I’m so glad I’ve had a chance to blog about the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. At the start, it was a list of names and events in the town I was born in, and visited too infrequently in recent years.

By the end of the festival, it’s become a garden of revived memories, as well as some new names and faces I’ll be following (and going to see in the future), as well as a chance to talk and write about some of the things I like best: playwrights, composers, gay artists, theater companies, new work, and of course, the Phillies.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned and loved AND notes on shows that will continue their runs past the end of the Festival.

• I already knew about InterAct Theatre, and loved learning about their latest production, “A Passing Wind” a chamber musical by Artistic Director Seth Rozin. Because, really, you can’t write enough about a man who made his living by farting. The multi-tasking folk at InterAct are in production with ANOTHER show through May 8, with Rozin’s “Two Jews Walk Into a Bar” at their home theater, The Adrienne on Sansom St. in Center City. The show’s running through May 8. InterAct will conclude its season with the world premiere of  “In a Daughter’s Eyes” by A. Zell Williams from May 27-June 17. InterAct is also continuing to make a major contribution to American playwrights with its 20-year (!) program, begun in 2007 that offers development awards and commissions for new plays each year.
• I also found out about the wandering thespians of EgoPo, who did return to the land of their founder’s birth, whose world premiere production of “Hell,” adapted from the novel by Henri Barbusse, opened at PIFA, and continues through May 15 at the German Society of Pennsylvania. “Hell” will become part of the company’s repertory as it continues its season of works by and inspired by Antonin Artaud.

• I also found a new company to watch closer to home (well, in Brooklyn) in Grounded Aerial, whose artistic director Karen Fuhrman, filled me in on the amazing dance theater company that flies through the air with the greatest of ease (and expertise), which opened the festival with a performance on the outside wall of the Kimmel, 9 stories up, and opened their new show, “InsectInside” at the Brooklyn Lyceum this week (and for the record, seems to have outlasted that OTHER show featuring a spider…)

• Joe Hallman shared his experiences as artist in residence at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, and how his research, ideas, collaborator and talent came together to create the song cycle “Raving Beauty” inspired by the life and loves of Mercedes de Acosta. The song cycle is just beginning…I can’t wait to see what comes next. I’ve already suggested some future venues to him…so I can go see it myself on the subway! In the mean time, I’ve been scrolling through his playlist/channel on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/JoeHallman?blend=22&ob=5

• And, I finally discovered (it’s been around for a century!) the wonderful theater Plays & Players, which sponsored the PIFA New Plays Festival, and also does wonderful work year round supporting emerging playwrights and presenting new work and revivals for adults and children in its gorgeous (and I mean fantastic) historic space on Delancey Place in Center City. Two of the company’s playwrights-in-residence were given a chance to create and present new work using the “bake-off” method.
• It’s good to hear that there’s a strong spoken word scene in Philly, in the form of First Person Arts, who both develop and support Philadelphia artists, and provide a venue for touring storytellers and poets, hosting a Story Slam with nationwide talent at PIFA.
• I also had a chance to meet/agree with playwright Jules Tasca that producing your own work is hard...and fun! His "Art Lover" was one of THREE plays that mentioned/focused on/used as a plot point the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, which I now know a lot about. From three different POVs (and Wikipedia's).
  
• And I know there’s a roadtrip or three or five in my future because I must see for myself the neo-vaudeville and burlesque presented by Peek-A-Boo Revue. After all, it’s not every day you get to see folks named Lulu Lollipop and Buzz Speakeasy, much less without their clothes and doing banana dances. They’re committed artists, reviving and reinventing a classic form of American theater with a 21st century slant. And a good old fashioned bump-and-grind.

Ah, Paris…home of the Moulin Rouge, the Folies Bergere, the Crazy Horse Saloon, where Josephine Baker shook her bananas, and where artists and poets chased the green fairy in the Belle Epoque and beyond…providing much art and merriment in a time that inspired this year’s Philadelphia International Arts Festival. 
 
Ah, Philadelphia, home of the world-famous Trocadero, a Victorian-era theater, once a vaudeville and burlesque house, where the likes of Gypsy Rose Lee and Tempest Storm strutted their stuff, now a performing arts center. Sister cities, indeed!

Fortunately for Philadelphia and PIFA, there’s a classic vaudevillian, neo-burlesque show in town that was just the troupe to produce an “inspired by” show as the latest gig in its 13-year run.

The Peek-A-Boo Revue is a much-loved member of the city’s performing arts scene (and have sometimes performed at the restored Troc), which has been doing its thing for 13 years. They were invited by their home stage, World Café Live to create a show for PIFA, and will present two shows at the World Café at 8 and 11pm this Saturday, April 30. The shows, as you might expect, are not for children (you must be 18+ for the 8pm show, and 21+ for the 11pm show).

“It’s a good match for us,” said Lulu Lollipop, the company’s director, who has run Peek-A-Boo for the last eight years (it was founded by Molly Corsen and Five Spot owner Philip Cohen). “I’m glad Laura at World Café Live invited us to participate.”

Peek-A-Boo has collected a dedicated fanbase, and the faithful will see the kind of show they’ve grown to love, including some sketches and bits directly inspired by Paris in the early part of the 20th century.

“When we produce a new show, we take it to a bunch of other venues,” Lulu explained. “We’ll be in Philly every 2 to 3 months, and that same show travels.” So as they created the PIFA show, Peek-A-Boo was building a show that can tour, and also fits in with their  vaudeville/burlesque theme (or “mission” if you’re a non-profit, and they’re workin’ on the 503c3).

Veterans and newbies can expect to see “a very bawdy show,” Lulu said. “Jokes that are very tongue in cheek; we threw in a classic French can-can and elements from shows like the Folies Bergere.”

One of the company members, Miss Sophie, has created a performance that’s an ode to Josephine Baker.

“As she started moving through her performance style, we were like ‘wow: you have this movement quality of Josephine Baker.’ So she’s doing some pieces that are Baker-inspired. One is called ‘Drums a Gogo.’”

Here’s a clip of Miss Sophie performing “Drums a Gogo.” (NSFW!)

Peek-A-Boo’s musical director, Buzz Mouthpiece, wrote a song for the show, specifically for the Paris-inspired theme: Je ne Sais Quoi. As Lulu says: “Basically it’s sort of about falling in love in Paris.”

“It’s the big opener,” she said. “With all the girls in it, and they’re all falling in love with the French gigolo who’s singing this song.”

Peek-A-Boo is a both a large and dedicated venture: the company develops its shows, then tours with them around Philadelphia, upstate Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey and splits the box office with the company.

“Our whole cast is 22 people; it’s a lot of mouths to feed,” said Lulu. In addition to the opening number, she described a running sketch with two regular Peek-A-Boo characters, Chrissy Model (played by Christa D'Agger) and her stepsister TT Model (played by Peek-A-Boo’s resident songbird Tracey Todd Superstar), “foul-mouthed old fly girls, and they’re always interrupting the show somehow. Chrissy and TT are going to Paris, so we see them leaving, some of their experiences in Paris. Then they come back at the end, and show you pictures from their trip, like the Eiffel tower and doing dirty things with baguettes.”

This edition will also include a fan dance (not exactly in the style of Sally Rand) and all the traditional components of burlesque: A brass section, and of course, some bump & grind. (If you’ve gotta bump it…The 20-some acts perform to both live and recorded music, and have even taken their show on TV, in a (slightly) more covered up version, appearing on “America’s Got Talent.”

Tessie Tura would be proud.

Ed note: Kathleen Warnock received financial compensation for this post from PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).

Artists can tell stories with actors, with singing and dancing, with paint and light and a welding torch and orchestras. Or they can stand there and just tell it.

Sometimes simple is sublime. First Person Arts knows this, and is Philadelphia’s own storytelling series.

Here's a little preview on YouTube

Of course, I am a huge fan and sometime producer and participant in spoken word…and in fact am just a little bleary-eyed following last night’s edition of my own Drunken! Careening! Writers! Series at the KGB Bar here in NYC (and the Dirty Laundry series the night before…). So I toast you, my compadres in the city of Brotherly Love, and thanks for being there for ten years, and sharing the work with PIFA!

And share it they will in Slam Nation, an event in the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. First Person has gathered some of the best storytellers from across the country to weave their spoken word magic. Next Tuesday, April 26 at 8pm, head on over to the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the big event. Tickets are $25 ($20 for First Person members).

The lineup includes folks from all over including: 

Adam Wade (a record 16-time StorySlam champion and two-time Grand Slam champion at The Moth in New York City)

Elna Baker (This American Life, NYC Moth, and author of The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance)

Margot Leitman (NYC Moth Grand Slam champion, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Stripped Stories)

Jon Aaron (Baltimore’s The Stoop)

Michele Carlo (NYC Moth, The Liar Show, SMITH Magazine)

Nicolette Heavy (Boston’s massmouth)

Katonya Mosley (First Person Arts)

Laura Packer (Boston’s massmouth)

Giulia Rozzi (NYC Moth, Stripped Stories, MTV, Vh1)

The official theme for their stories is “Worldly Possessions.” In keeping with the spirit of migration and travel that led so many artists to Paris at the turn of the century, First Person asked the storytellers to talk about objects representative of journeys they have taken in life, both literal and symbolic ones.  

Slam Nation is part of a busy spring for First Person Arts, which presents programming throughout the year that is based on memoir and documentary art. They host StorySlams twice a month at World Cafe Live and L’Etage, as well as events with memoir authors and filmmakers.

The capstone of their yearly programming is the First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art. The Festival brings together writers, musicians, storytellers, actors and other artists from across the country for live performances, dynamic workshops, interactive presentations, film premieres and more. This past year included the First Taste Dinner with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien; the East Coast premier of Dan Hoyle’s wildly successful one-man show, The Real Americans; and a star-studded tribute to poet Sonia Sanchez.

When I was producing with En Avant Playwrights, we put on a play by Maz Troppe called “How Mona Lisa Got Her Smile.” (It had something to do with Leonardo cross-dressing, a strongman who had lost his mojo, and some purloined diamonds. But I digress…)

In fact, the Mona Lisa has inspired many other works of art since da Vinci painted her in 1503 (or ‘04). She’s been the object of speculation, obsession and fascination since her creation. And, in Paris during the time that provided the inspiration for this year’s Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (1911-1920) she disappeared for two years, spirited out of the Louvre by a worker under his coat. Authorities were stumped, and even arrested French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who tried to implicate Pablo Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated (thank you, Wikipedia!)

The theft of the world’s most famous painting, on August 22, 1911,  continues to inspire: there are three events at PIFA that touch upon or revolve around her kidnapping: on April 9, Astral Artists presented “Who Stole The Mona Lisa?,” a multimedia experience; now running at the Arden Theatre is Rogelio Martinez’s “Wanamaker’s Pursuit,”  (through May 22) in which the denizens of Paris’s art scene in the Belle Epoch ponder her theft; and Jules Tasca has written a play about the man who took her home with him, “Art Lover,”   at the Caplan Studio, at the University of the Arts, 211 Broad Street, April 21-24. Tickets are $5-$10.

“I had always wanted to write a play about the theft of the Mona Lisa,” said Tasca. “But where’s the market for that?” Tasca, a prolific playwright who has written, published, and produced many plays, including Live Drawing, about the relationship between Leonardo daVinci and the Mona Lisa.

When PIFA was in its formative stages, he attended preliminary meetings, and found that the period they were focusing on was when the play he wanted to write was set. He wrote it, submitted it to the festival and it was accepted.

“I’m producing the play myself,” he said. “It takes over your whole life.” I know, Jules. I know. “But it’s a fun experience. We’ve got the flyers, the postcards, we go up April 21st for 6 performances. We have the theater for a week. We’re all hoping to break even.” (Godspeed, brave playwright/ producer! Been there…done that…have the props in my storage unit.)

There hadn’t been a play written about art thief, and as Tasca researched it, he went over the transcripts of Vincenzo Peruggia’s trial. The reason generally given for the theft is either that the Peruggia was a patriot who wanted the painting returned to Italy, or that he may have been part of a plan to sell copies of the missing painting as the original. Tasca found another motivation for the thief.

“The thing that really made it go,” he said. “Was the fact that he [Peruggia] took up with a streetwalker, and according to the trial transcript, she had a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa. It’s the Madonna/whore syndrome, literally. He had the Mona Lisa when she wasn’t there. When he was there, he was screwing this girl who looked like the Mona Lisa…the idea and the real. He’s living this fantasy life for almost two years. If this was just a play about the art theft, it would have been interesting; this gave it a whole new layer.”

Tasca went to work and said the play progressed quickly. “It wrote itself in a sense,” he said. He showed the script to director Drucie McDaniel, and they cast actors Alex Mandell and Illiana Hubbard as Peruggia and the streetwalker, Mathilde.

Following some of the performances, Art Historian Nancy Davenport and psychologists, Fabian Ulitsky and Jeffrey Wolper among others will join the cast in talkback sessions about the play and the real events and people that inspired it.  

From 1911-1913, Peruggia kept the painting hidden in his Paris apartment, then returned to Italy with it. He was finally arrested in Florence, and was hailed as a patriot by many of his fellow Italians, for returning the painting to its “homeland.”

After its recovery, the painting was exhibited in Italy before being returned to the Louvre. Peruggia served six months in jail for the theft.

The Mona Lisa continues to reside (and inspire) at the Louvre.

Ed note: Kathleen Warnock received financial compensation for this post from PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).

What’s better than a 72-hour play? Well, a 24-hour play, but then I’m hardcore.

In fact, the “bake-off” (a term used for a writing exercise popularized by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel), in which dramatists are given several “ingredients” they must incorporate into a play that has to be written in 72 hours or less, has become a popular genre-within-the-genre of live theater.

There’s nothing like the surge of adrenalin that hits a playwright when you get your puzzle pieces and must fit them together with the clock ticking into a real play.

This year’s Philadelphia Bake-Off has led to the development of two new plays being presented at the Plays & Players PIFA New Play Festival, running from April 20-24 at the Rendell Room of the Kimmel Center. Plays start at 6pm, and admission is free, but reservations are highly recommended. (Note that the event is not suitable for children).

Plays & Players is the group organizing for the event, as well as celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2011; it was born right at the start of the time the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts is celebrating: Paris from 1911-1920.

“We became involved in PIFA the same way nearly everyone in Philadelphia did,” said Daniel Student, the company’s Artistic Director. “The Kimmel Center really reached out to the community and invited them to participate. There was an application process that involved proposing the performance you wanted to do, and it was stressed that each performance needed in some way to fit the theme of the festival. We had run a New Play Festival for two years during March at our theater, and when we heard that the theme of PIFA was going to focus on innovation, we couldn't think of a better fit!”

Plays & Players has hosted the annual Philadelphia Bake-Off, since 2009, in collaboration with PDC (Philadelphia Dramatists Center), a service organization for Philadelphia playwrights. Each year, P&P posts three "ingredients" online and give playwrights 72 hours to craft new plays from them.

“Then we gather for a pizza party with actors and read as many of the plays written as we can,” Student said. “Each year this event brings together veteran and first-time playwrights alike.”

PDC members in this year’s event were invited to submit their plays to the PIFA New Play Festival, and two plays were selected for developmental rehearsals and public staged readings in the festival.

This year’s ingredients are:

1. Riots -- That is, artistic riots, or riots precipitated by artistic daring, or perhaps artistic demagoguery, or artistic thumbings of the nose.

(suggested by Barbara Silverstein, Artistic Director of The Pennsylvania Opera Theater)

2. "That is probably the most repulsive thing I've ever seen."

(suggested by playwright Sheila Callaghan)

3. two ceramic tiles, created by Isaiah Zagar, an award-winning mosaic mural artist:

Playwrights Joy Cutler and Greg Romero were selected to have their work developed for PIFA.

Cutler‘s work has appeared in all three Philadelphia Bake-Offs. Romero has been selected for the first time. They are two of the three playwrights in residence in a pilot program this year, called the PDC Residency at Plays & Players. Quinn Eli is the third P&P playwright in residence.

They were chosen to spend 14 months at P&P, in a program focused on developing them as artists, rather than on developing specific work.

“It is playwright-driven programming,” Student explained. “This year, on request of the playwrights, it has morphed into three different aspects: 1. Meeting and workshopping with artists ranging from landscape architects, puppet masters, and a local visual arts legend, Isaiah Zagar of Philadelphia's Magic Gardens fame. 2. Closed door developmental readings upon request from the playwrights. 3. Full weekday usage of our space for personal development or time to play with actors to experiment with their work.”

Romero’s play is Marilyn Monroe Has Sex for the Last Time with Groucho Marx. It’s directed by Rowen Haigh. Cutler’s play is The Stormy Hanky, directed by Cara Blouin

“Marilyn Monroe is a daring and at times disturbing play about the intersection of sexuality and obscenity,” Student said. “It puts its audience into the position of voyeur as we watch a woman role-playing as Marilyn Monroe and a man role-playing as Groucho Marx engage in various acts of carnal lust.”

Cutler’s Stormy Hanky takes an absurdist look at the anarchy that emerges when one of the characters inadvertently brings "back the 4th primary color". The artists riot and all colors and shapes in the world no longer hold their original integrity.

“These plays will explode from the page to the stage, inspired by its ingredients that spoke of artistic riots, repulsivity, and sexuality in visual art,” Student said. “While we cannot promise all audiences will like them, we hope that some people will love them and will be inspired by them. As PIFA reminds us, art is SUPPOSED to challenge. We need to encourage our new playwrights to experiment and push the boundaries of art. We hope this evening will accomplish just that.”

The PIFA presentations are just part of Plays & Players’ current season. The company will present 4 mainstage plays (both revivals and new work) from June through October this year, as well as Late Night and family programming, and hosts other Philadelphia-area companies throughout the year.

Its home stage, Plays & Players Theatre, at 1714 Delancey Place in Center City, was designed and constructed in 1912 by Philadelphia architect Amos W. Barnes. Beginning as The Little Theatre, it has also been known as the Delancey Street Theatre (1920) and The Philadelphia Theatre before being known as Plays & Players Theatre.

Ed note: Kathleen Warnock received financial compensation for this post from PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).

When I was a little girl, my mother used to take me to John Wanamaker’s department store in downtown Philadelphia. It was a special treat to go down and see the great bronze eagle in the lobby, to eat at the Crystal Tearoom, and to stop by the founder’s office…left exactly as it was the day John Wanamaker died, behind a wall of glass, the day of his death outlined in red on the office calendar. To me, Wanamaker’s was one of the things that made Philadelphia a great city. A great city should have a fine department store, a world-class symphony orchestra, beautiful art museums, and a mediocre team in the National League.

To Rogelio Martinez, “Wanamaker” was the name of a famous mile. That is, The Wanamaker Mile, a race for star runners in the annual Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden. Martinez ran track, and he knew that the Irish did well in it, especially Eamonn Coghlin, “Chairman of the Boards.”

“I associated the Wanamaker name with Madison Square Garden,” Martinez said. “Only when I started to spend time in Philadelphia did I say to Terry (Arden Theatre artistic director Terrence J. Nolen): ‘tell me a little bit about the Eagle.’ That’s sort of how I arrived at it…via a long, circuitous route.”

Martinez, a NYC-based playwright, has had Philadelphia on his mind a lot lately as the author of “Wanamaker’s Pursuit,” a new play being presented at the Arcadia Stage by the Arden Theatre, directed by Terrence Nolen, as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, currently in previews, and opening April 7, running until May 22.

The title character in Martinez’s play is Nathan Wanamaker (played by Jürgen Hooper), a fictional character inspired by John Wanamaker’s grandson, John Wanamaker, Jr. Wanamaker Sr.’s son Rodman, actually did spend a great deal of time in Paris in the late 19th century.

“When Rodman dies, the store gets passed to a trust,” Martinez recounted. “I was always interested in why it doesn’t go to the children. Oftentimes, third generations lose some interest in the family business.” Rodman Wanamaker took over the family business after his father’s death, but did not pass it on to his children (Wikipedia hints that Rodman’s only son, John, had “personal problems” which prevented his taking over the family business.) John, Jr. was known as “Captain John” after his service on General Pershing’s staff in World War I. Captain John died at the age of 45, in 1935.

Martinez originally intended to write “a little bit” about John, imagining what the young man might have seen, who he would have met in Belle Epoque Paris.

“I started writing a story about a young man going to Paris, learning to be a buyer,” the playwright said. “But what I was really writing about was Paris in 1911 (the heart of the time that gives PIFA its theme), with people like Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso.” This is when Stein and Picasso and other artists in their circle were becoming themselves, and before they became as visible to a wide range of people as they later did. “If you write about them at that time, we get to know who they are as they begin have an idea of who they are. This is the moment when their egos are beginning to blossom. By the time you get to the 1920s, their egos are in full bloom.”

Among the relationships that he follows is that of Gertrude and her brother Leo Stein, which was beginning to fall apart, and it would eventually completely collapse. “I wanted to explore that aspect of it, a brother and sister coming to the end of their relationship,” Martinez explained. “And breaking up, in a sense. It was a sad breakup.”

Martinez spent six or seven months doing the historical research on the piece, then another 3 months writing the play, and did rewrites over the course of another year. The play was commissioned as part of the Arden’s Independence Foundation New Play Showcase, and received additional support with an Edgerton Grant from the Theatre Communications Group, which allowed the production 2 additional weeks of rehearsal.

So Martinez had the opportunity to bring his Nathan Wanamaker to Paris to meet and mingle with great artists on the verge. One of the major characters in the play is Paul Poiret (played by Wilbur Edwin Henry), a French designer whose influence on fashion made him one of the most important figures of his time; now he is more of a supporting character, not as well known, in today’s histories.

“The idea is that this man was a name that’s now forgotten. It’s really interesting who history decides to remember and who it decides to forget. Leo Stein, as far as culturally, as far as being responsible for curating this art, is as powerful a force as Gertrude Stein,” Martinez said. “He wasn’t the artist that his sister was, but as far as having an eye for art, he was. But we’ve forgotten Leo. The Metropolitan Museum recently did a show on Paul Poiret’s fashions, so it’s not like we’ve forgotten him, but he’s not a name like Coco Chanel, who came in the 1920s, and knocked him off the map. Yet, in 1911, he was a rock star. He was it. He brought fashion into the modern era. So it’s interesting for me to see, and for audiences to see, who history chooses to remember and why.”

“Why have we chosen to remember the Mona Lisa, when so much art was created in that period?” Martinez asked. (The theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 is part of “Wanamaker’s Pursuit” and the subject of another PIFA play, “Art Lover” by Jules Tasca). “I don’t quite have an answer for that, and I don’t expect audiences to have an answer, but it’s interesting to contemplate the question, and at least each of the main characters has a different response to the paining that makes it personal to them. That’s what the Mona Lisa does…when we see it, we have a personal reaction to it, different from any other.”

 “Wanamaker’s Pursuit” also features Geneviève Perrier as Denise Poiret, Catharine K. Slusar as Gertrude Stein, David Bardeen as Leo Stein and Shawn Fagan in a variety of roles including Pablo Picasso.

It's playing at the Arcadia Stage at the Arden Theatre, 40 N. 2nd St. Tickets are $20-$39 (student and senior discounts may be available).

The front wall of the Verizon Hall on the Commonwealth Plaza at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia is 90 feet tall; it would be a great, huge stage…if only it were horizontal. And yet, that’s not a problem for Grounded Aerial, a Brooklyn-based troupe which will perform “Chance Encounters” as part of the opening gala of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts on April 7.

Using carefully rigged harnesses, performers who are trained dancers and aerialists will scurry and fly up and down walls, both ignoring and using the law of gravity to create their work. “Chance Encounters” is a site-specific piece created specifically for PIFA by Grounded Aerial founder and Artistic Director Karen Fuhrman.

Fuhrman was teaching a workshop at the Philadelphia Circus School of the Arts, (which is also presenting a show, The Green Fairy Cabaret at PIFA), and Executive Director Shana Kennedy put her in touch with the festival, and the collaboration began.

“I went in there and I saw the space, and thought: this is perfect as far as aerial land. It’s tall, with points everywhere,” Furhman said. The festival’s theme: artistic experimentation and uninhibited creativity that Paris 1910 – 1920 gave Fuhrman some ideas to start playing around with. 

One of the things that Furhman kept coming back to was the idea that the period was a time when people and things sped up: they left where they were from and traveled by train, and moved from one place to the other, for reasons ranging from and including love and war. The idea of people passing, meeting, deciding to engage, or not, gave rise to the name and theme Grounded Aerial chose for the piece “Chance Encounters.”

“Chance encounters are timeless in the sense of then happening all the time; they are a human trait,” said Fuhrman. “But I’m putting it in this time and place: the French, early 20th century, time period. And still, there’s a timelessness, to it, whether you’re walking through the airport or the subway, wherever you happen to be. Catch the eye of a stranger…that’s what I’m exploring.”

Grounded Aerial works out of a studio in Williamsburg, where the wall is 16 feet high; available 90-foot walls are pretty hard to come by in Brooklyn or Philadelphia, so Fuhrman and her company are working the piece out in sections.

“With my studio, our wall is a whopping 16 feet high, which is nice to get down the gist and the very general blocking,” she said. Fuhrman is creating the piece for six professional dancer/aerialists, and six dancers from the Philadelphia University of the Arts, giving the student artists an experience working with a professional company.

“My dancer/aerialists are veterans,” Furhman explained. “We’ve all been in different aerial shows:  De La Guarda,  Fuerza Bruta.” Their combined many years of experience is what they’re using to estimate what the finished piece will look like, and how to get used to the space once they get on (or up on) it.

And, as the gala approaches, the company will essentially give everyone who’s passing by a good look at an open rehearsal. They’ll be up on the wall at Verizon Hall from April 4-6 for several hours a day, finishing their blocking and rehearsing and teching the piece.

Aaron Verdery is the technical director of Grounded Aerial, and the man who makes the dancers fly. Verdery was in on the project from its inception, and he’s met with the technical staff of the Kimmel Center to work out every detail of a system that will keep the aerialists safe and able to do their work.

Furhman is proud of her company’s record.

“Our history involves extensive safety training and aerial background that has been instilled in us for years. We’re trained aerialists as well as dancers: we’re not only dancers that happen to be in the air.”

The piece is choreographed and teched down to the second, Furhman explained, from the ground up. The six aerialists become 3 couples, with ensemble choreography, and a duet for one couple in the middle of the piece.

“We show how they’re meeting, and their nuances and it’s like a commentary on couples, fear involved, apprehension of developing their romance, and like a quick, then the 2 other couples on either side come back down, continue and with the remaining of the piece,” Furhman said. “It starts with a really grand ‘Moulin Rougey’ kind of waltz, then an adagio, guitar section, then after that the duet, then back to the waltz, and then the piece ends.”  The company has been working on the piece, which should check in at about 12 minutes, in 3-times-a-week rehearsals for the last three months.

In addition, Grounded Aerial is doing a show closer to their home ground (or wall) at the Brooklyn Lyceum. It’s is called Insectinside, and it’s a dance/theater piece in which the 14 performers play insects. Furhman plays a Luna Moth. She’s been developing the piece for the last six years, and it just so happens that her leading man is a Spider.

(Insert “Turn Off the Dark” joke here). Or, for $15, you can buy a ticket to a show where nobody gets hurt.
This interview is brought to you with the support of PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).  If you liked the interview above and want to help ensure that PIFA becomes an annual event please Like their Facebook Page and Follow them on Twitter !

I’m very excited that the city of my birth, that is, the City of Brotherly Love, that is, where the Phillies play, is having an excellent international arts festival, and I’ve been invited to write about it. I’m certainly planning on grabbing one o’those cheap buses with the free Wi-Fi and making my way 99 miles south for some of the events. I had a chance to see a sneak preview here in NYC a few weeks ago, and have been going over the festival brochure and marking it up with “got to see” and “this looks good!”

One of the highlights of the NYC preview was a monologue from Seth Rozin’s chamber musical “A Passing Wind.” Seth Rozin is also Artistic Director of InterAct Theater, one of the many vibrant indie theater companies in Philly, and one that is close to my heart because they have paid me for my work not once, but twice! (Stories I wrote were featured in their late, lamented series, “Writers Aloud.”) If you’re an American playwright, you know (or should know) that since 1988, InterAct’s mission has been to support the creation of new plays, and one which uses “theatre as a tool to foster positive social change in the school, the workplace and the community.”

InterAct is currently in the midst of a 20-year (!) program, begun in 2007 that offers development awards and commissions for new plays each year. The playwrights who have received these awards/commissions thus far are some veteran folk (Lee Blessing) and outstanding new voices (Kara Lee Corthron) who now have a chance to create new plays with the support of a working theater. In Philadelphia.

The monologue I saw from “A Passing Wind” featured actor Tim Moyer as Sigmund Freud; Freud narrates the play, but he’s not the character the title refers to, rather, that character is a man whose talents were a bit lower down.

Once, Paris stood enthralled before (or behind) the man they called “Le Petomane” or “The Fartiste.” Joseph Pujol (1857-1945) was a man with a peculiar talent: he could suck water or air into his butt, and release it with precision control. As a performer, he usually did this with air, as I’m sure the water would have been quite messy. Pujol left his trade as a baker in Marseilles to take to the stage in 1887. With an air of confidence, he moved on to the big city (Paris), where he made it to the Show: The Moulin Rouge.

Wikipedia notes that: “Some of the highlights of his stage act involved sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms, as well as playing "'O Sole Mio" and "La Marseillaise" on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus.  He could also blow out a candle from several yards away. His audience included Edward, Prince of Wales, King Leopold II of the Belgians and Sigmund Freud.” (And from such entries as this are ideas for plays born…in fact, my friend & fellow playwright Charlie Schulman is working on an off-Broadway musical, a hit at NY Fringe a couple years back, called “The Fartiste” also about Pujol. But surely there is room in the American theatre for two plays about a man who took the advice “blow it out your ass” literally).

There’s a YouTube video of Le Petomaine (which I've linked below) from a film made in the 1880s (which of course, sadly, doesn’t have a soundtrack).

Along with the grossly wonderful premise of a man who made his living by farting, is the reality that The War to End All Wars (WW I, not the sequel), drove Pujol from the stage. He found that the horror of war “left unprecedented physical and psychological devastation in its wake,” according to the description of the play. And THAT’s where plays are born.

Written and directed by Rozin, the production will feature Damon Kirsche, Ian Bedford, Maureen Torsney-Weir, Jered McLenigan, Peter Schmitz, Tim Moyer, Leah Walton and Laura Catlaw. Music direction and sound design by Daniel Perelstein; set and lighting design by Peter Whinnery; costume design by Anna Frangiosa; choreography by Karen Getz.

It premieres April 7, running through April 16, at the Innovation Studio of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad Street. Tickets are $15-$29, and available here.

This interview is brought to you with the support of PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).  If you liked the interview above and want to help ensure that PIFA becomes an annual event please Like their Facebook Page and Follow them on Twitter !