King Britt, Need New Body Dude Score Pew Grants

Ki CUT CHEMIST: King Britt spins the crowd before Obama’s arrival at the Electric Factory, last month. Twelve fellows were awarded $50,000 each to spend any way they wish. The Pew program, in its 16th year, aims to identify Philadelphia-area artists at critical career junctures and give them the freedom to advance their artistic ambitions. “One of the things [recipients] say to us is that now when people ask them what they do, they say first and foremost, ‘I am an artist.’ There is something about the validation that these grants bring,” program director Melissa Franklin says. Validation, yes, and […]

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THE EARLY WORD: Goldberg’s Rubes

[Photo by STEVE DUFALA] Originally presented as a workshop performance at the 2002 Philly Fringe, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines was a runaway hit with standing-room only houses and an extended run. Newly reimagined and performed by original co-creators Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel and Geoff Sobelle, of Pig Iron Theatre Company, with rainpan 43 co-founder Trey Lyford, the play is a physical and comic send-up of America’s obsession with technology and security. Through a unique blend of clowning and engineering, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines reveals the claustrophobic bunker of three paranoid brothers so fixated on protecting […]

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ARTSY: THE PARIS HILTON AUTOPSY

EDITOR’S NOTE: When we heard the news that Paris is ‘dead’ and the autopsy is open to the public, we put our best Girl Friday on the first Chinatown bus up to New York to get the 411. Phawker Assistant Editor (and newly minted Temple University graduate!) Eva Liao just got back from Williamsburg where she shot the ‘corpse’ and did a video interview with the artist, Daniel Edwards, and got the lowdown on how the Paris Hilton Autopsy is intended to serve as a cautionary tale for young girls that emulate the fun-loving heiress. Sure, that bus ticket set […]

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FILM FEST PICKS & PANS: Dante’s Inferno; Wicked Flowers; Book Of The Dead; Severance

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Heading into its last weekend, the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival unleashes the big celebrity guns, giving us this year’s American Independent Award winner, Dermot Mulroney. I spent a few minutes this week trying to stoke a friend’s memory on exactly who the very recognizable Mulroney is, and finally had to give up. His specialty in nearly 20 years of film acting has been in supporting roles, often playing ingratiating nice guys who are romance-bait for the female lead. He’s worked with Altman on Kansas City, with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and most […]

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