Live Arts & Fringe Festival Blog - Charlotte Ford

So Much Press

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:02:00 -0400

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.

PW Picks Your Shows, and SHAMELESS PLUG for "Boat Hole"

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:21:00 -0400

J. Cooper Robb is on Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival beat for Philadelphia Weekly, picking 10 don't-miss shows, including, among others, CHICKEN, TAKES, and Festival editor emeritus Josh McIlvain's show Boat Hole. On Josh, Robb writes:

"When Josh McIlvain isn't editing the official Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe guide (a Herculean task), he's a frequently produced playwright; and 15 of his funniest short plays (each runs between one and 10 minutes) are rounded up in Boat Hole (Sept. 15-18). The briefly met characters involve a pair of ordinary guys who see a career opportunity in terrorism and orcas who bicker over performing tricks for tourists."

Yay, go Josh! We miss you, buddy!

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Image by Lisa Modica

The Mirror on "Flesh And Blood And Fish And Fowl" ? "A work of genius"

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:26:00 -0400

Congrats to Charlotte Ford and Geoff Sobelle, whose Edinburgh production of Flesh And Blood And Fish And Fowl just garnered a killer review from The Mirror:

"There are some that are so damn brilliant that you don't want to write about them because the mere written word somehow reduces that brilliance. Flesh And Blood And Fish And Fowl is that kind of production."

If you need to see more "physical theatre and clowning but in a thoroughly modern way," as The Mirror put it, you should investigate Charlotte Ford's CHICKEN. It involves a submarine and expressionism, and according to our show description, a high probability of violence. Yay!

CHICKEN runs September 3 through 6 at the Live Arts Studio, 919 North 5th Street, Northern Liberties. Times vary, $25-30.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

We Raid James Sugg's iTunes Library

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:47:00 -0400

The pounding of hammers competing with the pounding bass of pump-up music can be heard coming from the Live Arts Studio next door all week. That's because Charlotte Ford 'n' crew are rehearsing and building their set (a submarine the color of a Tiffany's box) for CHICKEN, which will premiere in the Live Arts Festival in September. I'll admit that I tried to drown it out by plugging into my iTunes. And guess what popped up on my shared networks? None other than the iTunes library of local hero James Sugg, Chicken's sound director. (You may also know him from his acclaimed work with Pig Iron or his cover spot on American Theater Magazine.)

Having access to someone's music library is kind of like being in that old MTV show Room Raiders, but without the black light to search for suspicious stains. Usually you only get a glimpse of someone's music tastes when they DJ a party or take their iPod along on a road trip, and if you've read/seen High Fidelity you know the importance of peering into someone's soul via a perfectly selected mix tape. But those are edited situations, and now I aim to find out what you can really tell about someone from exploring their music library unsupervised. Well...

>>James has a pretty dense collection of classical music, from Bach and Debussy to Ravel and Glenn Gould, which suggests a conservatory-trained ear. A look into his bio confirms that he has a degree from Oblerin Conservatory.

>>He has popular tastes (Regina Spektor, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Girl Talk), but he's also got quite a penchant for the obscure. What, you haven't heard of Taraf de Haïdouks, the most prominent post-Communist Romanian troupe of l?utari? This might explain where he gets the unique chops to earn four Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Sound Design.

>>James has a pretty decent amount of tunes, specifically 12463 songs, or 30.6 full days of music. That may seem like a lot, but take for comparison that I have 80.2 days, and add on the fact that he has mostly full albums, as opposed to a lot of random singles. These two pieces of information suggest that James is the stand-up kind of guy who actually pays for his music in this day and age of unlimited illegal downloading.

For that, James, we salute you! But can you explain the Genesis?

--Ellen Freeman

Photos from Wikimedia Commons.