May 8–15, 1997
noises off
Evan Palazzo and Joelle Cherry in Yellowdog's Mistero Buffo.
Call this one Noises Up.
When we first heard that Joe Koroly and Independent Film & Theater were setting up a performance space called the Second Stage at 2030 Sansom, one floor above the theater that's now home to Venture and InterAct, we wondered if noise would be aproblem. Well, it wasn't at first. Upstairs productions of Replacing Harry and Everyman co-existed respectively with Venture's North Seventeenth Street and InterAct's Marisol, and no one downstairs complained.
Then the Yellowdog Theatre Ensemble (YTE) moved in.
Yellowdog, a troupe comprised of UArts students and recent grads, was slated to open as the new resident company at Second Stage this week with Mistero Buffo, a knockabout Dario Fo "religious farce" with a 13-member cast.
That's "26 energetic student-type feet" (in Koroly's words) — and some of them tapdance.
So what happened whenVenture heard the clackety-clack of tapshoes on the ceiling during their Monday dress rehearsal for Fires in the Mirror, which was opening the following night?
"They weren't happy at all," said Allen Radway, a UArts senior who is one of YTE's three artistic directors.
"We were here till 4 last night dealing with this," said Koroly Tuesday, sounding, well, as if he'd been up since 4. "Can we cut this? Can we cut that? Can this guy fall quietly ?"
But no one wanted to change the show — "We didn't want to take a dance number out, it's just too good," said Koroly — so a last-minute compromise was worked out.
It seemed like a good idea at first. YTE would adjust their performance schedule to avoid playing at the same time as Fires in the Mirror. Instead of a 7:30 curtain as planned, YTE would do late-night shows on Wednesdays, Thursdays andSaturdays, an early-evening show on Friday and a matinee on Sunday.
Koroly, ever the optimist, thought the new schedule might work out better.
"It's a great show for late-night, anyway."
But YTE's cast, some of whom work morning jobs that require them to get up at 5 a.m., quickly saw the downside.
"A lot of the actors just can't handle changing the schedule that drastically," said Radway Wednesday morning, "after three months of being told it was a 7:30 show."
"The only way to save the show now is to get it out of the [Second Stage] space."
So a few hours later, at literally the last minute (the show was scheduled to open Wednesday night at Second Stage), YTE found another solution: they went back to school. They asked Paul Berman, head of the theater program at UArts, whether theycould mount the show in a space at the university. "He couldn't believe what had happened," said Radway. And even though Yellowdog is a separate entity from the school, "he seemed really willing to accommodate us and arranged [for thespace] with [Performing Arts Dean] Stephen Jay."
Mistero Buffo's new home and performance times are as follows: Theater 200 at the UArts School of Theater Arts, 313 S. Broad St., second floor, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 9 and 10, and 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 11. (Decisions about anyfurther performance dates are pending.)
"It's kind of a blessing but kind of a curse," said Radway, "because now we have to transport about two truckloads worth of props."
YTE's not giving up on Second Stage just yet. "The money we make from [the shows at UArts] is going toward the space."
Koroly says that he and Ciccone are planning to improve the soundproofing this summer. They have already treated part of the ceiling in the Second Stage space to muffle the sounds of the dance studio which rents on the third floor, and "we maywell decide to do the same thing for the people downstairs."
Won't further soundproofing cost a bundle?
"We'll just have to sell some more blood," said Koroly.
[A note on the rather jinx-laden history of the name Yellowdog: It was inspired, said Radway, by the Southern political expression, "He has as much chance as a yellow dog of being elected," I guess referring to the company's uphill battlefor recognition as newcomers on the scene. The phrase, he discovered, also has an unfortunate labor connection: a contract which requires that workers never organize or join a union is called a "yellow dog" contract because union memberslabel any worker who would sign such a contract a "yellow dog."
Should Yellowdog ever decide to go Equity, they might want to reconsider their name.]
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NorthStar Productions discovered only a few days before their Philly premiere of My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine that playwright Nicky Silver had some, uh, concerns — something to do with the fact that he's about to open a production of theplay in New York. (NorthStar won critical acclaim last season for their area premiere of another Silver play, Pterodactyls.)
How did NorthStar get as far as tech weekend before such objections had been ironed out between playwright, agent and theater company? NorthStar's Greg Northam and Eric Singel don't want to talk about it on the record. Suffice it to say that acompromise was reached that allowed NorthStar to open their show, with the stipulation that no critics could be invited or comped and no further paid advertising could be taken out.
But such a stipulation doesn't stop the press from paying for a ticket and writing about the show, anyway. So, on the record, I'll tell you this is a play with everything: a cheerful abused child, a teenager who murders his parents (or does he?), apsychiatrist who runs off with the teenager, a housewife who's way round the bend, plus nudity, blind jokes, a brutal beating and memories of Ethel Merman. The script and the production are by turns hilarious, bloody and puzzlingly mixed in tone, butthe five-member cast makes a strong impression, particularly Gerre Garrett as the wondrously deranged Jill Pelican, Adam Giordano in four small, juicy and utterly distinct ensemble roles, and Linda J. Gryn as a precocious little girl and anextravagantly obnoxious restaurant patron. Greg Northam plays the stolid and ultimately defeated doctor and Ryan Hancock is his believably callow teenage nemesis.
If you want to check out My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine in Philly before it becomes the talk of New York, it's running Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. at the Shubin Theater, 407 Bainbridge St., through May 17, with a special addedperformance Monday, May 12, at 8 p.m. to benefit Plays & Players Theater. Tickets through UpStages, 893-1145, or at the door.
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A final note on InterAct/Venture: Rumor has it that the two companies are planning to rechristen their space, which formerly housed the Wilma, with another woman's name — it's going to be called the Adrienne, in honor of the late Adrienne Neye. Themuch-missed production manager for Philadelphia Theatre Company, Neye also stage-managed for InterAct and studied theater at Villanova, where Harriet Power is a professor.
InterAct Artistic Director Seth Rozin wouldn't confirm the choice, but he did offer some more immediate good news. InterAct has hired its first managing director, Joseph Farina, raising the number of full-time staff at the theater from one (Rozin) totwo.
"He doesn't like it when I refer to him as the Messiah," said Rozin, "but it's unavoidable."
Farina (who was in grad school at Villanova at the same time as Neye) comes to InterAct from NYC's Greenwich House Theatre Company, where he was managing artistic director.
"He brings a lot of savvy and experience and a real level head," says Rozin — plus the possibility that the artistic director may be able to take a vacation for the first time in 10 years.