Today on the podcast, we chat with the collaborators of the World Premiere production, The Tattooed lady, A New Musical on stage at Philadelphia Theatre Company. Here is my interview with Max Vernon and Erin Courtney for The Tattooed Lady, A New Musical.

The story of The Tattooed Lady highlights one of sideshow’s biggest stars, Ida Gibson, in a moving, fantastical tale that reveals the generational chasms and connections between Ida and her granddaughter Joy. A parade of beguiling characters appear, on a mission to liberate Ida from her self-imposed exile and help Joy find freedom through forgiveness. The musical celebrates the resilience of women whose choices have the power to liberate them.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

Erin Courtney (Book) is a New York based playwright. Her play, A Map of Virtue, was awarded an Obie and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding New York Theater. Her play I Will Be Gone, premiered at the Humana Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville. She has written two operas with Elizabeth Swados: The Nomad and Kaspar Hauser, both commissioned and produced by The Flea Theater. Her other plays, produced by Clubbed Thumb, include Alice the Magnet, directed by Pam MacKinnon, and Demon Baby, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. She is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a member of the Obie Award winning playwrights collective, 13P, as well as the co-founder of the Brooklyn Writers Space.

Max Vernon (Book, Music, Lyrics & Orchestrations) is a musical theatre writer, whose works include The View UpStairs, KPOP (opening on Broadway this November!), The Tattooed Lady, and Show & Tell. They are a three-time Drama Desk nominee, Out100 Honoree, two-time MacDowell Fellow, Dramatist Guild Fellow, and recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Jonathan Larson Grant, Pew Arts and Culture Grant, and New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, among others. They have also written work for Audible, Disney, Virgin Group, and Tyra Banks. Notable concerts include Joe’s Pub, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. They earned an MFA from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. www.maxvernon.com IG: @frauleinsallybowels

FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION: https://philadelphiatheatrecompany.org

A Leg Up
By Ken Kaissar

Director Amy Kaissar

September 20, 2022 – October 9, 2022

A world premiere comedy for the 21st century!

Initially slated for its world premiere in the 2019/20 season, this witty and outlandish story is a new comedy for the 21st century written as a traditional farce. In A Leg Up, Charles Griffin III (O’Neil) has staked what’s left of his fortune on the new Miraculous Knee-to-Toe XR-3000 with 3D Helix, an intelligent prosthetic leg, designed for a presidential candidate, Senator Sam Wannamead (Hogan). Unfortunately, his mistress Laurie (Hamilton) announces she’s pregnant, his business partner Stephanie (Alpert) has her eye on his wife Barbara (Maurer), and the Senator is having an affair with the leg designer Rufus (Robbins), and it’s not even lunchtime yet!

ABOUT MARLA ALPERT

Marla Alpert [She/They] is a seasoned actor and singer, having performed in the national tours of Jekyll and Hyde and Ragtime, as well as with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s The Sorceress, and over a dozen regional shows throughout the country. She is also the host of her own podcast about legendary Broadway flops, Flop of the Heap, and is a regular content creator on TikTok, advocating for transgender representation in media and educating on trans issues. You can find her on Instagram or Tiktok, @thefloorismarlava.

For More Information: https://brtstage.org

This September, Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series will present the first career retrospective of theater artist Annie Dorsen titled Algorithmic Theater. The retrospective is part of a residency advancing Dorsen’s work and examining the consequences of digital communications through theater. Algorithmic Theater brings Dorsen’s work to Philadelphia audiences for the first time and features four of her past projects, including Hello Hi There (2010), Spokaoke (2012), A Piece of Work (2013), and Yesterday Tomorrow (2015). Together, these works tell a story about advancing technology, encroaching artificial intelligence, and post-anthropocentric art-making that attempt to reckon with the last decade of history.

Dorsen is a New York-based theater director and artist who works at the intersection of algorithmic art and live performance. Since 2010, she has built a body of work in what she’s referred to as “algorithmic theater,” creating custom algorithms that perform in lieu of or alongside human performers. The pieces position the digital world’s influence on our everyday lives in dialogue with classical dramatic forms to confront the consequences of our increasing entanglement with information technologies.

Algorithmic Theater will begin with a presentation of A Piece of Work on September 9 at 8 p.m. at McPherson Auditorium. Mixing live performance with algorithms and interfaces, A Piece of Work flips the switch between man and machine in a digital version of Hamlet for a post-humanist age. The spectators are absorbed in a swirl of connections amongst memory, language, and technology, implicating both the past and future of theater itself. New scenes, songs, scores, and visuals emerge from an intricate and ingeniously programmed web of technology that uses Shakespeare’s original text as data.

The next piece, Spokaoke, will be hosted on September 10 at 10 p.m. at the Marie Salant Neuberger Centennial Campus Center. Spokaoke is a participatory event that invites people to perform speeches as they would ordinarily perform songs in a karaoke bar. Speeches are, after all, songs of persuasion, argument, consolidation, or motivation. Over 90 speech videos are loaded into a karaoke system and arranged in a catalog for audience members to peruse. Participants will read various forms of public addresses, including political speeches, award acceptance speeches, press conferences, theatrical monologues, eulogies, and trial testimony. An additional presentation of Spokaoke will take place at FringeArts on September 16 at 10 p.m. as a part of this year’s Fringe Festival, featuring a special guest host.

The third piece, Hello Hi There, will be presented on September 10 & 11 at 8 p.m. at Hepburn Teaching Theater. Dorsen uses the famous television debate between philosopher Michel Foucault and linguist/activist Noam Chomsky from the 1970s as inspiration for a dialogue between two custom-designed chatbots. Material from the debate, along with additional text culled from YouTube, the Bible, Shakespeare, and western philosophy, is inputted into computer programs designed to mimic human conversation to create a new, “improvised” dialogue at each performance.

Finally, Algorithmic Theater will conclude with Yesterday Tomorrow at McPherson Auditorium on September 15 at 8 p.m., September 16 at 6 p.m., and September 17 at 8 p.m. In Yesterday Tomorrow, three singers receive computer-generated music and lyrics both aurally and visually. The algorithmically-produced score begins with the Beatles’ hit song “Yesterday” and slowly transforms into “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie. Inspired by an artificial intelligence known as evolutionary computation, Yesterday Tomorrow gives a unique experience of the complexity and unpredictability of the present tense contrasted with the known past and the imagined future. Each night, the spatial and musical path from the past to the future is different; neither the singers, creative team, nor the audience knows the route the performance will take them.

Free tickets will be available to students from the Tri-College Consortium (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore) and can be reserved by calling 610-526-5300, or emailing reservations@brynmawr.edu.

General admission tickets for Algorithmic Theater performances will be available online for $20, $18 for seniors (65+), $10 for students (not from the Tri-College Consortium), and $5 for children under five.

In addition to presenting performances, Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series will release an accompanying publication titled Algorithmic Theater: Essays and Interviews, 2012-2022. The publication highlights the last decade of Dorsen’s work, and a limited number of copies will be available to the public for free. Edited by writer and theater critic Tom Sellar, the book features essays by Dorsen as well as illuminating conversations with her collaborators. It also includes a collection of essays previously published in journals, monographs, and anthologies by Miriam Felton-Dansky, Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Sarah Bay-Cheng, W.B. Worthen, and Johannes Birgfeld.

ABOUT ANNIE DORSEN:

Annie Dorsen is a director and writer whose works explore the intersection of algorithms and live performance. Her most recent project, Infinite Sun (2019), is an algorithmic sound installation commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial 14. Previous performance projects, including The Slow Room (2018), The Great Outdoors (2017), Yesterday Tomorrow (2015), A Piece of Work (2013), Spokaoke (2012), and Hello Hi There (2010), have been widely presented in the US and internationally.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://anniedorsen.digital.brynmawr.edu and https://anniedorsen.com/

Today on the podcast, GUNNAR MONTANA returns to talk about the latest FringeArts offering, BATHHOUSE. Here is my interview with Gunnar Montana.

Designed as a temple to the fluid nature of sexuality, BATH HOUSE is a deeply sensory immersive theatrical experience dripping with erotic energy from start to finish. BATH HOUSE fuses dance and movement to create an atmosphere where guests are free to indulge their deepest desires, and perhaps even discover new ones.

VIP Packages Available: The VIP Table Experience is the ultimate way to get up close and personal with Gunnar and the BATH HOUSE cast. The Experience includes (4) VIP table seats, (4) official BATH HOUSE t-shirts, a bottle of champagne for your table, and a post-show meet and greet with the cast. Check ticket page for VIP options.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.gunnarmontana.com

Reverie

A New Play by a Pulitzer Prize winning Philadelphia Playwright

By James Ijames - 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama (FAT HAM)
Directed by Jerrell L. Henderson

When Jordan answers a knock at his door, he’s expecting to see his most recent assignation standing there, but instead encounters Paul, the father of a former boyfriend. Paul’s son Lucas died six months ago, and Paul found Jordan’s address amongst his son’s belongings. Reverie deals with grief, being true to yourself and the family dynamics that can make that so challenging.

FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION: https://azukatheatre.org

Today on the podcast, we talk about the final production of Theatre Exile’s 25th season, Today is My Birthday by Susan Soon He Stanton. Here is my interview with Rachel O’Hanlon Rodriguez and Daniel Kim for Today is My Birthday.

Today is My Birthday is about life with a thousand friends on Facebook and no one to have dinner with on Saturday night. This quirky comedy by award-winning screenwriter and playwright Susan Soon He Stanton tells the story of would-be writer Emily, who moves back home to Hawaii after her bubble life in New York pops. As she trades one island for another, Emily, feeling unfulfilled, creates an alter-ego for a radio dating show, determined to turn fantasy into reality. Today is My Birthday, told through a playful mixture of live radio, voicemail, and phone calls, is about finding true human connection in a digital-obsessed world.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez (Hailma, DJ Solange, Goddess Sweet Leilani, Generic Female Voice, Hostess, she/they) is thrilled to make their Theater Exile debut. Rachel is a Philly-based actor, poet, organizer, trauma-informed teaching artist, and facilitator. They are the Operations Associate of Spiral Q and serve as a member of the Artistic Squad of Delaware Shakespeare Theater. Rachel has spent the last decade working with theater companies throughout the region such as Power Street Theatre, Die Cast, The Hum’n’Bards, Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Simpatico Theatre Company, The Wilma Theater, the Arden Theatre, EgoPo Classic Theater, and the International Performing Arts for Youth. Rachel received her Master’s in Theater from Villanova University. Follow Rachel’s creative journey on Instagram @the.inter.section or at www.rachelohanlonrodriguez.com.

DANIEL KIM (Dad, Bill Tapia, he/him) is an actor and standup comedian who has appeared across the country. While in Los Angeles, he played the villainous Judge Turpin in the award-winning production of Sweeney Todd at East West Players, the nation’s oldest Asian American theater. Dan also played family friend Stan on Margaret Cho’s sitcom All American Girl. In addition, Dan was a member of the Warner Bros. Comedy Writing Workshop. In Philadelphia, Dan most recently played the role of Atung in The Chinese Lady at Interact Theatre. In addition, Dan appeared in Tiger Style, the inaugural production of Philadelphia Asian Performance Artists (PAPA). At the South Camden Theatre (NJ), Dan played the role of Wong in both the premiere and revival of Fortune Cookies. Dan was also a founding member of the performance group Asians Misbehavin’ (NY & Philly Fringe Festivals, WYBE-TV), as well as the Edge of the World ensemble (NAATCO, LaMama). Dan has performed stand-up comedy at clubs in Chicago (Zanies, Comedy Cottage), New York (Improv, Gotham Comedy Club), and Philadelphia (Comedy Cabaret). Love to Doris, Melody, Maple, and Lolly!

FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION: https://theatreexile.org