Last update: 2/6/2009
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Last update: 2/6/2009
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* Refreshments are served before and after each reading, starting at 7 PM *
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See what they’re saying about HYDROGEN JUKEBOX. “Absolutely fabulous! Even though they haven’t booked me.(Yet!)” “If Rimbaud were alive today and hadn’t […], he’d be making the HJ scene. But then, he wouldn’t have written A
Season in Hell. Though he’d love the free drink that comes with admission.” “What the @#$*?!” “Make Hydro Juke your New Year’s resolution for a
healthier lifestyle.” |
Lalita Java
210 East 3rd St.
(Btwn. B & C)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
New York, NY
Frank Talk Poetry Series Home Page
Click Here: Frank Talk Poetry Series
Poets.Org (Academy of American Poets)
Click Here: Poets.Org
Frank Talk Art Bistro and Bookstore
163 Shrewsbury Avenue
Red Bank, NJ 07701
$5.00 Cover
(includes food, beverages, and other goodies
supplied by Frank Talk owner Gilda Rogers)
Open Mic after the Feature
Contact: John Petrolino
Address: (Dr. Ni's local address) P.O. Box 15095
City and State: Philadelphia, PA 19130-9998
Contact person and or URL/information: Dr. Niama L. Williams;
www.internetvoicesradio
$35/guest/appearance on show
Readers: International internet radio listeners
Other appropriate info: (station owner's address):
Ms. Lillian Cauldwell
P.O. Box 2344 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-2344;
734-332-5902.
Dr. Niama L. Williams
P. O. Box 15095
Philadelphia, PA 19130-9998
http://www.lulu.com/drni
http://www.blowingupbarriers.com
Jose Sebourne Graphic Design
1213-15 Vine Street Philadelphia PA 19107
7-10pm $5.00 Cover
Contact info:
The Gallery - (215)564-2554
Aziza Kintehg(215)668-4500
Email: azizalockdiva@...
or check out the website: www.Josesebourne.com
(Boston, MA) Bread and Puppet Theater presents “Tear Open The Door Of Heaven” and “Dirt Cheap Money Circus”: two separate performances presented in partnership with the Boston Center for the Arts as part of the Cyclorama Residency Series. Performances, Art Exhibit, and Cheap Art Sale run from January 25 through January 31. All held in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., South End, Boston. Wheelchair accessible. Tickets for the performances available for purchase [cash or check only] in the Cyclorama one hour before each show. For advance tickets, log onto www.theatermania.com/boston/ or call 866-811-4111 (toll free). For detailed information regarding the week’s events, call the Boston Center for the Arts at 617-426-5000 or log onto www.bcaonline.org.
The award-winning Bread and Puppet Theater, featuring Artistic Director Peter Schumann and his troupe of Vermont puppeteers, returns for a fourth year to the BCA’s Cyclorama bringing their signature powerful imagery, masked characters, and giant papier-mâché puppets. Their residency includes two different puppet shows, “Tear Open The Door Of Heaven” (January 28-31, evening shows primarily for ages 12 & older), the “Dirt Cheap Money Circus” (January 30-31, family-friendly matinees), along with a week-long political art installation (running January 26-31, with an art opening on January 25).
Although all Bread and Puppet events have a seriousness of purpose — a few laughs are always thrown in!
Evening Shows [recommended for ages 12 & older]:
Bread and Puppet Theater: Tear Open The Door Of Heaven
Jan. 28-Jan. 31, Thurs.-Sun., 7 pm
$12 general admission [$10 students, seniors, & groups of 10 or more]
Description: “Tear Open The Door Of Heaven” is a pink and blue puppet show about Heaven and its effects on the Underneath,
presented by the practitioners of the brand-new paper maché religion. The play features over life size puppets representing
God, his daughter and stepdaughter, a US president and his war-waging office, mountaintop removal protesters, money printing
artists and stargazers of the North East Kingdom of Vermont. The six acts of the play are supplemented by six dance interventions
performed by the Lubberland National Dance Company. Performed by Peter Schumann and the Bread & Puppet Company, along with a large
number of local volunteer puppeteers and musicians. Informal talk back with the artists follows each performance. Sourdough rye
bread will be served and cheap art will be for sale after each performance.
Family-Friendly Matinees:
Bread and Puppet Theater: Dirt Cheap Money Circus
Jan. 30-Jan. 31, Sat.-Sun., 4 pm [Take note that the Sunday matinee performance will be ASL interpreted by Jody Steiner.]
$10 general admission [$5 students, seniors, and pre-school children (children 2 & under free)]
Description: The family-friendly "Dirt Cheap Money Circus" features the billionaire bonus celebration dance, the logic of the
US Healthcare System, the history of humanity and the removal of a mountaintop, interspersed with appearances by Karl Marx, who
confronts the 2010 economic situation with his existential thoughts about money and our relationship to it. All with live circus
band accompaniment. Performed by Peter Schumann and the Bread & Puppet Company, along with a large number of local volunteer
puppeteers and musicians. Take note that some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, but accompanying kids can
usually explain them. The audience is welcome to examine all the masks and puppets after the show. Cheap art will be for sale
after each performance.
Visual Art Exhibit:
Bread and Puppet Theater: visual art installation created by Peter Schumann
Mon.-Sun., Jan. 25-Jan. 31
Free and open to all.
Description: Bread and Puppet Theater Artistic Director Peter Schumann’s most recent visual art exploration, consisting of
very large to very small paintings depicting matters that concern us all.
Exhibit details:
--Mon., Jan. 25, 6-8 pm: opening reception, with refreshments, an art talk given by Schumann, short skits performed by the touring
company, and live music composed by Michael Romanyshyn.
--Tues.-Fri., Jan. 26-29: regular Cyclorama hours: 9am-5pm [Thursday & Friday hours extended up to and after the evening performance];
--Sat.-Sun., Jan. 30-31: one hour before and after each matinee and evening performance.
For this residency at the Cyclorama, the Bread and Puppet touring company includes Schumann, along with Danny McNamara, Maura Gahan, Greg Corbino, Diana Sette, Maryann Colella, Susie Perkins, among others. Both shows will be performed by the company and a large number of local volunteers and musicians, including the popular Somerville-based Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (www.slsaps.org). Both plays will also be accompanied by singing and miscellaneous gongs and horns.
Somerville-based composer Michael Romanyshyn has composed three short pieces to be performed at Peter Schumann’s art opening. The pieces include “You Are” [a composition for 6 clarinets and 2 drums, featuring Romanyshyn, Dana Colley, Steve Rauch, Maury Martin, Ben Pasamanick, Grant Smith, Trudi Cohen, and Shaunalynn Duffy], “7 Questions for Grace Paley” [a composition for clarinet and tuba performed by Romanyshyn and Kaolin Kinsey], and a brass band tribute to Stephan Brecht, which was originally performed at Brecht’s memorial service.
In addition to Peter Schumann’s art installation, the Cyclorama will also be decorated with the unique Bread and Puppet collection of powerful black-line posters, banners, masks, curtains, programs and set-props. All pieces are created by Schumann, including sculpting and painting all the major masks and puppets, with input from the company. After each evening performance there will be an opportunity to savor Schumann's famous sourdough rye bread, smeared with garlic aioli; and there will also be many opportunities during the week to purchase the theater's legendary "cheap art."
Bread and Puppet Theater is an internationally recognized company that champions a visually rich, street-theater brand of performance art that is filled with music, dance and slapstick. Its shows are political and spectacular, with huge puppets made of paper maché and cardboard, a brass band for accompaniment, and anti-elitist dance. Most are morality plays — about how people act toward each other — whose prototype is "Everyman". There are puppets of all kinds and sizes, masks, sculptural costumes, paintings, buildings and landscapes that seemingly breathe with Schumann's distinctive visual style of dance, expressionism, dark humor and low-culture simplicity.
The Bread and Puppet Theater is one of the oldest, nonprofit, self-supporting theatrical companies in this country. It was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City's Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand-puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police and other problems of that neighborhood. More complex theater pieces, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners, followed. The puppets grew bigger and bigger. Annual presentations for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day often included children and adults from the community as participants. Many performances were done in the street.
During the Vietnam War, Bread and Puppet staged block-long processions and pageants involving hundreds of people. In 1970 Bread & Puppet moved to Vermont as theater-in-residence at Goddard College, combining puppetry with gardening and bread baking in a serious way, learning to live in the countryside and letting itself be influenced by the experience. In 1974 the Theater moved to a farm in Glover in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The 140-year-old hay barn was transformed into a museum for veteran puppets. "Our Domestic Resurrection Circus," a two-day outdoor festival of puppetry shows, was presented annually through 1998.
Through invitations by Grace Paley, Bread and Puppet Theater became a frequent attraction at anti-Vietnam War events in the '60s and '70s. By the '80s, the puppets had become emblematic of activist pacifism and a sine qua non of American political theater, as exemplified by the massive, ascending figures that are burned into the memory of anyone who marched with or saw the haunting, massive June 12, 1982 Disarmament Parade in New York City.
Since its move to Glover, VT, Theater for the New City has been the company's New York home. It has performed one or more productions at TNC each year since 1981. Last summer, the company also appeared at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.
The company makes its income from touring new and old productions both on the American continent and abroad and from sales of Bread & Puppet Press's posters and publications. Internationally, Bread and Puppet Theater performs massive spectacles with hundreds of participants, sometimes devoted to social, political and environmental issues and sometimes simply to the trials of everyday life. The traveling puppet shows range from tightly composed theater pieces presented by members of the company, to extensive outdoor pageants which require the participation of many volunteers. At most performances, the company distributes bread and aioli (garlic sauce) to the audience.
Peter Schumann was born in 1934 in Silesia. He is married to Elka Leigh Scott and they live in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. They have five children and five grandchildren.
You cannot understand Bread and Puppet's work without acknowledging that it is grounded in dance, but not in formal or classical dance. Schumann's artistic pedigree is a mixture of dance and visual art. There's dance at the bottom of all of Schumann's work, but since puppet theater is traditionally a "melting pot" of all the different arts, this is frequently obscure.
Schumann studied and practiced sculpture and dance in Germany and in 1959, with a childhood friend, musician Dieter Starosky, Schumann, created the Gruppe für Neuen Tanz (New Dance Group), which invented dances which sought to break out of the strict limits of both classical ballet and the expressionist dance tradition.
He moved to the USA with his wife, Elka, and at that time, their two children in 1961. His formative years in the Lower East Side during the early '60s were heavily influenced by the radical innovations spearheaded by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Schumann rejected the elitism of the '60s arts scene and embraced the anti-establishment, egalitarian work of American artist Richard (Dicky) Tyler. He embraced Outsider Art: everyday movement, improvisation, direct momentary composition, and the jazz impulse toward overall creativity. He became a regular at Judson Poet's Theater and Phyllis Yampolsky's Hall of Issues, where puppet shows included making music and marching around. Street Theater productions followed, at rent strikes and voter registration rallies in the East Village, with crankies on garbage cans and speeches by a Puerto Rican neighborhood organizer, Bert Aponte.
He admired the abstraction of Merce Cunningham, and attended lectures at the Cunningham studio, but ultimately rebelled against it. In an interview with John Bell in 1994, he said, "Cunningham demanded of his dancers was a classical ballet background. He refused to work with anybody who didn't have that. I totally disagreed. I had traveled around in Europe teaching dance; to Sweden, to a dance academy and various places, pretending I was a great ass in dance, and gave them classes. And they took me -- I was fresh and I just did it. I said, 'I'll show you what dance really is; what you do is just schlock,' and I tried to liberate them from aesthetics connected to modern dance and classical ballet and to these various modes of existing dance at the time.'"
The most recent creative history of Bread and Puppet Theater was written by Holland Cotter in the New York Times in 2007. Cotter described Peter Schumann's epics as "spectacle for the heart and soul." He commended Schumann for the courage "to live an ideal of art as collective enterprise, a free or low-cost alternative voice outside the profit system." He testified that one summer, on a mountainside in Glover, VT, Bread and Puppet gave him the single most beautiful sight he's ever seen in a theater. And when Bread and Puppet led the nuclear freeze parade in New York City during United Nations sessions on disarmament, it was "one of the most spectacular pieces of public theater the city has ever seen." He added, "For me the real affirmation of the disarmament pageant lay less in the fact that Mr. Schumann came to New York and created this hugely ambitious collective work of art, than in the fact that immediately afterward he returned to Vermont, to a farm, to a barn, to the outdoor baking oven, to his workshops and to his own work, which has come to include an increasing amount of painting, most of which stays out of the art world’s sight."
For more information on the Bread and Puppet Theater, log onto www.breadandpuppet.org.
The Boston Center for the Arts is a not-for-profit performing and visual arts complex that supports working artists to create, perform and exhibit new works, builds new audiences, and connects art to community. Visit www.bcaonline.org for more information.
submitted by marycurtinproductions [for Fort Point Theatre Channel]
c/o Mary Curtin
PO Box 290703, Charlestown, MA 02129
marycurtin@comcast.net
"dedicated to staging insightful entertainment, particularly in non-traditional venues"
www.marycurtinproductions.com
www.facebook.com/marycurtin
http://twitter.com/marycurtin
www.myspace.com/marycurtin
Contact:
Marc S. Miller, Producer
marc@fortpointtc.org, 617.750.8900
Carny Knowledge: A Sideshow Extravaganza of Original Plays and Extraordinary Oddities
Friday, January 29, Saturday, January 30, Thursday-Saturday, February 4-6 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, January 31 at 7 pm.
Presented at Cambridge YMCA Theatre, 820 Mass. Ave., Central Square, Cambridge
Tickets: $14
Call 800.838.3006 or go to www.brownpapertickets.com/event/90678
Carny Knowledge — a dazzling array of carnival-inspired plays and carnival-style performances — using new-timey production methods to evoke old time-y interpretations. Drawing its roots from the sideshows that spread across the nation from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, Carny Knowledge conjures up that mysterious thrill that would envelop curious onlookers every time the circus came to town, accompanied by the cacophony of sideshow barkers promising the wonders of the world to those who had never strayed far from home.
Modern times may dictate that these simple thrills are gone. That there are no mysteries left to unearth in this plugged-in tuned-out age. But in January and February, the Boston-based Fort Point Theatre Channel will prove them wrong by crossing the pond into Cambridge with a gaggle of playwrights, filmmakers, musicians, dancers, roustabouts, and other diverse practitioners of the carny crafts, to create six thrilling evenings of ballyhoo, burlesque, and incomparable carnival-style entertainment.
Fort Point Theatre Channel is a professional performance company, nurtured and inspired by the talent that lives and works in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood. Carny Knowledge will be Fort Point Theatre Channel’s second playfest, a place to transform ideas into workshop productions. www.fortpointtc.org
What’s in store, besides the Carny Band, artistic installations enveloping audiences and performers alike, and popcorn?
With You or Without You. Great magnetic balls of steel!! Rolling this way, that way . . . Video and audio art by Bebe Beard and Lou Cohen. Adapted especially for Carney Knowledge.
Tales of the Midnight Carnival, a set of very short vignettes by talented Toronto-based writer Peter Cavell about a bizarre, twisted traveling carnival. A U.S. premiere.
Love Me, Leave Me, by David Dudley of New York City, explores both our capacity to forgive and the concept of “freak.” A world premiere.
On My Chest, with San Francisco writer Gaea Denker-Lehrman’s very original lyrics set to the tune of Be My Guest, is a disgusting ditty about the most perverse of acts, performed in full drag. An East Coast premiere.
Wife of Bobbo, by Massachusetts playwright M. Lynda Robinson, investigates marriage at a crucial point, taking on a deep topic with a lot of fun—and questions left at the end. Adapted especially for Carny Knowledge.
Lionel Banished, by FPTC member Nick Thorkelson, asks, “What happens when the lion tamer goes to the dogs?” A world premiere.
Scuffle and Jump, by John Weagly of Chicago, presents Penny, who entertains us with her tap dancing, inspired by Fats Waller, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers — but there’s something about her. . . A world premiere.
Bella Curva offers duo contortion, combining the flexibility and strength of contortion with the grace and artistry of dance.
The Boston Hoop Troop, a collective of hula hoopers, practices, performs, and teaches the graceful art of hoop dance. Featuring Little L, Lolli Hoops, and Marria Grace.
Clowns on the Left and other animation pieces by Massachusetts filmmaker Mick Cusimano. Unique, reflecting the contradictory impulses we all feel about sideshows, circuses, and ourselves.
The Crocodile Boy Project: See the Freek!, by Ed Valentine of New York City and Megan McDavid of Colorado, features both an onstage “show” and a backstage peak into the freak’s life. A New England premiere.
A Different Spin, a group of performers spreading their love of circus across the country, offers a variety from their repertoire, such as juggling, glass walking, magic and card tricks, poi spinning, acrobatics, clowning, and more. Featuring Ricky Hawkins and Michael "Mooch" Mucciolo.
Honey Suckle Duvet, burlesque dancer and tarot reader, captures audiences in a golden sweet embrace, whether she’s undulating to the sultry rhythms of soul, sensually moving to classical, or boldly strutting to rock.
Gathering, a video “sideshow” by Douglas Urbank blends hand-altered 16 mm and super 8 mm film with stills, ink, paint, and other media.
submitted by marycurtinproductions [for Fort Point Theatre Channel]
c/o Mary Curtin
PO Box 290703, Charlestown, MA 02129
marycurtin@comcast.net
"dedicated to staging insightful entertainment, particularly in non-traditional venues"
www.marycurtinproductions.com
www.facebook.com/marycurtin
http://twitter.com/marycurtin
www.myspace.com/marycurtin
WHAT: CITY OF NUMBERS
mixtape of a city…
Written & Performed by Sean Christopher Lewis
Directed by Matt Slaybaugh
WHEN: January 22 – February 21, 2010
Tuesdays & Wednesdays @ 7 p.m.; Thursdays - Saturdays @ 8 p.m.; Sundays @ 2 p.m.; Saturday, January 23 @ 2 p.m.
PRICE: $16 Previews
$25 Tuesdays - Thursdays
$29 Fridays - Sundays
Discounts available for groups, seniors and students
WHERE: On the Mainstage of The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia
INFO / RESERVATIONS: InterAct Theatre Company Box Office
Phone: 215.568.8079
Online: www.InterActTheatre.org
Philadelphia, PA – A collaboration between InterAct Theatre Company and the City of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program has resulted in the creation and World Premiere production of CITY OF NUMBERS: mixtape of a city…, a new play written and performed by Sean Christopher Lewis that combines multiple perspectives on the issue of crime in Philadelphia into a one-actor, two-dozen character, docu-drama. With it’s official opening on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, CITY OF NUMBERS will serve as the centerpiece of a month-long celebration of the transformative power of art, featuring a series of events presented by InterAct and Mural Arts.
Orginating out of a collaboration between InterAct’s education program, InterAction, and the City of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program (funded by a grant from the Violette de Mazia Foundation), CITY OF NUMBERS was created by playwright Sean Christopher Lewis as part of an outreach effort in which he interviewed lifetime inmates at Graterford prison about their work as mural artists. From its early beginnings, CITY OF NUMBERS has grown into a dynamic one-man tour de force performance that interweaves the stories of over two dozen Philadelphians - from convicted murderers to victims' relatives to physicians to artists to community leaders to Mayor Michael Nutter - all struggling to come to terms with their city’s escalating violence. Scored with a hip-hop soundtrack, visualized with multimedia projections, and set in front of a mural created with the help of Mural Arts by some of the very inmates interviewed for the play, CITY OF NUMBERS is a sobering, moving and, ultimately, uplifting portrait of a city gripped by crime and a unique look at the transformative power of art.
The initial creation of CITY OF NUMBERS began when Mural Arts commissioned InterAct Theatre’s Emerging Playwright in Residence, Sean Christopher Lewis, to write a play documenting the lasting impact of Mural Arts’ Restorative Justice program, which was designed to help combat and prevent crime by teaching men and women at correctional facilities in the Philadelphia area the art of mural-making. While interviewing inmates at Graterford prison, playwright Lewis quickly realized there was more to the Restorative Justice program than mere city beautification. It was a forum for inmates to discuss the impact of their crimes, as well as a concrete opportunity for them to begin making amends to their community. Using the program’s ideals as a springboard, Lewis began imagining a play that not only confronted Philadelphia’s nationally-recognized crime problem, but more importantly, how Mural Arts addresses the issue through art education. The result is CITY OF NUMBERS, a documentary-like drama written with tremendous honesty, humor, and humanity that combines the playwright’s personal journey with the perspectives of the many people he came to know while researching and writing the play.
Since a hugely successful performance of CITY OF NUMBERS as a “play-in-progress” at InterAct in February 2009, Lewis has performed the piece to great acclaim in workshop presentations and at educational venues across the country. In Columbus, OH, Metromix Columbus raved, “Shining an intense and profoundly controversial lens on the disturbingly high murder rate in Philadelphia, [CITY OF NUMBERS] presents a 75-minute retrospective that makes you laugh, weep and at times gawk at Lewis' jaw-dropping tale … it all adds up to a show that can't be missed.” While being performed at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, City, NYTheatre.com hailed CITY OF NUMBERS as, “… an epic piece of theatre, with dozens of characters, multiple locations, and dramatic material … With unflinching honesty, Sean Christopher Lewis' play explores the tragic underpinnings of inner-city violence, as well as the unexpected epilogues of lives cut short and verdicts rendered. … [CITY OF NUMBERS] offers a theatrical megaphone to voices oft not heard above the din of stereotype and assumption … a must-see evening of theatre … a satisfying one-man symphony… brilliantly conceived to both educate and entertain.”
InterAct Theatre Company and the Mural Arts share a long-standing commitment to utilizing art as a transformative tool in the pursuit of social justice and the betterment of the Philadelphia community. The two organizations have collaborated many times, yet CITY OF NUMBERS represents the two organizations’ closest and most active collaboration to date, working together to program several auxilary events that will stimulate community dialogue about violent crime, law enforcement, and the transformative power of art:
January 28–February 28 – Mural Arts presents Color By Numbers, an free exhibition of work by the Mural Arts Restorative Justice Program, including work created by participants in the Mural Program SCI Graterford and the Philadelphia Prison System (PPS), as well as by youth from the Yoth Study Center, St. Gabriel’s Hall and VisionQuest, programs for court adjudicated juveniles. In addition, works by juveniles for the Art at the Court program and the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership program, The Guild, will be on display. An opening night reception for Color By Numbers, featuring a special performance of excerpts from CITY OF NUMBERS by Sean Christopher Lewis, will be held Thursday, January 28, 5:30 p.m.- 7:30 p.m. at the Commonwealth Gallery, Lincoln Financial Mural Arts Center, 1727-29 Mount Vernon Street, Philadelphia.
Saturday, February 6 at 2:00 p.m. – InterAct, in collaboration with Philadelphia Young Playwrights, will present four performances of Young Voices Monologue Festival, featuring 15-20 monologues, written by Philadelphia-area high school students and performed by professional actors, exploring the themes of violence, crime, law enforcement and the tranformative power of art. Admission for Young Voices is $5.00 per person and will be held on the Mainstage of The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia. No reservations necessary.
January 28–February 21 – InterAct will host several post-performance discussions featuring playwright & actor Sean Christopher Lewis, as well as local politicians, law enforcement professionals, criminal justice experts, and community leaders. Talk-backs are currently scheduled on Sunday, January 31; Tuesday, February 2; Wednesday, February 3 ; Sunday, February 7; Tuesday, February 9; and Wednesday, February 10; and Sunday, February 14. Line-up of guest speakers to be determined.
January / February (Exact Date T.B.A.) – InterAct and Mural Arts will host a panel discussion featuring multiple perspectives on crime in Philadelphia, including city officials, representatives from the criminal justice field, Pennsylvania’s prison system, and local crime prevention advocates. The panel discussion will be free and open to the public and will be held on the Mainstage of The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.
January / February (Exact Dates T.B.A.) – InterAct will host several satellite performances of CITY OF NUMBERS. Reaching out to variety of neighborhoods, playwright Sean Christopher Lewis will perform his one-man-show, CITY OF NUMBERS, at churches, schools, community centers, and treatment centers throughout the greater Philadelphia area. Satelllite performances of CITY OF NUMBERS will be free and open to the public. Dates, times and locations to be determined.
For up-to-the-minute updates on all events, visit www.InterActTheatre.org.
The World Premiere production of CITY OF NUMBERS runs for 29 performances, January 22 – February 21, 2010, on InterAct’s home on the Mainstage of The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA. Preview performances will be January 22, 23, 24, and 26. Opening Night will be on Wednesday, Jnauary 27 at 7:00 p.m. Performances during InterAct Theatre Company's 2009/2010 Season are Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 7:00 p.m., Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m. New this season, InterAct will also offer a Saturday matinee preview performance on the first Saturday of each run. The Saturday matinee during CITY OF NUMBERS will be held on January 23 at 2:00 p.m.
3-show subscriptions are now available for the plays remaining in InterAct’s 22nd Season. Preview performance subscriptions are $35.00 and Flex Pass subscriptions are $55.00. As a special offer, purchase any 3-play subscription and also receive one free ticket to see Anna Deavere Smith on Tuesday, January 26, 2010, hosted by University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Public Health Initiatives. Details available by contacting InterAct’s box office at 215.568.8079. Individual tickets for CITY OF NUMBERS are also on sale now. Preview performances are $16.00, performances Tuesday through Thursday are $25.00, and performances Friday through Sunday are $29.00. Discounts are available for groups (of 10 or more), seniors (65 and older), and students (with valid I.D.). Students with valid I.D. may also purchase Student Rush tickets for $10.00 five minutes before curtain (based on availability).
Subscriptions and tickets may be purchased by calling InterAct’s box office at 215-568-8079, visiting InterAct’s website at www.InterActTheatre.org or by dropping by InterAct’s offices at The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., Philadelphia.
SEAN CHRISTOPHER LEWIS’ (PLAYWRIGHT) plays and solo work have been awarded the Kennedy Center's Rosa Parks Award for Social Justice, a National Performance Network's Creation Fund Grant and the William Inge Playwriting Fellowship. He served as Emerging Playwright in Residence at InterAct Theatre Company and has toured three solo performances around the country: I WILL MAKE YOU ORPHANS (Adirondack Theatre Festival, Hyde Park Theatre, Uno Festival of Solo Performance, Galapagos Art Space, Riverside Theatre, Center for Independent Artists), THE GONE CHAIR (Openstage Harrisburg, Penn State's Cultural Conversations Festival) and CITY OF NUMBERS (Baltimore Centerstage First Look, Lawrence Arts Center, Available Light Theatre, Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, Legion Arts). His other plays include MILITANT LANGUAGE (Know Theatre of Cincinnati, Halcyon Theatre, Playpenn) and THE APERTURE (Cleveland Public Theatre). As an actor, Mr. Lewis has been nominated for both the Princess Grace Theatre Fellowship and the Fox Foundation Fellowship. He was a featured actor in InterAct Theatre Company's production of BLACK GOLD and has been seen Off-Broadway in classical repertory with the Pearl Theatre Company, in NYC at La Mama ETC, and regionally with Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh City Theater, Riverside Shakespeare Festival and more. His film and television work includes Comedy Central's "Upright Citizen's Brigade" and the feature film God's Country Off Route 9. Mr. Lewis received his MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa's Playwrights Workshop.
MATT SLAYBAUGH (DIRECTOR) is the Artistic Director of Available Light Theatre (Columbus, Ohio). His writing and directing of new plays and original works for Available Light and the BlueForms Theatre Group has been lauded by American Theatre magazine, New York Press, NYTheatre.com, the Central Ohio Theatre Critics Circle, the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, and the Victoria BC Times Colonist. He serves on the Greater Columbus Creative Cultural Commission, teaches at Columbus College of Art & Design and the Columbus State Community College Life Long Learning Institute, and writes for the Agit Reader, and Indie Columbus dot com.
The Mural Arts Program is the nation’s largest mural program. Since 1984, the Mural Arts Program has created over 3,000 murals and works of public art, which are now part of Philadelphia’s civic landscape and a source of inspiration to the thousands of residents and visitors who encounter them, earning Philadelphia international recognition as the “City of Murals.” The Mural Arts Program engages over 100 communities each year in the transformation of neighborhoods through the mural-making process. The Mural Arts Program’s award-winning, free art education programs annually serve nearly 2,000 youth at sites throughout the city and at-risk teens through education outreach programs. The Program also serves adult offenders in local prisons and rehabilitation centers, using the restorative power of art to break the cycle of crime and violence in our communities. For further information, call Mural Arts at (215) 685-0750 or visit www.muralarts.org.
Founded in 1988, InterAct is a theatre for today's world, producing new and contemporary plays that explore the social, political, and cultural issues of our time. InterAct's aim is to educate, as well as entertain, its audiences, by producing world-class, thought-provoking productions, and by using theatre as a tool to foster positive social change. Through its artistic and educational programs, InterAct seeks to make a significant contribution to the cultural life of Philadelphia and to the American theatre. To date, InterAct has presented 67 main stage productions, including 28 world premieres, 2 U.S. premieres, and more than 30 Philadelphia premieres. The company has received 39 Barrymore Award nominations and 13 Awards. InterAct's main stage productions have provided work for over 500 local artists.
In addition to the 4-play mainstage season, InterAct Theatre’s major programming includes InterAction, a program of experiential workshops and residencies in area schools that utilize theatre as a tool to illuminate pressing social problems in the community; the 20/20 New Play Commissioning program, an ambitious new initiative that will award twenty new play commissions over six seasons; New Play Development, working closely with playwrights to develop plays that adhere to the company's mission; and the Kaki Marshall Arts and Community Award, an annual fundraising event that recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the lively arts in Philadelphia.
In April 2010, InterAct will present the World Premiere of WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA, by Tony Award-nominated playwright Lee Blessing, which was commissioned by InterAct in 2008 through its 20/20 New Play Commission program. Set in a high-end hotel room at The Hague, WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA imagines former President George W. Bush on the eve of his trial for international war crimes. Tended to by an inscrutable Dutch butler and an alluring masseuse, the President embarks on a long night of drinking, joking, and ruminating, revealing along the way his most deeply held beliefs – that the American people crave a kind of paternal leadership; that we simultaneously love and fear our leaders, and, ultimately, unintentionally deify them. WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA takes aim at an American populace that has grown strikingly complacent in the wake of extraordinary global challenges, ultimately revealing the world’s most intriguing and influential conflict: the battle between the elected leader of the free world and a democracy of millions. InterAct’s WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA will be directed by Paul Meshejian and will run April 9 – May 9, 2010.
InterAct’s season concludes with the Philadelphia premiere of BLACK PEARL SINGS!, Frank Higgins’ play with music that follows the journey of two extraordinary women – one African American, one Caucasian – each of whom is dependent on the other to gain acceptance in society. In depression-era Texas, Susannah, a song collector for the Library of Congress, tracks down Pearl, a woman imprisoned for murder, hoping to record the treasure trove of spirituals and African folk songs that only Pearl knows. But after Susannah bargains for Pearl’s parole and arranges for her to perform at several public events, the two find themselves walking a delicate line between exposure and exploitation. Featuring beautiful, live a capella renditions of little-known American folk songs, BLACK PEARL SINGS! chronicles a powerful story about being a woman in a man’s world, being Black in a White world, and losing one’s soul in a world where anyone can become a commodity. Directed by Seth Rozin and featuring Catherine Slusar and C. Kelly Wright, BLACK PEARL SINGS! runs May 28 through June 27, 2010.
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Due to the nature of live theatre, play selection, performance and casting are subject to change.
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