Jefe's House

Randy Dalton is the Community Education Center (CEC)’s long time artist-in-residence and the creator of the Blue Grotto permanent art installation in the CEC cellar. The CEC is a non-profit, community-based arts and education center housed in an 1837 former Quaker meeting house and school in West Philadelphia.  The CEC’s mission is to strengthen the sense of shared community and values among peoples of differing backgrounds and cultures through the arts.  The Meeting House Theatre on the 2^nd floor is its mainstage and primary performance space.  Dance studios and rehearsal spaces on the 1^st floor and are available for rental.  The CEC recently received a $50,000 community development grant from Maxwell House to make improvements to the historically significant building.  While it was still a functioning Quaker school in the 1920s actor Kevin Bacon’s father Ed was a student here. It was sold to Drexel University in the 1940s and was their main theatre for awhile before becoming the Community Education Center in the 1970s, during which time Kevin Bacon’s mother Ruth was a teacher and community activist there.

Therefore, you should come and see Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead opening 9/7 in the Blue Grotto for only 8 performances. Tickets to this otherworldly Philly Fringe event are onsale now.  I bet Kevin Bacon would like it. I bet you will like it.

[image via wikipedia]

[reposted from philly.com]

by Howard Shapiro

“The actors are setting up shop, as are the dancers, comics, acrobats, clowns, musicians, and uncategorizable others — some from around America, others from across the sea, many from zip codes all over the area.  Every Philadelphia performance space is taken — as well as spaces not normally used for performance…It’s all in preparation for one of the nation’s powerhouse arts festivals…The Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe — 16 days and nights of sometimes experimental and risky, sometimes outré and bizarre, and frequently striking work — opens Friday…For all its constant growth in audience-building, fund-raising, and mentoring performers, Live Arts/Philly Fringe – now a $2.6 million annual operation known to just about everybody as, simply, the Fringe…”  CONT’D AT PHILLY.COM>>

Tickets are onsale now for Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead.

And those are just the confirmed guest performers.

Unconfirmed guests include Jay-Z, Beyonce, Dave Groll, the Black Eyed Peas and the Goo Goo Dolls.

Do not miss this show.

Opens 9/7 in Philadelphia.

Only 8 performances.

Seating is extremely limited.

$20 tickets available now.

Shiva3 Productions presents Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead.

[repost from indiewire.com]

by Dana Harris

The West Memphis Three—Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly—are free men today.

With the promise of a new trial in December, a representative for the state of Arkansas said it would be “practically impossible to put on a new case after 18 years. The sentences would be different and appeals would ensure.” He said he feared that a trial could result in the WM3 suing the state.

He said the defendants could very easily been acquitted in a new trial and added, “I believe this case is closed.”

The terms of the case allow the judgments to stand while allowing the defendants to maintain their innocence. “This is a right decision on behalf of the state, and I stand by it.”

Echols received a death sentence, with Baldwin and Misskelly receiving life sentences for their supposed roles in the deaths of Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, who were found murdered and mutilated in a wooded area in West Memphis, Ark. in May 1993. At the time of their arrests, Misskelley was 17, Baldwin was 16 and Echols was 18. All three have maintained that they did not commit the murders.

In court today to witness the proceedings were Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, directors of the “Paradise Lost” documentaries that chronicled the fight to prove their innocence for nearly two decades, as was longtime supporter and Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder.   CONT’D AT INDIEWIRE>>

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“I have here a 1917 original William Fuld Ouija Board and planchette. I have consulted polarity practitioners and radionics experts from around the world. They have examined the entire Community Education Center, and they have determined that there are, shall we say, certain presences in the Blue Grotto. And that these presences have a vortex, as it were. A gateway, if you will.  An entrance to Hell, if I may.  And that entrance is right over there.  Tonight it contains a small table and two chairs. Who’s in? Shall we put all I’ve told you tonight to the test? I need 3 incredibly cool, incredibly brave, bold, fearless volunteers to help me reach across to Beautiful Zion and bring his ass back.”

$20.00 tickets to this intimate, action-packed, supernatural event are onsale now. Only 8 performances. Only 16 seats per show. Order now. Advance online orders only — no tickets will be sold at the door.

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Interviewer Kristen Scatton of Rep Radio in Philadelphia wound up deftly getting me to talk about some things that weren’t even on my agenda, like my feelings about NYU Tisch School of the Arts, being taught and strongly encouraged by David Ives, my adventures with Tesla, Ouija Boards, death and why everything is not going to be okay, reflecting on why I never moved to LA, and a call-to-arms to Philadelphia filmmakers.  Oh and there’s also my upcoming Philly Fringe show Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead directed by Dan Student. 

Many thanks to Kristen for joining me in the Blue Grotto for the interview during a rehearsal break. Listen now.

Photo by Iggy Rocketboy.

In order to promote my show I’m changing my name to Swag for the next week and using the royal we.  Below, a clip of us at our first rehearsal in the Blue Grotto.  Our director Dan Student has been in China but before he left he did much work with us in the 3rd floor studio at Plays & Players, pretending it had the Blue Grotto’s layout to the extent possible. This was our first attempt to try things out for real.

This is not a rehearsal video but a quick walk-through to show Dan what I’d come up with. I slapped it up on Youtube (unlisted at first) for him to take a look at from China, forgetting that they block Youtube there.  So much for cybercollaboration across political ideologies.

No worries, we’ll be working together soon enough and resume formal rehearsals in the Blue Grotto thanks to CEC artist-in-residence Randy Dalton‘s generosity and support for the show.

Enjoy guerrilla theatre as it develops:

Dig the Om lapels.

Go, iTunes for showing the Concert for Bangladesh free this past weekend to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the concert held on August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York.  I’ve had the triple album on vinyl for years but had never seen the movie.

Highlights include George Harrison having to explain up front what a sitar is, and for the audience to behave during the Indian music part led by Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Alla Rakha. Just shows how culturally far the US has come musically since 1971.  Today instruments like the sitar and the sarod are commonplace in American rock and folk music.

Then there are the ubiquitous Coke cans (I’m guessing Coke donated refreshments backstage or footed part of the bill for the MSG rental?). It’s hard to believe the product placement is accidental. Billy Preston’s seen with one just before hopping up from his keyboard to go into a dance frenzy (must have been the caffeine), then Leon Russell’s seen with one at his keyboard just before belting Jumpin’ Jack Flash.  There are just these Coke cans sitting around on the stage everywhere that get nicely framed by the cameras when they go in for closeups of the artists.

Also amazing is how many of them are smoking (tobacco) cigarettes. Today they’d probably have to hide that from the cameras to keep the film from getting an NC-17 rating.

Eric Clapton is humble as usual.  For the most part the musical performances aren’t stellar (the simplest and most polished-sounding was George and Eric’s duet on Here Comes the Sun) but that wasn’t the point.  The concert was quickly thrown together and they all did it for free to raise money to aid the grim humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh brought about by their war to break away from Pakistan (who can blame them?) and by the world’s largest tropical cyclone hitting them at the worst possible time.

If you download the concert (the album, not the movie) from iTunes they’ll make a donation to the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.  Or just go to concertforbangladesh.com and donate any amount there. For the month of August all funds raised will go toward famine relief in the Horn of Africa. That’s the famine in Somalia you’ve been seeing on the TV news every night for days.  Why not chip in a little and help them out?  It’s what George and Ravi and Eric and Billy and Leon and Ringo Starr and Bob Dylan and Badfinger would want you to do.

[image via concertforbangladesh.com]