RAT Re: promotion of solo artists

[nick <nick@ratconference.com>]

CashPay and that flea-bitten clown will never be anything more than minor
league shameless pluggers.  

The real class acts all study under and book through the king himself, MC
Long Tall Elvis. 

http://www.ratconference.com/firstweekend/longtallelvis.htm

**************************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	

Contact:  
Nick Fracaro
215-557-9420
215-888-0723


Thieves Theatre & Theatre Double
present

FIRST WEEKENDS

The first weekend of every month will be dedicated to providing venues for
works in progress showcasing Philadelphia theater makers, featuring:

FLY BY NIGHT - a 24-hour play-producing marathon, enormously successful in
March's First Weekend and a regular First Weekends event.  

FLY BY NIGHT performance is on first Saturday of each month at 8pm.

Complete now with its own T-shirt!!!

and...

ME MYSELF AND I - performance pieces, acts, solo works by Philadelphia
artists hosted by MC Long Tall Elvis.  Featuring the popular and critically
acclaimed work-in-progress "Say Uncle"


Dates: April 5-8, 2001 (Thursday through Sunday)Thursday, Friday and
Sunday:  "Me Myself and I"  Saturday:  "Fly by Night"

Times: 8:00pm each night

Where: Theatre Double, 1619 Walnut Street, Philadelphia

Reservations:  215-557-9421

Ticket price: $12 ($8 for students with ID)

*********************************

Attention Philadelphia actors, performance artists, writers, directors,
designers...

Thieves Theatre, in residence this season at Theatre Double, is proud to
announce FIRST WEEKENDS, an invitation to resident theater artists to come
and showcase, experiment and play with us one weekend per month.  Thieves
Theatre wants to get to know you, Philadelphia, by offering you a chance to
strut your stuff with us.

************
FLY BY NIGHT 
6 writers, 6 directors, 18 actors, 24 hours, 8pm curtain come what may...
sleep is overrated! 

**At 10pm Friday each actor brings in one prop for the prop pool.  Writers
are given:
--one noun and one verb
--3 cast members for which to write, drawn randomly
--12 hours to complete a ten minute script (about 12 pages)
**At 10am the following morning
--directors are randomly assigned a script
--each play gets 45 minutes on the stage
**At 5pm that same day, each production gets:
--20 minutes with the tech director to run lights and sound
**At 8pm that same day... it's SHOWTIME!

Rules:  
--writers may not join the rehearsal process 
--actors must stick to the script - improvisation is discouraged
--all plays must be performed, no matter the quality

**************
ME MYSELF AND I 
Performance pieces, acts, solo works by Philadelphia artists hosted by MC
Long Tall Elvis.  Featuring the popular and critically acclaimed
work-in-progress "Say Uncle"

"Fracarošs direction [of Say Uncle] was smooth with special fluidity
enhancing the movement of Schaferšs performance... Myriad messages could be
gleaned from this theatrical commentary."  - Back Stage West (critic's
pick, Los Angeles Edgefest 2000, 11/00)



************

About Thieves Theater (www.ratconference.com/thieves):  In 1981, theatre
professionals and "The Con Artistes," a drama group of inmates at Illinois
State Penitentiary, collaborated on a production of Jean Genet's
Deathwatch.  From this seed grew Thieves Theatre's aesthetic: to embody and
articulate the voices of those who are stigmatized quarantined and
disenfranchised.  The task is to lift the barriers between us and them in
order to find the common ground on which true community is dependent.  The
endeavor is to achieve the elements necessary for a dialogue towards a more
permanent reconciliation.  Since then it has produced in Chicago, Toronto,
Los Angeles and New York, and is a founding member and 'communication
central' of the Rat Conference (see below).  

"Thieves Theatre is intrepid to say the least" - American Theatre
"Thieves Theatre was able, in a few strong strokes, to convey the explosive
power of the piece."     - Der Spiegel (Germany)
"I finally struck it rich the other night at the Theatre Centre... Thieves
Theatre... a rich vein of theatre indeed." - Toronto Star
"Thanksgiving was when an Indian tepee, fashioned of U.S. Government
mailbags, appeared on the site, instantly transforming it into one of the
more arresting pieces of skyline in New York. 		- The New Yorker

Artistic directors Nick Fracaro and Gabriele Schafer are proud to be in
residence at Theatre Double, Philadelphia's multicultural and most daring
theater company.

**************

About the Rat Conference (www.ratconference.com):  Rat is a confederacy of
theater artists committed to sharing work and ways of working on a national
and international level. More of an ethical network than a professional
one, RATs put themselves in one another's presence under grace of
hospitality.  R.A.T. collects no dues and is open to all. Connected through
the Internet and in-the-flesh conferences, the common aesthetic is roughly
Big-Cheap - "big" in the sense of blissfully impossible and unstoppable,
and "Cheap" as in constantly poor as well as tawdry.

The 7th major Rat Conference will be held this year in Philadelphia, June
21-24, 2001.  Past conferences have taken place in Iowa City (twice),
Seattle, Austin, New York and Los Angeles.  This year's conference will
coincide with TCG's annual gathering, also to take place in Philadelphia
that weekend.

# # #




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