PHILADELPHIA, November 17, 2009 — The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, in partnership with the Department of Commerce announces a new grant program to support job creation in Philadelphia’s creative sector. Grants will be available to nonprofit and for profit creative businesses for facility projects linked to job creation such as renovated office space, mixed-use facilities, artist workspace and creative industry incubators. The total funding allocated for the program is $500,000, funded from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. “We are thrilled about this program – the first […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, A.P. Ticker.
MUST SEE TV: The Animations Of Tobias Stretch
Tobias Stretch Reel I from Tobias Stretch on Vimeo. RELATED: TobyStretch.Com
REVIEW: Curio Theater Company’s The Weir
[Photo by KYLE CASSIDY] BY AARON STELLA Dictionary.com defines a “Weir” as: A low dam built across a river to raise the level of water upstream, typically to power a millrace. Fair enough. “A drink precedes a story” (Irish Proverb). Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. In either case, water the humble or water the enthraller runs in grooves carved by forces interacting, much like the vague exchanges that occur in conversation. Now imagine an unadorned Irish pub in the small town of Carrick, where a loyal few frequent, and each comes with a weighty pocket’s worth of stories. The jovial […]
THEATER: Walking Fish’s Good Puppet Of Szechwan
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL ARTS CORRESPONDENT Getting tired of people throwing around the word “socialism” without knowing what it means? How about trying to be a good person in a bad world’ You might need to have a chat with the good Shen Teh next week at Walking Fish Theatre. Who’s the good Shen Teh? Well, she’s a really nice girl. In fact, she’s so nice that the gods gave her enough money to get out of prostitution and start her own tobacco shop. Unfortunately, her modest prosperity attracted an army of freeloaders. She had to resort to some extreme measures […]
BREAKING: Dennis Hopper Stricken With Cancer
[“Dennis Hopper 1971” by ANDY WARHOL] ASSOCIATED PRESS: Dennis Hopper has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is canceling all travel plans to focus on treatment, his manager said Thursday. The 73-year-old actor and artist is being treated through a “special program” at the University of Southern California, said Sam Maydew. Asked about Hopper’s prognosis, Maydew said, “We’re hoping for the best.” He would not elaborate on the actor’s condition. MORE RELATED: Q&A With Dean Wareham [Video: Dean and Britta @ Prospect Park: Dennis Hopper Screen Test]
THEATER: Where ‘The Weir’ Things Are
BY AARON STELLA Forget the fact that we were born with two ears and one mouth; let’s get real people, homo-sapiens love to yak; dark corners of smoky pubs especially included (oh how I miss thee, smoky pub). And supernatural folk tales usually make for amusing fare. But the questions stands, as it always will: what’s up with the story and its teller? Starting tomorrow, The Curio Theater Company will be forking out the insides of raconteurs and their confab (pub-life included) in their production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s “The Weir.” As an insufferable yakker myself, I had to […]
ARTSY: Anybody Home?
BY AARON STELLA CITYSPACE, a Philadelphia-based real estate company, will open its doors to its first ever series of art shows starting this weekend with rising-star artist Mat Tomezsko with his installation “Those Ghosts.” A real estate company might not be the first business you’d imagine sponsoring an art show. CITYSPACE, however, is different in that it realizes that there is more to real estate than the mere buying and selling of properties; it’s about community development, supporting local businesses, making smart uses of technology, investing in green alternatives, and most importantly, providing someone with the largest possession they’ll ever […]
ARTSY: Oh Governor, Where Art Thou!
[Photo by TED ADAMS] BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL ARTS CORRESPONDENT Word on the street is that there will be a protest on Friday, 9/25 at 12 noon at 15th and Walnut at Governor Rendell’s Philadelphia office, to protest adding a sales tax to tickets sold to non-profit arts organizations. This means anything from Philadelphia Museum of Art tickets to Fringe show tickets. Seeing as ticket sales for arts events are on the decline anyway, this only serves as a deterrent to getting people to attend arts events and organizations. The other rumor that’s been thrown around is that sports events and […]
FRINGE PREVIEW: Q&A With Dean Wareham
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Back in the 60s, Andy Warhol’s Factory, his studio-cum-playpen situated in a brick-walled walk-up on 47st street in Manhattan, was the epicenter of all things edgy, artsy and, ultimately, profoundly influential. Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Nico, and The Velvet Underground all came and went, and most sat for one of Warhol’s screen tests — a three-minute black and white stare-down between the camera and subject. There are some 500 of them in the Warhol archives. Recently the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh commissioned ex-Galaxie 500/Luna mainman Dean Wareham — whose cred as a modern […]