The Rotunda Flea Market Fundraiser

by A.D. Amorosi

While audiences from West Philly and beyond know the wealth of aesthetic diversity included within The Rotunda's community performance-space walls, you probably don't appreciate its often "for-free" price point. With University of Penn slashing its budgets (and regulations imposed by L&I and Penn beyond its reach and this pick's space), The Rotunda needs money that it can't raise by charging door fees. Instead, its programmer, Gina Renzi, and her pal, Tricia Gdowik, are throwing a flea market/fundraiser featuring you, its biggest audience, donating time and revenue, alongside Joe Scott of Systematic selling from his stock of dark ambient electro CDs, and The Dead Artists Guild sale of silk-screens. "The Rotunda will be around for a long time, but we need to make people aware of our diverse programming and to raise awareness to The Rotunda's plunging budget," said Renzi, who'll bring in the "Makin' It" Crafts Collective to sell handmade arts, punk lullaby-ists Ed and Georgie, blues-folkies Jim Trainer and Monica McIntyre, DJ Chatty Cathy, members of Puppet Uprising, poets Maleka Fruean and Sam Barrow and MCs immediately connected to The Rotunda's showcases, like Vitamin D and I BE. While The Kind Café and the White Dog offer goodies and silent auction gifts, a photo exhibit, "40th Street on the Edge," will draw you into parts of The Rotunda no one gets to see: the former Church of Christ Scientist sanctuary. "A lot of people use The Rotunda, not just to attend shows; [there are] meetings and community groups using that space almost every day of the week," says Gdowik. "The Rotunda can't do years' worth of free shows and also pay all the performers without some help from people at some point." Besides, it's Renzi's birthday. Pony up.

The Rotunda Flea Market Fundraiser, Sun., Dec. 14, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., free admission (donations please), The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., 215-573-3234, www.foundationarts.org.