Month: September 2012

Bob Bruhin

Geekadelphia favorite Jess Conda is currently thrilling Fringe audiences with Eternal Glamnation, a cabaret that explores the disintegration (and subsequent liberation) of a nuclear family through the wonders of glam rock.

The piece is the second part of Brat Productions’ Brat Rockpile double feature that also includes Madi Distefano’s harrowing one-woman show Popsicle’s Departure, 1989.

Conda was gracious enough to take time out of her performance-packed schedule to discuss everything from the origin of this double bill to the eternal wonders of David Bowie. Take a look.

Brat Rockpile: Popsicle’s Departure , 1989 and Eternal Glamnation
Click here for tickets and remaining showtimes.

Underground Arts Building
1200 Callowhill Street
Phila. PA. 19123

(via Jess Conda Glams Up the Fringe: An Interview | Geekadelphia)

Bob Bruhin

AS A BONUS TO OUR “WEIRD PEOPLE PROBLEMS” FRINGE RUN:
CAMP WOODS SKETCH COMEDY PRESENTS A SPECIAL DAVID LYNCH THEMED SKETCH SHOW LAMPOONING THE WORK OF KOOKY DIRECTOR, DAVID LYNCH! FEATURING NONE OTHER THEN SECRET PANTS!!!!!

$12 – Tickets: http://livearts-fringe.ticketleap.com/weird-people-problems/

 

All Performances:

Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 9:00PM – 10:00PM
A special DAVID LYNCH themed show!!!
https://www.facebook.com/events/423087251066744/

(via THE DAVID LYNCH SHOW by Camp Woods & Secret Pants at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival – 9/18 [as part of “Weird People Problems”])

Bob Bruhin

In response to continued pounding from construction down the hall in my office building, my print of the image above just jumped off the wall, narrowly missing beaming me on the head on the way down.

Just another day in the Eraserhood, I guess. Maybe I should have been recording the sounds of this building for my own movie soundtrack all this time…

Bob Bruhin

(via The Beat on Brat)

“I lost the best actress award to Lynn Redgrave, which isawesome!” says Madi Distefano, of her 2004 Barrymore Award nomination for Popsicle’s Departure, 1989. That show was also nominated for outstanding new play at that year’s Barrymores, but got even greater plaudits when it moved to the Edinburgh Fringe: best solo show.

Madi, the founder and artistic director of Brat Productions, described her one-woman show better than I ever could, when we spoke last week: ” Popsicle Departure 1989 is a tall tale shaggy dog monologue about a 19-year-old punk rock chick who lives in a warehouse and has a lame temp job and a crystal meth problem. Her boyfriend is a slacker guitarist South Boston boy. It goes back and forth between the two of them and they’re headed towards collision; she’s planning something, he’s planning something else, and a train wreck kind of thing ensues.”

“It’s beautiful,” says Jess Conda, who’s stage-managed numerous productions of the show. “I’ve done that show with Madi at least five or six times—all the Philly mounts, a run in New York City, the run in Edinburgh that won all the awards, and a run with her in Glascow. I probably have it memorized too.”

Jess, who is now the assistant artistic director of Brat, will be a bit distracted from Madi’s remount ofPopsicle at this year’s Philly Fringe. Paired with Popsicle is Jess’s first original show, Eternal Glamnation, and together, they are known as Brat RockPile. Previews done, they take the stage in full RAWK mode tomorrow, and for he rest of Philly Fringe. Be forewarned: the RockPile description reads, “CAUTION: THESE SHOWS FEATURE SEX, DRUGS, FLESH, STROBE LIGHTS, LOUD ROCK, PROFANITY, AND ALIEN ABDUCTIONS.” And so it goes in the Eraserhood.

Brat RockPile: Popsicle’s Departure, 1989 & Eternal Glamnation continues its run September 17, 19-22, 25 and 26 at Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill Street. Times vary, $15 to $35 for both shows.

Full story after the jump: two brats are better than one. And GWAR!!!

Bob Bruhin

(photo via 27 by New Paradise Laboratories Tickets in Philadelphia, PA, United States)

In Nirvana, Everything is Fine

On August 7 I cited an advertisement for an ice cream parlor as evidence that. “yes, we are still the town that broke David Lynch. …and don’t you ever presume to think otherwise.” In my defense, it really was an exceptional example of the viral advertisement that succeeds by being so strange that it almost repels, without (hopefully) quite crossing the line and causing true revulsion.

I really should have known better, though. After all the time I have spent involved as a patron, volunteer, and staff member at Live Arts and Philly Fringe, I really should have remembered there were far more deeply weird, deeply thoughtful forces at play in this city than just Little Baby’s Ice Cream.

So yes, we are still the town that broke David Lynch. The name of the force that brought this reality home to me on Saturday night is New Paradise Laboratories. The specific project is called 27.

Imagine the Radiator Lady kicks her way out of her little stage behind the wall, grabs a Stratocaster, drops a pair, and starts wailing Nirvana lyrics in Jim Morrison’s voice. Imagine, in fact, that this new icon actually is Jim Morrison, and that he is joined by Janice Joplin, Amy Winehouse, and the real Curt Cobain — all somehow mysteriously trapped in their own circles within some confusing nether world.

Into the role of the hapless Henry Spencer, substitute an equally hapless 27-year-old woman who isn’t quite sure what just happened, and definitely isn’t ready to face what happens next.

Well, you really just have to see it to believe it. Only one performance remaining, Sun, September 16 2012, 4:00PM – 5:30PM. If you already made it past the age of 27. go see it. You’ll remember how hard it was.

Bob Bruhin

[It looks like Philly isn’t the only city where the lobby is on for an underground park based on abandoned rail infrastructure.]

New Yorkers can get their first peek at the technology required to construct a proposed park in an underground abandoned trolley station. A year ago (almost to the day). the Lowline project teased the imaginations of New Yorkers and dazzled park lovers everywhere by releasing dreamy renderings of a lush park paradise-to-be in a most unlikely place: below ground. And not just below ground, but below Delancey Street, one of the most disparaged and dangerous stretches of asphalt in the whole city for a pleasant pedestrian stroll.

(via 1 | The Lowline, New York’s Revolutionary Underground Park, Says Let There Be Light | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation)