Events

Chris Brown digs into our listings bin and pulls out a little something-something to do every day of the week. This time around? Get electrocuted at the Wagner Institute, drink for ART/GAGE and our Ultimate Summer Fun Guide's out this week!

Start off the week with your thinking cap on as the Wagner presents yet another edition of their "Weeknights" series. Tonight, Dr. Aaron Wunsch delves into the work it took to get this town lit with electricity. Wed., May 23, 5:30 p.m., Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave., 215-763-6529, wagnerfreeinstitute.org.
On Friday, I got word that there was this big biker party called Skate and Ride down at the FDR Skate Park, so I quick hopped on my bike and went down to get some photos.
Photos by Brittany Thomas
Instead of taking regular crowd shots, I zeroed in on the hotties in the crowd at Saturday's Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival. Ouch!
Photos by Josh Middleton
Ever wonder what Mayor Nutter looks like riding a bike? This Friday, the mayor will celebrate National Bike to Work Day with staff, clients and volunteers from Gearing Up — an organization that promotes biking and bike education for women in recovery. Three years ago, Gearing Up founder Kristin Gavin began riding bikes with women at Interim House, a residential recovery home for women in Mt. Airy. Since that initial ride, the program has helped hundreds of women through earn-a-bike classes and group rides. Reintegrating into society requires a lot of the same skills it takes to ride a bike: confidence, self-sufficiency and an ease with public space. As Gavin says, “A huge part of successful recovery and reintegration for women in our program is having the opportunity to connect with healthy people, places and things ... such as pedaling side by side with the Mayor of Philadelphia”. In honor of the program's third anniversary, join Nutter and the gang tomorrow at 7:30 a.m., cycling from Lloyd Hall to the Municipal Services Building.

Chris Brown digs into our listings bin and pulls out a little something-something to do every day of the week.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia invites you to pay homage to riders no longer with us as their eighth annual Silent Ride takes place tonight. In the last year, six individuals have lost their lives while on the road and to call attention to this sad fact supporters are gathering in front of the Art Museum and embarking on a memorial excursion through the neighborhoods.
Wed., May 16, 6:45 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. Benjamin Franklin Parkway, bicyclecoalition.org.
After this weekend, Old City will lose one of its hidden gems, Hudson Beach Glass (26 S. Strawberry St., 267-319-1887). The shop has been a fixture on Strawberry Street since 2008, selling handcrafted glass wares and jewelry and offering glassblowing classes. On Sat.-Sun., May 12-13, their final weekend open, the glass nook will offer discounts from 15 to 50 percent off, and you can take advantage of a last chance to make your own glass flower. The artists’ works will still be available on the web, and at their location in Beacon, N.Y.

D.C. may have us one-upped in terms of free museums, but this Friday we, too, can bask in the glory of high art at no cost. In honor of the International Council of Museums’ International Museum Day (Fri., May 18), the Philadelphia Museum of Art will open its doors to the public, waiving admission fees all day long. Over 200 galleries and special exhibits in the main building and the Perelman building will be on view, and the free admission includes public tours, access to the CraftLAB and Art After 5 with Cuban-born jazz musician Francisco Mela.

Chris Brown digs into our listings bin and pulls out a little something-something to do every day of the week. This time around? Can art that doesn't involve Warhol, three cheers for society and naked gardening!

Make your way to the western section of Center City for "Canstruction." Scores of local architecture outfits have constructed joints using canned food. After this week the structures will be disassembled and the cans will be sent to various local food banks. So hurry, before that art gets eaten!
Wed., May 9, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m., The Shops at Liberty Place, 1625 Chestnut St., aiaphiladelphia.org.

On Monday night, the Wilma Theater masked its still-building white stage set for their upcoming
production of Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (starts May 23) for a special event. In partnership with the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the theater community grassroots organization for marriage equality Broadway Impact, R Families and The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, the Wilma held a one-night-only staged script reading of 8.
Penned by AFER founding board member and Academy Award-winning scriptwriter (Milk) Dustin Lance Black (pictured), 8 chronicles the historical trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8, with language lifted — often hilariously with its naïve awkwardness — from the trial’s actual transcripts.
Philadelphia’s Mary Martello and Grace Gonglewski (both from the Wilma’s recent staging of Body Awareness) played integral 8 roles as Sandy Steir and Kris Perry, the lesbian couple with kids at the heart of the charges against Governor Schwarzenegger and his state. Other local luminaries included Catharine Slusar, who was outrageous high-heeled fun as the right-wing family advocate Maggie Gallagher, performance-art great John Jarboe and Keith Conallen (late of Theater Exile’s Gruesome Playground Injuries).
Long after the crowd's had split, the bands stopped playing and the City began cleaning the mounds of paper water cups that had accumulated along the side of the road, the last of yesterday's Broad Street Runners were still making their way toward their South Philly finish line. Around 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning, I strolled up the Avenue of the Arts between Washington and Locust streets to snap some photos of these motivated but forgotten few.
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