Let's jump right in:

>>>City Paper cover story is more like a cover package: A.D. Amorosi interviews Charlotte Ford about CHICKEN, Mark Cofta on all the Billy Shakes, a piece on all the undead (so many undead), Shaun Brady on Bang on a Can and Release, and more.

>>>Philadelphia magazine's website has a slideshow of 11 of your favorite Festival performers.

>>>Daily News: Jonathan Takiff interviews Joe Blake, former DN reporter turned playwright and writing teacher, about his Philly Fringe show A Separate Sun.

>>>Edge Philadelphia: What's gay at the Festivals? They've got us covered.

>>>Edge redux: Article on the very talented Meg Foley, whose choreography will be featured next week as a part of 8: eight choreographers/eight new works.

>>>TheaterMania: J. Cooper Robb covers the opening of the theater season in Philly, with plugs for the Live Arts production Cankerblossom and the Philly Fringe show The New & Improved Stages of Grief.
>>>First Person Arts shares their picks too, focusing on memoir and documentary, of course. Click on over, and find out how to get an FPA discount to Cedric Andreiux.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Photo by Jay Dunn.

Big lovely feature on, well, us in the Inquirer today, focusing on not just the Festivals but also on the Live Arts Brewery project. Howie Shapiro writes:

"With major grants, an expanded new space in Northern Liberties, and a determined leader, the festival is tackling research and development - a concept generally associated with new drugs and new cars, but not new works of art.

"It has developed a program called LAB - the Live Arts Brewery - that pays a handful of theater artists, dancers, and musicians (at this point all local) to create work. It gives them the space to do it, the equipment to do it right, small audiences to react as it evolves, and the oversight of a major-festival producer to guide it to polished completion."

Yay! We likey. Please go read the story now. Then come back here for more stories from the fringe.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

In this episode of our occasional media digest of things you probably care about:

>>>Philadelphia Weekly's J. Cooper Robb picks the best of the best of theater for this past season. The top 10 productions include EgoPo's Company which ran during Philly Fringe last year, and Pig Iron's Welcome to Yuba City, which premiered at the Live Arts Festival and was also Robb's selection for best new play, best ensemble, best choreography, and best scenic design (by Mimi Lien). Congrats to everybody, for, as Robb writes, " For the past two decades, the theater community has grown in both quantity and quality; now, previously young companies are now artistically established, and over the years have been cultivating a stable of talented local designers, directors and actors." Damn straight.

>>>In Sunday's Inquirer, which I had missed while I was fleeing the black bears of Canada, Howard Shapiro writes up the rise of Temple Repertory Theater, the new professional-level theater affiliated with Temple University's MFA theater program. Quoth Shapiro: "These new troupes are the salvation of American repertory theaters, which offer actors steady gigs and artistic attachments, and which were becoming rarer by the decade."

>>>Lucinda Childs's Dance was up at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. last month. In The Post and Courier, reviewer Eliza Ingle raves:
"As the dance unfolds trancelike, the dancers turn on their axes like spinning planets, at other times they could be cellular activity under a microscope. Most powerful is the second section where the image of Lucinda Childs stands larger-than-life with the look of an artist who is confident her work will not disappear. Dancer Caitlin Scranton mirrors the choreographer, weaving in and out of the footage in a brilliant light design by Beverly Emmons."

>>>Hey, they've got a lovely interview with Lucinda Childs up as well!

>>>Remember Justin Aaron Poole, and his obits for Everyman? He's an academic too, and in a recent issue of Theatre Journal he offers some thoughts on last year's Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe. Subscription (or access to an academic library) required, but here's a taste:
"Following the argument that the Fringe showcases mythic, David and Goliath-type stories linked to the Philadelphian psyche, the enthusiasm for ideas, coupled with the lack of established training that characterized some (though not all) Fringe shows, seems fitting. Perhaps a Fringe artist's lack of experience is not call for alarm, but rather for celebration. In the contemporary American theatre, where many venues are becoming detached from the communities they serve, is it not cause to celebrate when an event such as the Philly Fringe can so unabashedly support the free expression of locals who, although they may not have much experience, have identified something that they wish to say or a segment of society that they believe needs to be provoked?"

We think so. Thanks!

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Photos courtesy Pig Iron and Cross Cultural Theatre Initiative

>>>The hubbub over Love Jerry is still hubbubing. Maiken Scott reports on the musical's treatment of a pedophile and his family for WHYY. For our interview with playwright Megan Gogerty and Nice People Theatre's Miriam White and Nicole Blicher, click here.

>>>In Philadelphia Weekly's summer guide issue this week, J. Cooper Robb rounds up summer theater offerings. It's pretty much your run-of-the-mill picks—Philly Shakes, touring productions of Avenue Q and Second City, and Shakespeare in Clark Park—but I didn't know that John Leguizamo has a new one-man-show, Klass Klown, up for a week at Philadelphia Theater Company starting on June 24. If you only know Leguizamo from his Hollywood work, you've missed out. His solo shows are crazy funny, and crazy good.

>>>Sneak peak of Vijay Iyer's upcoming solo album at NPR Music. The renowned pianist is performing in Release at the Live Arts Festival in September, a collaborative installation at Eastern State Penitentiary with filmmaker Bill Morrison (who's Decasia will also screen at the Festival).

>>>How did I miss Howie Shapiro's glowing profile of Jorge Cousineau in the Inquirer at the end of last month? Quoth Shapiro: "he brings his effects, his video tricks and electronic magic, into a theater and takes your breath away."

--Nicholas Gilewicz

So the stream of press begins! In today's Wall Street Journal, Ellen Gamerman rounds up some of this summer's innovative Shakespeare productions, including Jester's Dead, described as a "Top Gun/Shakespeare mash-up."

Gamerman writes, "Actors reenact the movie 'Top Gun' using lines from Shakespeare plays. Co-creator Nathaniel McIntyre says the story of a conflicted hero, his wingman and forbidden love is 'completely Shakespearean.' Watching a scene between Goose and Maverick set to 'Henry IV, Part 1' he says: 'For the first time, I actually sort of understood the monologue.'"

Congrats! Jester's Dead is set to run September 3 to September 11 at the Latvian Society.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Looks like Philadelphia Magazine is on to us.

High Society: February 2010

By Brooke De la Villanova

How I love artsy people! Restaurant glamour-puss Audrey Claire threw a launch party that drew power couple Sharon Pinkenson and Joe Weiss, legal eagle Bernie Munley, entrepreneur David Grasso, Memphis Flats developer Greg Hill, Fringe-y Nick Stuccio, and Stephen Starr, among others. Being launched: Feastival, which despite its Seinfeldian name promises to be delish. On September 15th, 25 top chefs will whip up edgy fare in Northern Liberties to raise money for the edgy Live Arts and Philly Fringe festivals. Bon appetit, munchkins. ....

>>>Weirdest publicity break ever? Well, not really, but pretty cool: Melissa Dunphy talks to the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog about The Gonzales Cantata. Meet the cast and video preview here; half-price ($10) preview tonight at The Rotunda, 7:00 pm.

>>>Crazy coverage in City Paper, starting today!

>>>The role of women in theater (not as actors, but in the institution, you see) has been much in the news and hotly debated this summer. In Philadelphia Weekly, J. Cooper Robb has a great story on the slew of great work by or featuring women in this year's festival.

>>>Among Philadelphia Weekly's weekend picks: Festival Bar opens tomorrow, kids! Well, 21-and-ups, anyway. Check back later today for pics of this year's bar-space-in-progress as we get ready for a packed house tomorrow night. They can't turn me away, because I gotta cover it, but you should get there early.

>>>The Festival imports performers from Poland, sure, but did you know we also import them from Montgomery County?

>>>Rep Radio, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite area podcasts. The latest features EgoPo's Company and folks from Monday night's final Philly Fringe previews: Crooked House, Katie and Pitark, The Gonzales Contata, Mr. Harry, Pumpernickel and Marmalade and Shakesploitation II: Iambic Boogaloo.

>>>Lindsay Harris-Friel runs down her picks at Phawker. I'm actually going to four of the six shows Lindsay selects. Who is this person, who knows my aesthetics?

>>>Oops, Geoff Sobelle's appearance on Fox29's "Good Day Philadelphia" got bumped to tomorrow, sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 am.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Photo by Matt Dunphy.

>>>Whoa! Check out danceJournal.org's Live Arts/Fringe readers' recommendations. Send a text from your mobile phone to 87884, begin your message with @wif6862, and your suggestions for the Festival will cycle through this crazy Flash animation they have up.

>>>Howard Shapiro has a big piece in the Inquirer on how our relationship with cold hard cash has emerged as a theme running through much of this year's Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe.

>>>The Baltimore Sun, the paper of record for our scrappy neighbor to the south, wants to send its people our way on a day trip, and Philly2Philly picks the Festival as one of the top cultural events of the fall.

>>>Put the kids to bed! This week, Rep Radio is adult content all the way. Includes a segment on 4PLAY, which features a short play from our very own Information Manager and Copywriter Emeritus, Josh McIlvain!

>>>Double whoa! Geoff Sobelle (Welcome to Yuba City)is scheduled to be on Fox29's "Good Day Philadelphia" to talk about the "Turn Your Cell Phone On!" campaign. Via cell phone ranking, audience members give you the straight dope, live, while they're at the show. Hey performers, the pressure's on! (But we know you'll deliver.)

--Nicholas Gilewicz

So, I'm out of the office for like maybe 30 hours, and look what happens:

>>>Metro features Teenager: Anne Frank. We covered this Philly Fringe show a little while back, as it's in one of our favorite 2009 Fringe venues: the rooftop of Parkway House on Ben Franklin Parkway, with a panoramic view of the Philly skyline.

>>>At the Daily News, Lauren Friedman gives us two slants on the same Festival: first, Live Arts shows like STORE, Welcome to Yuba City, and FATEBOOK enliven spaces that were previously underutilized or vacant, and second, you know we're all internationalist up in here, with shows like Operetta, Mortal Engine, and small metal objects.

>>>We do like to be cosmopolitan (ask Nick Stuccio about his travels some day), but we don't forget our deep regional roots. Philly-based picks from centraljersey.com: Pig Iron's Welcome to Yuba City, Lucidity Suitcase International's Off the Grid (not part of Fringe, but hey, it'll be good) and MICROWORLD(s) Part #1, and New Paradise Laboratories's FATEBOOK, which nobody can stop talking about, including director Whit MacLaughlin and Philadelphia Weekly writer J. Cooper Robb.

>>>Speaking of those regional roots: uwishunu plugs the Fringe production Wawapalooza 3: The Dark Roast, a tribute to and humorous poke at many things Philly, according to Eric Balchunas.

>>>Big Inquirer feature from Wendy Rosenfeld, aka Drama Queen, on Welcome to Yuba City. Aw, she also plugs this little blog here in the same post. Thanks Wendy!

--Nicholas Gilewicz