FRINGE BENEFITS: THREE HAVERFORDIANS TAKE ON THE PHILADELPHIA LIVE ARTS AND PHILLY FRINGE FESTIVAL

“Can you make sure my mom gets a copy of this?” After five minutes with Pia Agrawal '05, one knows why she got a job with the Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival. Along with fellow Fords Sarah Jacoby '06 and Zoe Marquardt '07, Agrawal is one of a host of new faces working with the 10-year-old Philadelphia arts institution. Taking over the City of Brotherly Love for two weeks each fall, the Festival presents some of the most innovative, challenging, and outrageous performances in America. While the Live Arts Festival is a curated collection of artists from all over the world, the Philly Fringe—modeled on its Scottish cousin the Edinburgh Fringe—features dancers, musicians, and artists performing in alleys, bars, warehouses—even on the backs of trucks.

As the Festival's program assistant, Agrawal works with these artists; during the months prior to the Festival, she scouts out new talent and reports back to the office on different performances. Once selected, the artists then rely on Agrawal as a liaison with the Festival.“I really like talking with the artists to see how their shows are going and understand where they're coming from with their ideas," says Agrawal.“A lot of it is administrative (booking hotels, flights, sending out contracts, etc.), but some of the administration is fun—finding some of the non-traditional venues has been mostly awesome.”

Having joined the office right after her graduation in May, newcomer Jacoby serves as the Festival's marketing coordinator, helping artists figure out how to target audiences. She is also responsible for assembling promotional materials like t-shirts, distributing the Festival Guide, and updating the Festival Web site.“The Fringe tries its best to be an artist-centric organization,” says Jacoby.“As a marketer, it's my responsibility to harbor that connection between artist and business…We schmooze. We get to actually discuss the thought and belief behind each of the artist's work, the process, the research (Lee Etzold went down to South Carolina with her company to etiquette school for her play Ps & Qs), the entire theory of the work...and then we get to condense all of that thought down to a synopsis that the general public can follow. It's challenging. Try effectively summing up something like ‘a sort of a dance theater piece about a personal mascot no one ever knew they had'.”

Marquardt came to the office through the John B. Hurford '60 Humanities Center's Student Summer Internship Program. As the Live Arts-Fringe Festival's marketing intern, Marquardt's duties have included editing the Festival Guide, assembling press packets, circulating contracts, and handling other administrative tasks.

“At the beginning of the summer, I put together binders with press releases, show descriptions, and promo photos for each of the Live Arts shows,” says Marquardt.“Now, I'm working on the programs for the Live Arts Shows. It's interesting to see how the artists' ideas have developed and changed over the summer. Some of the show descriptions used to read: ‘This production will explore x, y, and z.' Now the artists are more specific about how they explore their themes.”

She continues,“At first I was worried that, because I was an intern, I wouldn't have any real assignments or responsibilities. But then in the last week of June, [the office] moved from Vine Street to Front, and I had a chance to talk with pretty much everyone who works in the office. After the move, I felt like I had a lot more to do and what I did had more consequence. Maybe they were just awed by my superhuman strength.”

Jacoby is quick to stress, however, that despite their division into different departments, everyone helps out with the others' work.“The Fringe Festival is an intimate place. When there's a big project everyone pitches in, i.e. the Festival Guide. Come Guide season everyone drops what they're doing for a week and we shift into publication mode: Everyone edits, designs, etc.”

One reason for this fluidity might be the organization's relatively new staff, many of which joined within the last few months—“This is a transition year,” notes Agrawal.“I think the 10th year is a good year to bring in some change. It's great that the Festival has been able to keep going for 10 years, but having new people around brings different ideas for growth and change.

“However,” she adds,“we're still learning each other's work styles…the organization is small enough that we all have to work with each other on everything. A lot of our work is interdepartmental, and it's tough to have things go ultra smoothly while simultaneously trying to get to know each other in the office.”

Along with a new cast of staffers this year, Agrawal notes an increased attempt to diversify the Festival.“There's an effort for more diversity in programming, within the shows—where they're coming from, what they're talking about and who's performing them,” notes Agrawal.“Rha Goddess's show Low is a one-woman production that deals with how race, class, and family background tie into mental health and the treatment of mental health. Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group's The Tale draws on South African stomping, vocal harmonizing, uneven sporadic rhythms, West African structural complexities, momentum-driving beats and dances of imitated chaos, and Central and Caribbean articulation of the pelvis and lower-body movement. Wilson then combines these elements with the intricate partnering social dance of Stepping, a more recent emergence from the Black American Folk tradition that produced Big Apple, the Black Bottom, the Hustle, and other ‘hand dancing' idioms.”

Other performers this year have embraced the Fringe's history of unorthodox venues.“Two Fish from Berlin is doing a show called Christiane Müller zieht um that takes place in a lived-in apartment that we're renting from some Northern Liberties folks,” says Agrawal.“It's a really physically intense show that travels through the rooms of the house.”

“There's another show called House that takes place in a house but with sort of an opposite idea. Kate Watson-Wallace is doing this show in a totally empty house in West Philly. While Two Fish's show deals with the loneliness and idea of longing to be loved, Kate's show is about how rooms hold memory and how the rooms, and the people inside of them, react to loss.”

Jacoby recommends Madi Distefano and Brat Productions' EYE-95 re-tarred, originally staged during the Fringe's first season 10 years ago. As with many Fringe shows,“It's pretty different,” describes Jacoby,“but basically a white-trash rockabilly coming of age story.” The show's marketing blitz consists of innovative advertisements that look like stray Polaroids sprinkled across the city.

Marquardt recommends the show Amnesia Curiosa; she explains,“It deals with memory and loss—two themes I'm interested in. Plus, [writer/performers] Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyfford's promo photographs have an eerie atmospheric quality. I'm curious to learn if or how the arts translate this quality to a performance piece.” Agrawal describes the piece as taking cues from“the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the Mutter Museum, and just the general idea of what it really means that we are our ancestors.”

With all these artists soon converging on the city of Philadelphia, Fringe staffers have barely had time to decorate their new office—they've even begun working on next year's lineup, due to impending grant deadlines. Still, all three Fords affirm that they will have some time to check out this year's shows.

Agrawal concludes,“I regret having to work for the Festival to really get involved—that I wish I hadn't missed out on years of great programming despite living so close to Philly for four years. But I'm very prepared to make up for lost time this year, and I encourage everyone else to do the same!”

The Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival runs Sept. 1 - 16. For more information, check out the Festival Web site at http://www.livearts-fringe.org. The Festival Box Office is located at 233-35 Market Street; stop by to purchase tickets or call (215) 413-1318.

—James Weissinger '06