Also this issue:

Aftershocks
Two ways to remember the year that was.
-Sam Adams

Liquid Assets
-Nikki Roszko

Book Show
-Debra Auspitz

Artstream: North American Dish Makers
-Debra Auspitz

Rent
-David Anthony Fox

Couch: A New Play by Six Authors
-David Warner

First Friday Focus

September 5-11, 2002

artsbeat

compiled by Debra Auspitz

After being denied use of the National Building as a box office/performance space earlier this summer, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival has lost another tried and true venue, the Kosciuszko Polish Club. Known affectionately as the “K Club,” the somewhat dingy building at the corner of Second and Fitzwater was used often in the past for Fringe shows and for theater and dance performances year round.

Aside from housing cultural events, the space was allegedly also operating an after-hours club that was serving minors and staying open and serving alcohol until the wee hours of the morning. Last weekend that club was raided by the Department of Licenses and Inspections and the building was shut down for being a public nuisance. According to L&I deputy commissioner Dominic Verdi, there had been complaints from neighbors about the club before, and the building will remain closed until further notice. This year two Fringe shows (both part of the Unfiltered, or self-produced, Fringe) were scheduled to run in the K Club -- a production of Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth by Burning Bright Productions and Glen Cullen's one-man show, Some Guy Sitting Around in His Underwear Talking for 67 Minutes. Cowboy Mouth's director, local actor/director Tom Teti, says the company was planning their first rehearsal in the club two Saturdays ago. According to Teti, the producer arrived first, "and saw the sign [L&I's cease operations order] posted up ... and that's how we found out." Though technically the festival is not responsible for self-produced acts, Teti says that Fringe program director Deborah Block tried to help the company locate a new space, but the company decided it was too late.

Verdi says that L&I has had a long and positive relationship with the Fringe. "It's an unfortunate incident," Verdi says. "The unfortunate thing is the Fringe people were having [their shows] in a location that they had no knowledge of, it was not their fault. [But] we cannot open it up for any use once it has been shut down."

Verdi says that the owners of the building could appeal the shutdown to the L&I review board, and could possibly get permission to use the space as a performance venue in the future. Representatives from both L&I and the Board of Taxes and Revisions were unable to offer the names of the owners, as all paperwork regarding the club was made out in the name of the club (and the latest deeds were dated from 1940). Several calls to the club went unanswered.

Last weekend, a car in Queen Village was seen parked with a large sticker obscuring the front passenger window. On closer inspection, it proved to be the cease operations order from the K Club. Was it an impromptu Fringe installation or an angry club kid? Like the future of the K Club, that remains a mystery.