giant scary mummy that greets people when they arrive. It is a wonderful place location-wise and I have had the opportunity to meet very interesting and entertaining individuals and have learned a lot working here.

PPPA: Thanks for talking to us, Polly, good luck with the run!

PRE:  Thanks, I’ll see you there!

Evening of One-Acts, Crack the Glass Theatre Company

Featuring plays by Dori Appel, Claudia Barnett, Anne Flanagan, Susan Goodell, Kerri Kochanski, Mary Steelsmith, and Julia Tobey. Directed by Polly Rose Edelstein; Assistant Director: Kari Delany.

June 1 through June 5, Grasso’s Magic Theatre, 103 Callowhill Street. $15 online or at door.

–Christopher Munden

Read Christopher Munden’s show preview on another site here.

This photo is completely unrelated to the events discussed by Jaamil Kosoko in this interview. It is, however, an actual photo of Jaamil.

Philly-based choreographer and dance impresario Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a busy man these days—creatively, curatorially, and administratively. He recently changed the name of his company from Kosoko Performance Group to The Philadiction Movment to herald in a new era for the company, has been performing and touring with his company and with Headlong Dance Theater, and he has just published a book of his poems titled Notes on an Urban Kill-Floor.

But wait, there’s more! He also dabbles in the curatorial end of things. On Thursday June 9 and Friday June 10th, at thefidget space in Fishtown, look out for The Gemini Show: An Evening of Daring Dirty Duets, which is actually two evenings containing four performance times, and four separate programs, all curated by Kosoko (and presented by thefidget space). The line up includes work and performances by Kosoko and his company, as well as Marcel Foster, Brandon Shockley, Shannon Murphy, Melissa Diane, Devynn Emory, Tzveta Kassobova, Lillie Ruth Bussey, J-Luv, and various special guests.

We caught up with Jaamil to get the low-down on bringing it all together.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: For The Gemini Show, why did you bring these particular artists together, and is there anything to connect them beyond wanting to have them all perform in the same evening?

Jaamil Kosoko: I have a deep performance history with all of the performers showing work in The Gemini Show. Most of the pieces being shown, I’ve made in collaboration with the artists. For example, the piece that Melissa Diane  (Jacelyn Biondo and Kristen Shahverdian) is showing, I choreographed for them, as React/Dance, nearly two years ago now. Like The Philadiction Movement, they recently changed their company name (to Melissa Diane), so it was important to me to work with them to pull our collaboration out of the archive and freshen it up for The Gemini Show.

From The Gemini Show, or so they promise.

Others artists, I’ve invited as special guests because I want them to be a part of this new chapter in the creative life of the new company. Much of my personal mission in pulling together performers is to reconnect with them and their ideas. It’s my curiosity to see what they’ve been thinking about, as I believe performance is a public display of personal thoughts made physical.

PPAA: Is curating/presenting something you enjoy doing? What do you get out of it? Are you planning on taking on that role more and more?

JK: I enjoy curating for presenting agencies. Working with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival to co-curate The Rockies with Megan Mazarick was a blast. Also, while I was working at nEW Festival, I had an integral role in accepting resident artists to make new work. Some outstanding pieces have come out of my work in pulling various artists together. Many of the nEW resident artists have toured to major festivals in New York City, among other cities. Again, I really enjoy the act of creating community, whether it means pulling artists together to help me execute a choreographic impulse or a curatorial one. Right now, I’m planning SOLO BODY NOIR for May 2012. It will be a co-production between thefidget space, anonymous bodies, and The Philadiction Movement. Those companies, too, will showcase their work as a part of a major two weekend event that we currently call Three’s Company, after the 80s sitcom.

PPAA: You recently changed the name of your company—can you discuss this decision and what you like about your new name?

JK: I recently completed a year long crash course in art management as a 2011 Fellow at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. While in the program, I completed an environmental analysis, financial management plan, and needs assessment that centered mostly around my work as an independent choreographer and maker of small ensemble driven performance art. I learned that Kosoko Performance Group was not as inviting as I wanted it to be, mostly because my name was in the title. It would always be Jaamil’s company. Well, I wanted to change that to invite artists to share in this vision and be real stakeholders in what is produced by The Philadiction Movement. This meant changing the title to be more inclusive of all the characteristics that the company values: Philadelphia (Community), Diction (Discourse), and Movement (Political and Physical).

PPAA: Can you talk a little about thefidget space and what it offers for a performer as a performance space? Also how do you approach non-traditional spaces as a performer and presenter?

JK: Philly has a great underground, grassroots performance scene. This richness in creative culture is what keeps me here. There are a number of artists like myself who make small scale, personal, boutique performance that’s meant for small audiences. My work thrives best in venues that are close and intimate like thefidget space. The Gemini Show will mark my second time presenting work at thefidget. I really enjoy the atmosphere.

Furthermore, I make non-traditional work, so by nature I have to present my work in non-traditional spaces. I love theater spaces, I approach them just as I would any other site. I want to do more performance in public spaces. Artists that I’ve work with in the past: Headlong, Kate Watson-Wallace, and Leah Stein are masters at site-based work. I hope to continue this tradition with my own work in the future.

PPAA: You’ve just published a new book of poems, can you tell me about this collection?

JK: I really love this new collection. It’s called Notes on an Urban Kill-Floor: Poems for Detroit. It’s been years in the making after doing multiple fundraising campaigns for the first publication. I will sell them until they’re all gone, limited edition. Again, boutique, small-scale work with stadium size content. It’s a confessional collection of lyric poems broken into three chapters. My friend Miguel Gutierrez wrote a gorgeous forward for the collection.

PPAA: As someone who has also straddled the world of performance and the world of writing/lit, I’ve often been surprised how little the two worlds meet. What’s your take on this, and do you hope to mix it up, and what are you doing to do so?

JK: Well, I mix them up quite a bit in my live performance work. But my work as a poet is almost a secret, and I tour my poetry at least four to five times a year. My friends and audiences in performance just don’t seem to care much about my poetry life, which is perfectly fine. My work as a poet has its own audience. But, it’s strange that the two are so separate. I think about this often. I remember hearing the choreographer John Jasperse speak (at what was then Dance Theater Workshop) on how far removed our country is from poetics. I guess I have my own politically incorrect feelings about this, but I will say that it’s important to support our new emerging voices in the American canon. It seems to me that we’ve been left out, too long, in the cold, relentlessly knocking on the back door to be accepted in.

PPAA: Thanks Jaamil and kick ass with the show!

The Gemini Show: A Cabaret of Daring Dirty Duets

Thursday June 9th  at 6pm and 9pm (show line-ups vary)

Friday June 10th at 6pm and 9pm (show line-ups vary)

thefidget space (www.thefidget.org)

1714 North Mascher St, Philadelphia, Pa. 19122

Tickets! Tickets! Tickets!

–Josh McIlvain

A couple short pieces I wrote were selected for a short play festival a few years ago. I helped out last year at a friend’s Fringe show. For most of my theater experience, though, I’ve been in the audience, a non-participant.

Still, the world of theater has always attracted me. When I first started to review plays, I thought, “Right, this is it, now I’m part of the world.” I soon realized that “theater people” don’t see it that way. Telling an actor or director that you are a “theater critic” is like telling them you like to kill puppies. It’s not a good idea if you want to continue a conversation.

This is a shame, because reviewers have much in common with the people they review. Both are huge theater fans, with a great knowledge of drama and an eagerness to talk about plays shared by few outside the industry. It’s not easy to create a play and to realize it on stage, but it’s also a craft to critique that play intelligently, to have confidence in your vision and opinion, and to offer meaningful analysis or sound recommendations.

Certainly, I have objections to some of the reviews I see published in Philly outlets. Generally that’s just because the reviewer did not share my judgment. At times though, criticisms can seem irrelevant or petty (a critic oncw complained about someone chewing gum a few rows away . . . mmnh). I have ideas about what is fair and not fair to write about a production, and those are not universally shared (or necessarily kept to by even your faithful correspondent). But I also know how hard it is to write analytical journalism under a deadline and for scant reimbursement. A tough review can kill a small play run, and that’s a shame, but the critic’s commitment is to the reader, not to the playwright or director.

Broad Street Review, a local online media outlet which publishes regular personal-essay theater reviews of mixed but generally good quality, has organized an interesting conversation on this subject, on Thursday, May 26, at the Franklin Inn Club. The panel discussion will feature Bernard Havard of the Walnut Street Theatre, Charles McMahon of Lantern Theatre, and Seth Rozin of InterAct facing off against Broad Street Review’s critics Robert Zaller, Gresham Riley and Jim Rutter, with website editor Dan Rottenberg as moderator. It’s too bad the talk is set up as a us-v-them debate, but that’s too often how the relationship is viewed.

Theater People vs. Theater Critics . . . The Ultimate Debate

Date: Thursday, May 26, 2011

Time: 5 to 7pm

Place: Franklin Inn Club, 205 Sout Camac Street (below Walnut, between 12th and 13th Sts.), Philadelphia.

Admission: $8 in advance; $10 at the door.

Light refreshments will be served.

–Christopher Munden

We took this from the Brat site because we were too cheap to take our own photo.

Six theater companies came together this season to create the Philadelphia Irish Theatre Festival, which featured eight contemporary plays from the Emerald Isle. Brat Productions is joining the fray with a series of staged readings at Fergie’s Pub and calling the series Brat’s Craic* Fringes The Irish Theatre Festival (this week, May 9 thru May 16, 1214 Sansom Street ). Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority’s Christopher Munden talked to Brat’s artistic co-director Madi Distefano about these bar tales, playwright Conor McPherson, and her company.

Philadelphia Performing Arts Authority: Did you see any plays in the Irish Theatre Festival?

Madi Distefano: I saw The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Did you see that? It was really fun. We have several of the actors from it [in the Craic]. We have the director Matt Pfieffer in Lime Street Bower. The Lime Street Bower was his very first show in Philadelphia. And Brat was the first company to hire him as a director. Now he’s a leading director in Philadelphia.

PPAA: I like the idea of the festival needing a fringe show. It’s like the Live Arts Festival, which wouldn’t be what it is without the Philly Fringe. What inspired you to “fringe the Irish Theatre Festival”?

MD: Lee Ann Etzold and I were asked to be artistic directors of Brat on very short notice after the former artistic director left and we wanted to do something to round out the rest of our season and I thought of doing this at Fergies and sort of reminding people of where we’ve been and what kind of work we’d like to do and it’s something that’s relatively easy. These will be script-in-hand readings. In our 2001 and 2002 McPherson Festivals the plays had a month of rehearsals and a month-long run in repertory. This year’s run is inexpensive and quick to produce. Because it was so last minute we weren’t officially part of the Irish Theatre Festival, but I thought it would be funny to say we were fringing it with our Irish bar tales. It was really just being silly; we obviously haven’t really created a fringe festival around the Irish Theatre Festival, which is just a one-time thing anyway, as I understand it.

PPAA: What do you like about producing works at alternative theater spaces like Fergie’s?

MD: The first thing we produced at Fergie’s was Conor McPherson’s Rum and Vodka with Bill Zilienski. I saw a production in New York and I read it and I thought, “God, this shouldn’t be in a black box theater, it should be in a bar—it’s a bar tale. People should be sitting around with a beer in their hand listening to this story.” So that’s how we produced Rum and Vodka. Even hearing the bar and the laughter and chinking up from downstairs is part of the whole atmosphere. We’re not pretending we’re not in a bar.

PPAA: Have you ever seen McPherson’s The Weir? I always want to be in a bar, I always want to be drinking, when I see that piece.

MD: I saw The Weir at the Arden, I think there was a review of the production that said “Brat had McPherson in Fergie’s Pub and the Arden did The Weir and tried to build Fergie’s Pub on its stage,” or something like that. Ours was cheaper.

I think The Weir, and Shining City, and some of his other plays he has taken his long form monologues and he’s found a way to put them into a play that maybe has a wider appeal. But I like just the stories themselves better than the plays.

PPAA: Some of your plays are reprised from the McPherson Festivals. What attracts to Conor McPherson’s work?

The Popsicle play

MD: I love his use of language. Conor McPherson has taken the Irish tall tale form and made it resonate with contemporary audiences. The shaggy dog tall tales are full of urban debauchery and the narrators are confessing their innermost thoughts, things that they wouldn’t normally share. I prefer these works to Conor McPherson’s plays where characters talk to each other. I really like how he structured his earlier works in the direct address form.

I have a one-woman show, Popsicle’s Depature, 1989, based on the Conor McPherson tall-tale form and I went to Ireland and worked a dramaturge, who worked with Conor. It won the Stage Magazine award for best solo show at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

PPAA: Congratulations. Did you do that in Philadelphia too?

MD: Yes I did it at the Live Arts Festival with Brat Productions. I’ve done it several times in different cities for different festivals.

PPAA: Tell me about the other play in the series, Howie the Rookie by Mark O’Rowe.

MD: Mark O’Rowe has written several things. From the Hips is a play that has done well for him. Howie the Rookie is very violent. Act one is Howie Lee and act two is Rookie Lee. It’s the same story from two different perspectives although the second story finishes the first, but mostly they overlap. It all starts over a mattress with scabies. One bloke suspects another bloke of having slept on the mattress and giving the mat scabies and someone else gets scabies from the mat and gets scabies so they decide to find him and beat him up, but he’s somewhere else. It just becomes this long sort of thing, there’s a lot of beating up and violence. But it’s definitely a tall tale. Everyone has crazy names, there’s Howie Lee and there’s a Lady Boy. And they have these mythic rumors about them. Lady Boy is said to have two rows of teeth and he bites people’s flesh. It’s an over-the-top story.

PPAA: What can we expect next from Brat?

MD: Next up you can expect a new play by me, Madi DiStefano, called Meanwhile . . . , a two-person quick-change comedy based on mid-century pulp fiction and noir, directed by Lee Ann Etzol and produced in the fall.

PPAA: You’re also manager of Quig’s Pub, aren’t you?

MD: I am manager at Quigs. Come in and say hello. And I hope to see you at Fergie’s!

We will, thanks Madi!

–Christopher Munden

[Ed note: Though there is something very boozy sounding about that conversation, I promise you that PPAA interviewers are of the utmost integrity.]