First Person Salon veteran Martha Kemper’s got just two nights left in her Fringe show: Me, Miss Krause and Joan. It’s at 2nd Stage at the Adrienne (2030 Sansom) Friday and Saturday night at 7pm. She workshopped part of the piece–as it turns out, just a fragment of the larger story–for us at the May Salon at the Gershman Y to great acclaim:
And if you happened to see the Chestnut Hill Local this week, you might have seen a familiar face!
The Krause in the play’s title refers to Martha Kemper’s mentor, Alvina Krause. “She deeply believed in the power of theater to change lives,” recalled Martha. “She believed in students. She believed in young people’s ability to learn.” Ms. Kemper met Alvina Krause after graduating from Northwestern University in 1976. Together, they relocated to Bloomsburg, Pa. During Martha’s stay there, she would experience a radically life-changing event; she was violently assaulted. However, it would be Alvina who would help guide her through the traumatic aftermath. While Martha was in the hospital, it was Ms. Krause who encouraged Martha to write down her feelings. It was there that the groundwork for Me, Miss Krause and Joan was laid.
Read the rest here and then go check out the show.
For tickets to Me, Miss Krause and Joan, the Fringe Festival box office is located at the lot next to the national show room on 127 N. 2nd St. and can be contacted at 215-413-1318 or by email at info@livearts-fringe.org.
What a stellar cast last night for the August Salon at the Gershman Y!
Eric Okdeh, of Philly’s Mural Arts Program, led off with an inspiring account of the creation of his most recent mural at 41st and Market on the Elwyn building. The piece is quite extraordinary in its brilliant colors, owing in no small part to the liberal use of stained glass arranged in mosaic patterns. And no less extraordinary was Okdeh’s feat in organizing legions of volunteers to painstakingly create large swaths of the design. Artists often strive to give form to an “uncompromising vision,” but it’s fascinating to see collaborative artists like Okdeh (and, in June, Don Gensler) for whom artistic “vision” inherently demands compromise. Eric Okdeh’s site is here.
Matthew Borgen’s life-sized angel wings, part of his Wing Rack installation, added a whimsical touch to an occasionally painful memoir of the last ten years charting his emergence as an artist and struggle for success. Working backward from the first installation of the piece in a gallery in Florida, Borgen sifted through his journals, sketches and recollections to find the narrative strands that led to the actual development of the work. Though treading into occasionally arcane art-historical and philosophical territory, Borgen made a convincing case for the multi-layered accessibility of his work, borne out when, at intermission, audience members (myself included) gleefully hoisted pairs of the wings onto our own backs and made like angels. It was, for a moment at least, not unlike what heaven must be for artists.
Andrew David Watson–who you may also remember from the October Salon–took the stage after intermission to share two lovely short documentary paeans to the bicycle. Both were shot using a still camera and a cheap audio recording. The first, produced during his brief stint at Fabrica, looked at the small Italian town of Treviso from the seat of a bicycle. The second followed a local cyclist, nicknamed the “Broad Street Bully,” who has turned riding his bicycle into a full-time retirement plan. Both pieces were a testament to the power of inexpensive and simple tools in telling great stories. Watson is now following the Obama campaign for IFC as well as pursuing numerous independent projects. His camera work can be seen at the First Person Festival screening of Joshua Camerote’s Swallow Your Pride, a documentary about Philadelphia’s Wing Bowl. (Details announced soon!) See more of what he’s up to here.
Finally, Juliet Wayne took her success as the winner of last year’s Grand Slam to the next level with a rollicking longer-form story about a bus trip that turned into an acid trip and led, finally, to a trip to a clinic. The universe Wayne evokes in her storytelling, so true and at the same time so truly warped, is populated with characters with names like Taw-Taw (an opportunist in all media), conspiratorial nurses, back-stabbing best friends, naive young teachers on vacation, and ex-boyfriends with misplaced entrepreneurial impulses. It’s an entertaining world, filtered through Wayne’s hilarious and, ultimately, despite her protests to the contrary, optimistic, hindsight. If you haven’t seen her work one way or another, you can certainly get a flavor at her blog. Highly recommended!
Tongue & Groove at last month’s Salon riffing on an audience secret:
The next Salon will be August 13th at the Gershman Y and will feature a solo performance by last year’s GrandSlam winner Juliet Wayne, a multimedia piece about surviving in the art world by Matthew Borgen, two short documentary films about bicycling by Andrew David Watson, and a presentation on an extraordinary mural in West Philly by Mural Arts Program artist Eric Okdeh.
That’s August 13th, 7-9pm at the Gershman Y (401 S. Broad St.)
Filed under:Salon Recaps — posted by admin on May 21, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
Martha Kemper, who performed a section of her solo piece Me, Miss Krause, and Joan at the May 14th Salon, talks about her experience:
The graphics on the firstperson arts brochure and website have delighted me since the first time I saw them–the swatches of colors and and the cartoon bubbles. I’ve always thought, “This looks so inviting.” Being at the Salon was like the firstperson graphic: delightful. It was a pastiche of different pieces that worked together. I watched Chris Paquette’s photo journal and began to really feel the depth of what Chris had found in those roadside memorials; I had to step back from that experience in order to step into the life experiences I inhabit in my autobiographical play. I had edited the first segment of the piece so I had about fifteen minutes of material to perform. It was a fun challenge to switch gears from Chris’s photos, and bring the audience into a different time, place and mood. I heard laughter where I hoped to and felt, yes, they’re with me. I loved the question and answer session–getting to go into a little background about the work, hearing people’s interest and curiosity. It was a special audience–so many among them were artists themselves–that made it especially rich. My performance was followed by Matt Davis and his–what– eight? nine? piece band Aerial Photograph, playing original pieces inspired by conversations around Philly. That was so evocative of Philadelphia. And then, Tamesha Hawkins (and friends) with spoken word artistry, poetry that was brave, powerful and compelling. The patchwork on the website really does evoke the flavor of diverse pieces and forms that came together on the little proscenium stage at the Gershman Y. I’m so glad I was part of it.
Martha Kemper, performer at the May 14 Salon
Here’s the introductory clip from her performance at the Salon:
You can see the piece in full at the Fringe Festival in September:
Me, Miss Krause, and Joan
– written and performed by Martha Kemper
Deep personal experience is fertile ground for acting. In this piece Martha reveals what goes on in an actor’s homework, in search of answers to the question, “How would I play Joan of Arc?”
The piece weaves history, autobiography and lore structured around pivotal moments when Martha was in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania learning acting from a brilliant teacher, Alvina Krause. In the story there is the brilliance of Krause and theatre, but there is darkness, too., in the re-living of a rape that takes place on Bloomsburg backstreets, spliced into the trial of Joan of Arc. Through humor and drama, the interwoven experiences depict a powerful personal journey, and suggest a theme: there are things so eternal that no violence can kill, things so real they can never die.
Performances at the Fringe Festival in September will be at the Adrienne Theatre’s Second Stage. Sunday, September 7 at 4:00 p.m. followed by a talkback.
September 11, 12, 13 at 7:00 p.m.
If you would like any further information about dates, times, cost, etc. please email either Martha (mlk11@psu.edu) or Diane Zieg ( dfz4444@hotmail.com ).
Filed under:Salon Recaps — posted by admin on @ 12:51 pm
Chris Paquette, who presented at the May 14th Salon at the Gershman Y writes:
After 30 years of amateur photography, I had never presented my work in
front of a live audience. In March, I purchased a ticket to the Lost
Diane Arbus event sponsored by First Person Arts. While on FPA’s
website, I noticed the call for submissions for their Salons, a monthly
memoir and documentary art presentation held at the Gershman Y. I
decided to give it a shot and submitted my proposal to present my series
of Roadside Memorial photography
To my surprise (and terror) I got a call from Dan Gasiewski, asking if I
wanted to present my work at the May Salon. Of course I said yes, and
began getting ready, all the while feeling a low level panic and dread
setting in for several weeks leading up to the night of my salon.
I can honestly say that from the moment I entered the Gershman Y on the
night of May 14th , I felt an immediate sense of calm and ease.
Everyone there was warm and friendly. Andrew Schwalm has a relaxed laid
back personality that must be contagious because it spread right through
the room. Nick Gilewicz helped me load my IBM based images onto his Mac,
which turned out to be a very tough task that went right down to curtain
time. As soon as I started my presentation the audience was fully
engaged and attentive, and remained so throughout the night for all of
the artists.
Speaking of artists, all of the other presenters that night were
wonderful. A joy to be with and get to know, and they all gave very
powerful performances. I am now looking forward to following the
artistic paths of each of them.
First Person Arts Salons…. Highly recommended to both artists and art
lovers!
