Happy Hour On The Fringe

Jamie J. Brunson, the executive director of First Person Arts as well as a talented storyteller, poet, and playwright in her own right, stops by the FringeArts offices to give us a preview of this year's First Person Arts Festival, tell us a Halloween story, and explain why she believes that real life makes the best drama. Shownotes: First Person Arts Festival runs Nov 4 through 17. To learn more and purchase your ticket visit firstpersonarts.org. Also, follow First Person Arts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. To take a look at what shows will be presented at FringeArts visit FringeArts.com. Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com. Leave a comment and let us know what you thought of this podcast.

This week, we bring you the live recording from singer, songwriter, and scholar Gelsey Bell's talkback with world renown composer and director Heiner Goebbels. Frankfurt-based composer and director Heiner Goebbels has had his work produced around the globe including his native Germany, Switzerland, England, New York and now Philadelphia. He taught for nearly 20 years at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen (1999-2018) and served as president of the Theatre Academy Hessen for twelve years (2006-2018). He was the artistic director of the International Festival of the Arts Ruhrtriennale for two years and ​received the first appointment for the newly established Georg Büchner Professorship in 2018. Two of his works, Stifters Dinge and Songs of Wars I Have Seen, were a part of the 2018 Fringe Festival. Major support for Stifters Dinge and Songs of Wars I Have Seen has been provided to FringeArts by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.​

Circa Contemporary Circus has traveled all the way from Australia to bring their breathtaking mixture of circus, dance, and physical theatre to this year’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival. On this week’s episode of Happy Hour on the Fringe, Libby McDonnell and Nathan Boyle from Circa Contemporary Circus take a moment to sit down with host Zach Blackwood and chat about Circa, their Fringe Festival show Humans, and Nathan’s parents' struggle to define what exactly it is that he does. Shownotes: Learn more about Circa Contemporary Circus at https://circa.org.au and follow the company on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, download the FringeArts App in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com. Leave a comment and let us know what you thought of this podcast!

Our conversation about Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd continues on this episode of Happy Hour on the Fringe. Despite our office being abuzz with festival activity, writer, cultural worker, activist and co-founder of Casa de Duende, David Acosta stopped by to sit down with hosts Katy and Zach. He shared his experience as an activist during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 80s and 90s and told us more about the history portrayed in the exhibition that he helped our hosts create for Variations on Themes from Lost And Found. Show Notes: Act Up Philadelphia’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actupphilly/ Act Up Philadelphia’s Website: http://www.actupphilly.org Oral History Clips: 215-398-4534 Health Information Hotline for more information on HIV/AIDS services including testing: 215-985-2437 Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com. Leave a comment and let us know wha

In the midst of the Philadelphia premiere of their latest collaboration, Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd, Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez stop by the FringeArts office and talk with hosts Raina, Zach, and Katy about the art, life and legacy of Ishmael’s friend John Bernd and the legacies of other artists lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Show Notes: Miguel’s Website: miguelgutierrez.org This Bridge Called My Ass: https://chocolatefactorytheater.org/miguel-gutierrez-this-bridge-called-my/ Fat and Other Stories by Ishmael Houston-Jones: http://yonkersinternational.press/fat.html Oral History Clips: 215-398-4534 Health Information Hotline for more information on HIV/AIDS services including testing: 215-985-2437 Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com.

International Contemporary Ensemble's Phyllis Chen and Nathan Davis take a break from their residency at Christ Church to chat with hosts Zach and Katy about their Fringe Festival piece In Plain Air, the organ that will outlive us all, and Nathan's security record. Tickets for In Plain Air are available at https://fringearts.com/event/in-plain-air/ and through the FringeArts Apps. Performances will take place on September 22nd at 1 PM, 3:30 PM and 6 PM and on September 23rd at 3:30 PM and 6 PM. To find out more about Phyllis, Nathan, and ICE visit: http://www.phyllischen.net http://www.nathandavis.com https://www.iceorg.org Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com.

Just ahead of Fringe Festival 2018’s opening weekend, Donald Nally, co-founder and conductor of The Crossing, joins hosts Zach and Raina to discuss the choral group’s unexpected origins, his brand spanking new Grammy hat, and The Crossing’s Fringe Festival show Of Arms and the Man. Of Arms and the Man will premier September 16 at 8PM at FringeArts. Tickets are available at FringeArts.com or on the FringeArts app, available in the Apple app store or Google Play. Learn more about The Crossing at https://www.crossingchoir.org. Follow FringeArts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and visit us on the web at https://fringearts.com.

Hosts Zach and Raina sit down with performer, choreographer, educator, and double libra with a moon in pisces, Meg Foley. They discuss Meg’s Fringe Festival show the undergird, how identity shapes Meg’s work, and, just between us, breaking the space-time continuum. To support Meg Foley and the undergird, donate to the undergird’s kickstarter at http://bit.ly/theundergird. The undergird opens at Icebox Project Space on September 13th and runs through September 16th. To buy your tickets, visit our website. To learn more and stay up to date with Meg Foley and her work, visit http://www.megfoley.org. Enjoy!

Today on Happy Hour on the Fringe, hosts Zach Blackwood and Raina Searles chat with theatre artist, director, longtime friend of the Fringe and occasional magician Trey Lyford on the nature of memory, Trey's artistic process, and the story behind his latest work The Accountant. Catch the world premiere of The Accountant opening week of the 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival! To get your tickets, visit http://fringearts.com/event/the-accountant-4-2/. Learn more about The Accountant, the (Re)Collection Project and Trey's work here. Follow Fringearts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Youtube!

A conversation between FringeArts president and producing director Nick Stuccio and world renown composer and director Heiner Goebbels covering Goebbels’ seminal works and long career. Frankfurt-based composer and director Heiner Goebbels has had his work produced around the globe including his native Germany, Switzerland, England, New York and now Philadelphia. He taught for nearly 20 years at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen (1999-2018) and served as president of the Theatre Academy Hessen for twelve years (2006-2018). He was the artistic director of the International Festival of the Arts Ruhrtriennale for two years and and received the first appointment for the newly established Georg Büchner Professorship in 2018. His works Stifters Dinge and Songs of Wars I Have Seen will be produced in the 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival September 7 - 9. Major support for Stifters Dinge and Songs of Wars I Have Seen has been provided to FringeArts by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

What sat down to chat with Raja Feather Kelly and The Feath3r Theory in advance of this month's Get Pegged Cabaret!

Recorded several months back, this conversation with theatre artist and singer Martha Stuckey and playwright, storyteller, and humorist R. Eric Thomas covers everything from Stuckey's clown-funk alter-ego Red 40 and Thomas' popular online humor column for Elle, to pitching reality shows and the therapeutic nature of baking (both the act of, and watching The Great British Bake Off). Martha Stuckey is a Philadelphia-based theatre artist by way of Minnesota. She has performed and devised work with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Team Sunshine Performance Group, Bearded Ladies, and BRAT Productions and performed at such venues as Joe's Pub. Red 40 and the Last Groovement is a clown funk outfit that graces stages such as FringeArts, Union Transfer, Trocadero, and L'Etage with The Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret. The band released their first album, "She's Keen To Feed," in October of 2016. R. Eric Thomas is a Barrymore Award-winning playwright and humorist. He is the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia. He is

A conversation with musician, composer, teacher, and Not So Silent Cinema artistic director Brendan Cooney. Not-So-Silent Cinema provides new, original scores for classic silent films. For each of his film projects Cooney pulls together different groups, creating diverse mash-ups of musical personalities from different music scenes to create lively new platforms for interaction and creativity. His scores are tightly composed, time-coded and thematic but also have plenty of room for improvisation and interaction between players. The group live scored the classic 1932 surreal horror film Vampyr here at FringeArts this past Halloween.

A conversation with Orbiter 3 member Sam Henderson, covering Henderson's latest play, "The Brownings," as well as his history working in theater throughout the city. "The Brownings" is an immoderate re-telling of the great love of the 19th century, an unconventional, rudely comic exploration of the purpose of art and the nature of love. The show runs here at FringeArts from Dec 1 - Dec 9. Henderson has appeared at the Arden Theatre Company, Lantern Theater Company, Theatre Exile, and the Wilma Theater, among others. Recent productions include "100" (2015 FringeArts Festival) and the Renegade Company's "Damned Dirty Apes!" Readings include "The Brownings" (PTC@Play Festival) and "HEART" (Theatre Exile's Studio X-Hibition Series). A recent finalist for the Smith Prize for Political Theatre, Henderson is a member of InterAct Theatre's Core Writer's Program, and the Foundry, a lab for emerging playwrights.

This premiere episode of Happy Hour on the Fringe features an in depth conversation with Subcircle co-founder Jorge Cousineau. The Dresden-born, Philadelphia-based artist has worked as a theater designer for the last two decades with many of this city's—and others'—most lauded theater companies, receiving widespread acclaim for his imaginative integration of technology into many performances. The conversation covers a wide-range of topics including Cousineau's beginnings in theater, his relocation to Philadelphia, some of his most memorable projects, as well as the concepts behind and his work as a live sound designer for Subcircle's latest show, "HOLD STILL while I figure this out" (coming to FringeArts Nov 16-18). You can hear snippets of this work, generated in rehearsals, throughout the episode and find more information and tickets here.