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Friday, September 2, 2011

More family-friendly Fringe picks

I just couldn’t leave it alone. Sure, my article ended with the suggestion that you curate your own Live Arts/Fringe, but I get it. So many parents are still stuck muscling their way through the school supply section, a slog through the festival guide seems about as likely as finding a Spongebob-covered three-ring binder at Target after Labor Day. Here are a few more gems for the 12-and-under set, gratis. Now can someone please pick up my kids from sports practice and drop them off at piano? It’s only fair.

A Paper Garden, Free, Jefferson Garden, American Philsophical Society, 104 S. 5th St., 9/2, 9, 16, noon, 6 p.m.; 9/3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 1 p.m., 3 p.m. From actor/director/puppeteer Aaron Cromie, this tale about an exotic plant that finds its way to France’s Empress Josephine might be a tad heady for really tiny ones. However, with a fine cast (Mary Tuomanen, Genevieve Perrier), accordion and ukulele accompaniment, and an outdoor setting among the Society’s Greenhouse Projects (Visit http://www.apsmuseum.org/greenhouse-projects/ for more info.), I’m guessing everyone will enjoy it just fine.

Elephant Room, $15-$30, Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place., 9/2, 9, 16, 10 p.m.; 9/3, 17, 4 p.m.; 9/3, 8, 10, 15, 8 p.m.; 9/4, 11, 6 p.m. This show is suggested for audiences age 10 and up, but that target demographic is in for a magical evening, mostly because it’s a magic show, but also because its magician trio features the super-secret alter egos of some of Philly’s most creative theater artists. Mullets and moustaches abound.

Grandma’s House: The Documentary, $5, Saint Cyprian Catholic Church, 525 South Cobbs Creek Pkwy., 9/10, 1 p.m., 5 p.m. SamiyMotif wrote a children’s book called “Grandma’s House,” and brings three real live grandmas to tell their stories. Have the kids bring along their own; the show can continue long after the performance ends.

Plentiful, $12, InMovement Studio, 500 Kenilworth St., 9/7, 7 p.m.; 9/10, 2 p.m., 7 p.m. High-energy dance, food and music from Philly’s Fresh Blood Collective: a duet with an ice cream cone, song for a Tonka truck, and baked treats from Dancing Chef Desserts. Sounds like a good time.

Rittenhouse Dance Mob, Free, Locust St. and W. Rittenhouse Square, 9/10, 2 p.m. Remember when flash mobs were all about grabbing some friends and taking off your pants on the subway, or singing opera in the middle of the Reading Terminal Market? Let’s go back to there. Join Burning Sphere on YouTube and Facebook for further instructions.
Posted by Wendy Rosenfield @ 2:09 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About Philly Stage
Howard Shapiro reviews and writes about theater for The Inquirer, and has been on staff since 1970. He's had many posts at the newspaper, including cultural arts editor and editor of the Weekend section. He's twice been the editor of the Travel section, for which he writes frequently. He began writing theater criticism a decade ago, and has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, an Internews fellow in Greece, and a fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts' Journalism Institutue in Theater and Musical Theater, where Robert Brustein was among his mentors. He teaches arts criticism and travel writing at Temple University, and is Broadway critic for the NPR-affliated stations of the Classical Network.


Toby Zinman's night job since 2006 is theater critic for the Inquirer. She also is a contributing writer for Variety and American Theatre magazine. Her day job: Prize-winning prof at UArts, author of four books about four playwrights (Rabe, McNally, Miller, Albee), and doer of scholarly deeds (winner of five NEH grants, Fulbright lecturer at Tel Aviv University, visiting professor in China). Her 'weekend' job as a travel writer provides adventure: dogsledding in the Yukon, ziplining in Belize, walking coast-to-coast across England, and cowboying in the Australian Outback.


Wendy Rosenfield has been writing freelance features and theater reviews for The Inquirer since 2006. She was theater critic for the Philadelphia Weekly from 1995 to 2001, after which she enjoyed a five-year baby-raising sabbatical. She also writes the ArtsJournal blog Drama Queen. She was 2009 and 2010 Guest Critic for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's Region II National Critics Institute, a 2008 NEA Fellow in Theater and Musical Theater, and a participant in the Bennington Writer's Workshop. A graduate of Bennington College, she is inching toward a Master's degree in Liberal Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. She also is a fiction writer, was proofreader to a swami, publications editor for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a Brownie Girl Scout troop leader.

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