Back to act on the Fringe

Deborah Block's South Philly neighbors can frequently spot her running between her stage gig as co-artistic director of Theatre Exile and her home gig with tech director/husband Doug Smullens and 5-year-old son, Josh.

But this month, Block, 46, is doing even more double-duty dashing and covering way more blocks. For one thing, Exile already has begun its season, opening a ruminative rendering of Annie Baker's The Aliens at its newish Studio X space. For another, Block - these days better known for her Exile directing - is back on stage for the first time since 1996, playing Clytemnestra in Philadelphia Artists' Collective (PAC)'s The Oresteia Project, in the Fringe section of the Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe.

"I'd like to open myself up as artist again," she says.

It's a connection with legs: Block was one of the festival's founders back in 1997, when the whole operation was called, simply, "the Fringe." She created the festival's original nightly post-show cabaret, was its first emcee, and programmed it for nine years.

And to some she remains an embodiment of Fringe. One such is Scott Johnston, the current creator of the renegade Late Nite Cabaret that, like the official Festival Bar, presents after-show entertainment. "I had volunteered Year 1, Day 1," he says, "and under Deb Block managed the cabaret. She was crucial then and still is."

Block had acted during her grade-school days in Philly, and after she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1987, her mother lured her back with scores of audition notices. "She actually didn't know what all of the notices were for," Block says, laughing. "Yes, some were for phone sex."

But the ploy worked, and Block returned home to Villanova's now-defunct summer professional theater. She played in the chorus of Lysistrata. She did commercials, voice-overs, and industrials. She worked toward the life of a director. At 24 she was directing and teaching at University of the Arts, favoring the behind-the-scenes life over the on-stage one.

Block delights in recalling the last time she acted. It was 1996 and she was codirecting a show for Eric Schoefer, who the following year would launch the Fringe with Nick Stuccio and Block.

Schoefer's '96 presentation by his Scrap group was a seminal moment in the evolution of the festival. "Eric asked me to codirect and I did, but Asimina Chremos," the show's star, "could only do the first performance," so Block stepped in, as a scantily clad character in a Phyllis Diller feather hat, who spent much of her time swinging on a trapeze.

"I stepped in and it was fun, but once the festival got off the ground I realized that acting, directing, and teaching was too much. Something had to fall away, and it was the acting."

By 1997 and the festival's start, Block was program director to Stuccio's producing director and had a great run. That is, until the Monday after the end of the 2005 event, which by now Stuccio had divided into the small, selective Live Arts Festival and the anarchic, free-for-all Fringe.

"I don't know why, but I knew that he was going to fire me. Psychic, right? He gave me no warning. All of my yearly evaluations were wonderful. Officially, Nick asked me to leave. It was his prerogative to fire me," but she was devastated. "The festival was my baby and I know what I brought to the project and the city, artistically and administratively. I'm exceptionally proud of what I created and at times I miss it."

Block sees that, where Live Arts was concerned, Stuccio had a certain vision - a wider one. The Fringe was originally a collaborative effort between the festival staff and artists. "But organizations' priorities change," she notes. "That can happen as a company grows. One thing goes to make way for another."

"How many years ago was that?" Stuccio said this week. "In the world of professional theater, there are always large and small differences. Deb and I don't care. It's so far in both of our rear-view mirrors. Within the last 15 years so many people have been in and out of this organization before and after Deb.

"That said, I think Deb is great and have zero animus or problem with her. Same with the other people who helped build this thing. I'm anxious to see what she's doing on stage."

Leaving gave Block the space to become co-artistic producer at Joe Canuso's Theatre Exile and, in 2010, its offshoot, Studio X, a place for new-play development that owes much to Fringe's ethos.

"Exile in many ways got its legs through the early years of the Fringe, and the festival audiences were Exile's audiences," Block says. "As we were deciding to expand our season, our expansion into Studio X just made sense."

Canuso believes a good artistic director is one who sees the big picture, serving the audience and challenging it: "Deb's work in the early years of the Fringe gave her an insight that has carried over at Exile," which explores the human condition through plays that illuminate those society often neglects.

"We still tell the unconventional love story and the untidy ending, the type of endings that reflect real life, the life that keeps going," Block says - such as The Aliens (which she calls a "coming-of-age disenfranchised love story") and the one she'll direct in November, Gruesome Playground Injuries. "At Exile, I've been able to sink my teeth into a style of work that thrills me. But there is room in my life for additional artistic opportunities."

Currently that means The Oresteia Project's gothic adaptation of Aeschylus' trilogy.

"We needed a powerful non-union actress who could handle this complex role," says PAC's Krista Apple. "The fact that we'll bring a Fringe co-founder back to the festival in a creative capacity is a bonus. For us, her artistic integrity was the reason we offered her the role. She's the best woman for the job."

For her part, Block is overjoyed to be a part of "the weird scene" she helped create. "When I was starting as an artist in Philly there weren't many outlets for the nontraditional, collaborative, and hybrid art that I've always loved," she says. "I've always believed that if you want something you create it.

"I became part of the gang who wanted to create those outlets and strived to make an environment that embraces new forms. I'm happy to now have the opportunity to work in it."