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Archive: November, 2012
Call it the orchestra’s all-American election special, open to democrats, republicans and communists. The music of Barber, Gershwin and Copland is familiar to most ears, but the excellent music of Puerto-Rican born Roberto Sierra may be a revelation. This will be the local premiere of his Sinfonia No. 4. The soloist in the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F will be Kirill Gerstein, who, appropriately for this music, has dual careers in the classical and jazz worlds.
STARTS TONIGHT: Fri., Nov. 2, 2 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 3 p.m.; $20-$130, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, philorch.org.
Last Monday night at the Kimmel Center, about 400 members of the Philadelphia theater community got together to finish what the Theater Alliance started — they gave away the remaining awards meant to be part of the annual Barrymores along with a posthumous Lifetime Achievement prize to Wilma Theater co-founder Jiri Zizka.
An honorary and voluntary committee of local stage artisans pulled off "Theatre Philadelphia: A Celebration” without a hitch. Each presentation for the $10,000 F. Otto Haas Award for an emerging artist was outrageous fun, in particular Alex Bechtel & Co.’s “Dream Weaver” cover dedicated to nominee Thom Weaver as well as Lee Ann Etzold’s bare-breasted salute to her Bang co-star and creator Charlotte Ford (actor and 11th Hour Theatre Company co-founder Steve Pacek won the Haas). The $25,000 Brown Martin Philadelphia Award for theater companies celebrating cultural and spiritual diversity went to Flashpoint Theatre Company, for last season's Slip/Shot drama about race penned by Philly playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger, who had already had won a Barrymore for outstanding new play this year. Along with those awards, a new seasonally recurring $10K gift was announced — the June and Steve Wolfson Award for an outstanding small theater company.
Jiri Zizka was celebrated by his son, Krystof, and ex-wife, Blanka Zizka for his dedication to advancing the avant-garde as artistic director and co-founder of the Wilma Theater, and helping turn Philadelphia into an adventuresome theater town.
Along with lionizing Zizka, Theater Philadelphia poked fun at the departure of its red-carpet Barrymores as well as bemoaning the loss of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s full-time theater critic Howard Shapiro, a staffer who took a buyout rather than be moved to the paper’s New Jersey bureau.
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After you get your vote on Tuesday (do it!), head to the Prince Music Theater (PMT) on Wednesday for the first night of the eighth annual Philly Improv Festival, which also serves as the kickoff for Philadelphia Comedy Month. This week, we caught up with two of the week’s performers, Jessica Arjet (Austin, Texas) and Kristen Firth (Philly via Austin as of this August) of Firth&Arjet, who you can catch at PMT on Thu., Nov. 8 at 7:30 p.m.
City Paper: How did you two end up in improv?
Firth&Arjet: We both started out on the acting side of the theater world [but] improv has some great advantages in performance: You can feel the audience’s energy and feed off it. You also get absolutely honest reactions and deep connections more than when the material is filtered through a playwright, director, actors and more. Besides, improv is just so playful and delightful. It's so much fun to see what is going to happen next.
CP: Do you find the two-woman team experience unique, as opposed to co-ed troupes?
F&A: Absolutely! It's not that we do “chickprov,” but we have a huge commitment to our basic characters and the relationships between. Also, in improv you can't help but draw from what you know and who you are. We are both women, dealing with being female in this crazy world.
Local developer Brian O’Neill is remaking this city from the South West on down. He’s got the will and he’s got the ways and means. O’Neill also has the focus and force to see a personal project through — the self-publication of a book that his late great mom Peggie O’Neill penned just before she succumbed to cancer last year called Juggle Without Struggle: Five Secrets, Four Weeks, Nine Minutes to Inner Peace. The developer says the book deals with the on-going struggles of single parenting and the spiritual tenacity women have to bear up under the weight of financial troubles and personal goals. On Nov. 2, at 6 p.m., O’Neill hosts a book release celebration at the Philadelphia Country Club that’s open to the public. He’s a good man. She was a smart woman. You should go.
That Cameron Crowe/Emma Stone movie that Philly native Bradley Cooper is attached to make after he finishes his duties next spring on David O. Russell’s next filming-in-Philly ABSCAM flick may just be an older script that Crowe had in his dresser drawer. Word has it that Crowe may be re-working Deep Tiki, a comedy that was supposed to go in front of the cameras in December 2008 with Ben Stiller (instead of Cooper) as a “disgraced U.S. military weapons consultant who is deployed to a dormant base in Hawaii to supervise the launch of an advanced spy satellite as a response to aggression from China.” That’s funny?
Several Jersey boys and their friends on this coast will take part in a hastily booked benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Sandy this Fri., Nov. 2. on all NBC networks (Bravo, CNBC, USA, MSNBC, E!). Look for Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi — along with Billy Joel, Christina Aguilera and Jimmy Fallon — to take part in the televised relief effort with proceeds benefiting the American Red Cross.
“Comedies about things that aren’t funny” is the theme of B. Someday Productions’ 2012-13 season at the Walking Fish Theatre, and their third installment, from Canadian master of angst-ridden comedy George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel series, fits perfectly. Like last spring’s repertory of The End of Civilization and Featuring Loretta, Problem Child takes place in a seedy motel room, and is dark, dirty, dangerous — and funny. In Problem Child, Denise (Gina Martino, fascinating in the first two plays) and RJ (Matt Shell IV) want to clean up their drug-ravaged lives and reclaim their daughter, taken by Social Services, but mayhem ensues.
Through Nov. 17, $20, Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Ave., 215-427-9255, walkingfishtheatre.com.
Philly’s on-again/off-again literary festival is on again, with four days of readings, concerts and parties in the Eraserhood section. There’s too much stuff to list here, but I’ll lay out some highlights. It all starts Thursday with an appearance by Buzz Bissinger and the debut of the Mural Arts Mobile Campfire, “a glowing, LED-powered orb meant to intimate a futuristic campfire” designed by artist Juan Dimida (7 p.m., 319 N. 11th St.). Author/journalist Jon Ronson (The Psychopath Test, Lost at Sea) is one of the most brilliant nonfiction storytellers going, so Friday’s happy hour reading at Llama Tooth should be a blast (6 p.m., 1033 Spring Garden Ave.). Sunday night belongs to one of the most brilliant fake-fiction storytellers, John Hodgman (The Areas of My Expertise), a 215 Fest staple (8 p.m., Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St.).
Through Nov. 4, free to $15, various locations, 215festival.org.
What sort of movie would RZA — the de facto mastermind behind Wu Tang Clan and its hip-hop dynasty — make if he had a chance to direct one? We wouldn’t know precisely what kind because The Man with the Iron Fists, RZA’s directorial debut that he co-wrote with Eli Roth, wasn’t made available to screen before this interview. But you could guess from his background in the theology of martial arts — the skill and its films and their influence on Wu everything — to say nothing from a reel where he, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Rick Yune, David Bautista and Jamie Chung run roughshod across 19th-century China. It would be a fast-paced bloodbath, especially since it’s being “presented by” his cinematic mentor Quentin Tarantino, with whom RZA has worked on several film scores. Plus RZA created most of the score to The Man with the Iron Fists when he wasn’t developing Chambers headphones (a pair of which we gave away in an Instagram contest this week), the sleek black zip-up pouch it comes in, or trying to get the entirety of the Wu Tang Clan in fighting action for 2013. I spoke to him from the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles.
City Paper: What was the first movie that you absolutely loved?
RZA: Star Wars. It’s still an amazing film. I even love the whole saga.
CP: What was the first film that moved you to pay attention to its direction, do decide that making movies was something you’d like to do someday?
RZA: I can say the first film that I found remarkable enough to want to know more about was Five Deadly Venoms then The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, after that. Once those hit I probably began to look at films from the standpoint of how they were done. The Godfather, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly — these were masterpieces of cinema that you wanted to get inside. I watch films with a different eye because of that. Like when I saw The Grey I felt like I was in a rainstorm the whole time. I got cold.
WHO: Richie Hawtin, Loco Dice, Ean Golden, Josh Wink, Rob Paine
WHAT: A very unique tour, CNTRL: Beyond EDM, is hitting Philly for a two-part event. The concept is to inform and inspire people about the history and future of electronic music. First off, they're stopping by Drexel University for a daytime seminar from 5-7 p.m., presented by Dubspot, the renowned electronic music production and DJ school. In addition to touring acts Richie Hawtin, Loco Dice and Ean Golden, locals Josh Wink and Rob Paine will be joining the fray along with Ovum’s Matt Brookman, who will lead a guest lecture. Topics covered at the seminar include using technology to control creativity, old school DJing vs. controllerism, sound quality and an open Q&A. Afterward, its party time! The whole gang will throw down, culminating with Mr. Plastikman himself, Richie Hawtin dropping one of his groundbreaking techno sets he’s known for internationally.
WHEN & WHERE: Fri., Nov. 2, 5 p.m.-7 p.m., Main Building Auditorium, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut St. and 8:30 p.m.-2 a.m., Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St., ticketmaster.com.
WHY: Cause we're kind of hawt for Hawtin.
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