Meet Denise

“I believe that stories have the power to connect us to our shared humanity,” says McCormack. “In ‘Woven Worlds,’ I explore the threads that bind us together, drawing from both timeless tales and my own life experiences.”

FringeArts: Hey there, welcome to the blog! Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself. What’s your name, where are you from, where are you now, and how did you hear about the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Denise: Hi. I’m Denise McCormack, and I love participating in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. I’m not sure exactly when I started taking part, but I can tell you that I’ve weathered both in-person and virtual shows, so I’ve definitely been participating since well before the pandemic. My strongest connection with the Fringe is through the Patchwork Storytelling Guild that sprang up here in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, but I’m also very involved as a solo artist.

FringeArts: Love to see a Fringe Festival vet, welcome back! And what show are you presenting? Spill the tea – tell us about it.

Denise: This year, I’m presenting two shows at The Rotunda. Sunday, September 8 I presented Patchwork’s storytelling showcase, A Patchwork of Stories for GrownUps, featuring ten unique storytellers, including myself, as one of the tellers and MC, and Michele Belluomini, Blinky Comix, Tiffani Dean, Khadijah Renee, Maria LoBiondo, Mary Ann Paterniti, Greg Snow, Christina Sturgis, and Nancy Taylor. This event was meant to invigorate our stalwart tellers as well as to give an opportunity to others who are just testing their wings or trying out something new. Then, on Friday, September 13 at 7 PM, I’ll be doing a one-women or solo show, Woven Worlds: Traditional Tales and Personal Threads. It’s going to be great. I’m going to share some of those familiar and not-so-familiar stories that have withstood the test of time but that still have some surprises, some hidden bits of wisdom for the taking. I hope to project a fresh perspective to ponder about, but still keep it light and friendly. All in all, both shows are going to be full of fun and energy, and I’m really excited about them.

Woven Worlds: Traditional Tales and Personal Threads, Denise McCormack
Sept. 13th 7PM at the Rotunda
Theater, Spoken Word and Storytelling

FringeArts: That sounds pretty awesome! Now Denise, what’s your favorite thing to do in Philly?

Denise: There’s just so much to do in Philly that it’s hard to choose! I love all of the resources available for learning and experiencing new things—and all of the helping hands and unified voices. As an artist and entrepreneur, I can’t help thinking of The Rotunda and Phillycam and, of course, the library. Then, there are so many museums, and the zoo, and the waterfront. And the foodie haunts. I could go on, but suffice it to say that I don’t think that I have just one favorite thing to do. Oh, wait a minute. I like to share stories.

FringeArts: Haha, oh the stories you must have! Well, onto a more serious topic though, if you could be any food, what would you be and why…

Denise: This is going to sound “creepy” but soft-serve ice-cream… I’d rather be licked than chewed. The alternative is a milkshake, but I don’t think that counts as food; plus, being sucked through a straw doesn’t seem particularly pleasant, either.

FringeArts: Haha, well, that’s not so bad, I get it and support! And who doesn’t like ice cream??? Now, of all the many things that makes the arts great, what most made you interested in pursuing this daring life?

Denise: The arts connect your spirit with … everything!

FringeArts: Definitely agree! And are there any other show(s) you’re looking forward to seeing in the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Denise: I love the Preview Shows! There’s so much diversity, and I want to feel all of the excitement that’s churning behind the scenes before the season really kicks off.

FringeArts: And Denise as we wrap things up is there anything else you’d like to mention? Where can we find you after the Festival?

Jack: Yes, @DeniseMcCormackStoryteller & @patchworkstorytellingguild

FringeArts: Lastly, what has been your most favorite part in working on your show for this year’s festival?

Jack: My favorite part of working on the shows boils down to all of the collaboration and enthusiasm working with the Fringe Fest folks, storytellers, and the theatre staff at The Rotunda. I’m always filled with gratitude; always learning something new.

FringeArts: Amazing, thank you so much Denise, it was a pleasure having you join us in the blog! Everyone make sure you check out Woven Worlds: Traditional Tales and Personal Threads, and get your tickets HERE! See y’all next time.

Meet Jack

FringeArts: Hey there, welcome to the blog! Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself. What’s your name, where are you from, where are you now, and how did you hear about the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Jack: Howdy! My name is Jack Taylor I am from Maryland (which I just temporarily moved back to), but have spent the past 4 years living in Philly! I first produced for the Philly Fringe in 2022 with a production of Romeo and Juliet and ever since I have been wanting to come back to produce in the festival. After taking a break last year, I made it back with a one man show!

FringeArts: Yess, that’s awesome and what’s the tea on this one man show? Tell us all about it. 

Jack: My show is called Diva! Live From Hell. This campy, tormented one man musical, is a 75 minute love letter to broadway by Nora Brigid Monohan and music by Alexander Sage Oyen. The story follows high school junior Desmond Channing who is the president of the drama club at Ronald Reagan high school where he spent most of his short life in the spotlight. When a rival student, Evan Harris, a hotshot transfer from New York, challenges his throne, Desmond responds as any diva would, with lethal force…

Diva! Live From Hell, Jack Taylor
Sept. 5-14th at Plays & Players Skinner Studios
Theater, Cabaret & Nightlife

FringeArts: Oooo sounds spicy! Speaking of, and most importantly, if you could be any food, what would you be and why…

Jack: A Penne Noodle. Because superior noodle.

FringeArts: That’s quite the hot take! Quick, you have the once in a lifetime chance to teleport anywhere right now, where would it be?!

Jack: ooh I would absolutely teleport to Athens, Greece (Not to be confused with Athens, Ohio)

FringeArts: Haha, very true as those are two veryyy different Athens. But great choice! What’s your favorite thing to do in Philly?

Jack: I love going to see Theatre. So many great artists in the city!

FringeArts: Ooo I mean definitely Philly is such a great lively home for artists (short term or long term)! So then are there any shows you’re looking forward to seeing in the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Jack: My great friends at Theatre By Development are producing a new play called Calvin Barrows! I got to do a table read with them a few months ago and you should definitely check them out. They are great people, artists and friends with a new company!

FringeArts: Awesome! Well as we start to wrap things up here, is there anything else you’d like to mention? Where can we find you after the Festival?

Jack: After the festival I am going to be in the DMV for a bit, but heading back to Philly soon! Follow me @jcktylor_

FringeArts: Lastly, what has been your most favorite part in working on your show for this year’s festival?

Jack: My best friend is also my director. We understand each other and have a deep care to see each other succeed and I am lucky and grateful to have her on this project with me.

FringeArts: That’s great, what a friend indeed! Well thank you Jack for joining us for the blog, we are so excited for you and wish you well in this year’s fringe festival! Everyone, get your tickets to Diva! Live From Hell, you don’t wanna miss it! See ya soon. 

Meet Glenn & evan

FringeArts: Hey there, welcome to the blog! Why don’t you tell us a little about yourselves. What are your names, where are you both from, maybe where are you now, and how did you hear about the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Glenn: I’m Glenn Potter-Takata. Originally I’m from Los Angeles, though now I live in the Bronx. I mostly create choreographic works in the butoh genre, and I am also a sound and projection designer for live performance. We first heard about Philly Fringe through Cannonball. I was invited to show a short piece as part of Cannonball’s Scratch Night at FringeArts earlier this year, and I had such a good experience that evan and I decided to apply to be a part of Cannonball and Philly Fringe.

evan ray suzuki: I’m evan, from Washington (the state) originally, and now live in Brooklyn. I’m a butoh dance artist and choreographer and I also work in film and video production as a director, movement director, and cinematographer.

FringeArts: It’s great to have you both!  I’m super excited to hear more about this show you are both presenting? Spill the tea.

Glenn: Evan and I are performing a piece we created called Bodhisattva Beer Run. It’s mostly a dance work, though we do talk a bit in it and it does feature some video elements. The piece is about the commodification of Buddhism in the United States and the performance of gender in the context of a multi-generational Asian-American culture transition. The commodification and appropriation of Buddhism has been coming up a lot lately, just like in the world, and we wanted to make a piece about it. Where I’m originally from in California, marijuana’s been legal for a while now and you’ll see all these billboards that feature the laughing Buddha, words like ‘Zen’, or suggestions of meditative qualities to try to sell you a product. There’s also these commercials that have been airing lately for things like insurance that kind of do the same thing, and how their service will make your insurance experience more chill and ‘Zen’, which is a totally bonkers thing to say. Alongside that, through the piece we are looking at how Asian bros can somehow be the bro-iest of bros, and we point out some similarities between American beer culture and Buddhist practice. Like a common practice in Buddhism is mantra recitation, where a practitioner will recite the same mantra over and over. We observed a commonality with this idea of repetition and iteration in beer culture, where people turn empty beer cans into beer can towers or just the general idea of chugging multiple beers. So the piece basically takes the perspective of not how many mantas you might have to recite to reach enlightenment, but how many beers you have to drink to reach enlightenment. With this piece we’re trying to underscore the parallels between Asian-American identity and the strangeness of the American absorption of Buddhism into the greater cultural conversation, and super charge the whole experience with macro lager transcendence.

Bodhisattva Beer Run, Glenn Potter-Takata & evan ray suzuki
Sept 14-21st at Icebox Project Space Gallery
Dance

FringeArts: Woww, that’s awesome! Alright, looks like we’re all just going to have to get our tickets, hope it’s not sold out yet! So what are your favorite thing to do in Philly?

Glenn: So I’ve only been to Philly twice before. The last time was earlier this year when I did the showing for Cannonball’s Scratch Night. On both trips I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has a pretty incredible collection of Marcel Duchamp works. And when I was there this most recent time there was a line to see Duchamp’s Étant Donnés, which you have to look at through a little peephole so only one person can view it at a time. Étant Donnés is famously Duchamp’s last work and it’s pretty cool, but I figured that I probably saw it the first time I was there and didn’t really want to wait in line, so I skipped it. Later that night I was at the bar at FringeArts and I told some people how I skipped the Duchamp peephole piece and was immediately yelled at for not seeing this really cool famous piece. So the next morning, on my way to the train station to come back to NYC, I went to the museum again just to see Étant Donnés, which was totally worth it. So my favorite thing to do in Philly is to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 10 minutes to only view Étant Donnés and nothing else.

FringeArts: Ooo yes I’ve heard of Duchamp’s Étant Donnés, haven’t seen it yet though, have to move that to the top of the list after the festival. A solid pick! And, you have the once in a lifetime chance to teleport anywhere right now, where would it be?!

Glenn: If I could teleport anywhere it would be to see one of those aquatic boat fights that they used to have at the colosseum in Rome back in like 100 CE. I’m mostly interested in watching how they fill and empty the whole colosseum with water, which I think would be a really fascinating spectacle along with all the boats and stuff. That’s probably the most production nerd answer I could have given, but that’s where my mind’s at at the moment.

evan ray suzuki: I need to limit myself to right now because it would take me way too long to decide over all of history. I’m a soccer guy, so I would teleport myself to Paris where I would stay to see what I’m sure will be a gold medal win for the U.S. Women’s National Team. This is the most patriotic you’ll ever catch me.

[FringeArts notes: Yes, Team U.S.A did take home the gold, and many more *wink ]

FringeArts: And quick, we’re teleporting back, it’s now Karaoke night, what song do you pick?

Glenn: I have a really hard time remembering the melodies of songs and remembering the words to things, so I’m like the worst karaoke person ever. Like if you asked me to sing a song of my choice all the way through right now, I don’t think I would be able to do it. You may think karaoke should still be okay since the words are always up on the monitor for you, but I have the capacity to spectacularly fail at it. All this being said, among my extremely small repertoire of karaoke songs, Kyu Sakamoto’s “Ue wo Muite Arukou” (also called “Sukiyaki”) is probably my most reliable. It was a number one hit back in the ’60s, and has kind of constantly been playing in the background throughout my whole life, which is probably why I can somehow struggle through the whole thing. Kyu Sakamoto is a real crooner-type, and I do have a lot of fun with it.

evan ray suzuki: Video Games by Lana Del Rey. It’s just slightly too long to be a comfortable karaoke song, but it suits me. OR Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen which I used to play a folk version of with a band I was in at one point. A very different song, but also a very similar song ya know. All this said, I am really kind of a karaoke avoider.

FringeArts: Ahh okay a Bruce Springsteen and Lana Del Ray fan, great taste! I wonder if they should collab on a song… Alright, back to the actual questions… which other show(s) are either of you looking forward to seeing in the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

evan ray suzuki: I’m looking forward to catching Anh Vo’s introjective exhibition (nhập xuất nhập xuất) when it opens on September 13th. And sad to have to miss Mitsu Salmon’s Desert Turtle.

FringeArts: And as we start to wrap up is there anything else you’d like to mention? Where can we find you after the Festival?

Glenn: Find me on Insta! @grons__

evan ray suzuki: My Instagram is @evanxray. For folks in NYC, I will be performing an experiment of sorts one night only in early November at Ars Nova. Stay tuned, should be fun!

FringeArts: Lastly, what has been your most favorite part in working on your show for this year’s festival?

Glenn: We use a lot of empty beer cans in our piece, but they basically get completely destroyed throughout the show so we need a fresh batch of 30 cans for each performance. So for performances and rehearsals we’re talking about hundreds of empty beer cans altogether. We were super lucky and were able to have a lot of rehearsals at Sarah Lawrence College, where Evan and I both work. But as a part of the process we had to have all these empty beer cans on hand. Since the cans were empty they shouldn’t have been an issue on campus, but we would still get a little nervous about it. And when security would walk through we would feel the need to instantly assert that the cans were empty and that they were for a show, but security would always kind of be like, ‘We didn’t even ask what you were doing.’, and go on their way. All this to say, the most memorable part of working on the show was a pervading and probably a completely unnecessary sense of looming terror.

evan ray suzuki: The piece also involves a few videos that we filmed with a friend and former professor of both of ours. It was pretty amusing to see him read the text we’d written for him for the first time right before filming the takes, and we still cracked up a lot every time we’d play them back in rehearsal afterwards. On another note, we’ve been collaborating for the better part of six years now, and it’s just been rewarding overall to work on a project that’s probably our largest scale collaboration with just the two of us so far. Beyond the choreography, text, and performance we created together, we essentially divided all aspects of the design of the project between the two of us as well, with Glenn taking on projection design (which is extensive in this piece) and sound design and myself on videography, costumes, and lighting. So it really feels like a reflection of both of our current practices coming together.

FringeArts: Well, I’m sure it’ll be great! Thank you both for joining us for this edition of the blog! And, you heard it hear, get your tickets to Bodhisattva Beer Run HERE! Adiós.

Meet Becky

FringeArts: Hey there, welcome to the blog! Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself. What’s your name, where are you from, where are you now, and how did you hear about the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival? Iconic picture by the way!

Becky: Hey, my name is Becky Bondurant. I am from and am living in Norfolk, VA, but I consider Richmond, VA to be my second home. I heard about Philly Fringe from my friend Ann Mintz who is a storyteller. She and I met taking classes with monologist Mike Daisey. She first saw Mike perform at Philadelphia Fringe some years back.

FringeArts: Great to virtually meet you Becky! And what show are you presenting? Spill the tea – tell us about it.

Becky: Penis Envy is a the culmination of more than two years of study under master monologist Mike Daisey. I premiered the show at Capital Fringe 2024 in DC and its success inspired me to take it on the road. In Penis Envy, I thread the story of my sexual and political coming-of-age through a Freudian needle and them to my experience parenting in the Post-Truth era. I created the 46 paintings making up the backdrop of Penis Envy!

Penis Envy, Becky Bondurant
Sept 13-15th at the Yellow Bicycle Theater
Theater, Spoken Word & Storytelling

FringeArts: Oooo, that tea was almost scolding hot, I love it! Becky, humor us, is there any tv show or movie that you would have loved to been apart of?

Becky: I would really have loved to play all of the roles in Jesus Christ Superstar.

FringeArts: Haha, awesome, a great pick! Of all the many things that makes the arts great, what most made you interested in pursuing this daring life?

Becky: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

FringeArts: *Consistently nodding head yes* Well put! Now, this is important, if you could be any food, what would you be and why…

Becky: The correct choice would be sushi as I am small, layered, a little gross and raw, a little wound up, but bright and adaptable.

FringeArts: I wasn’t expecting that, but, I think that tracks. Sushi is a good pick! Alright, back to the actual questions… which other show(s) are you looking forward to seeing in the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival?

Becky: OMG, Ulysses! I am such a whore for Joyce.

[FringeArts notes: Unfortunately Elevator Repair Service’s Ulysses last show in this year’s Fringe was Saturday, September 7th! It was truly amazing and hope all you James Joyce fans and newcomers had a great time!]

FringeArts: Becky, is there anything else you’d like to mention? Where can we find you after the Festival?

Becky: Yes, @bondurantbecky

FringeArts: Lastly, what has been your most favorite part in working on your show for this year’s festival?

Becky: That the show has brought together disparate artists, friends, and family from various eras of my life. So many of the people I have known and not seen in ages, and so many people close to me today have traveled great distances to support and see the show and it has been like a wedding, in a way. This is the purpose of theater.

FringeArts: Truly amazing and couldn’t agree more! Well Becky, we’ve been seeing great things about Penis Envy and hope to see much more this weekend! Get your tickets HERE, FOMO is not allowed during the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival! Peace out.