Lisa Jo Epstein, Artistic Director
David Brown, Managing Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carrie Gorn
215-483-5482
cgornpr@comcast.net
Presents its first commission, the World Premiere of
CABINET OF WONDERS, AN IMPOSSIBLE HISTORY
Written by Kira Obolensky
Directed by Lisa Jo Epstein
Objects and Cabinets by Irve Dell
Fierce Physicality – Object Theatre – A Multi-sensory Ride
PHILADELPHIA – Renowned for concocting wildly imaginative adventures,
playwright Kira Obolensky and visual artist Irve Dell of Minneapolis join
forces with Gas & Electric Arts, bringing fierce physicality and object
theater together for a multi-sensory ride through the magical mesh of fiction
and reality that reside in family stories.
This collaboration will bring audiences, Cabinet of Wonders, An Impossible
History, the first commission for Gas & Electric Arts, the now four-year old
physical theatre specialists. The show will have its World Premiere September
29-October 24, 2009 at Underground Arts at the Wolf, 340 N. 12 St. The show
opens October 1. Tickets are available at 215-407-0556 or at
www.gasandelectricarts.org. Tickets: Previews: $18 / Tues – Thrus: $22, FriSun, $25
Siblings Leopold and Christina Carcass are at the center of Cabinet of
Wonders. The Enigmatic and charismatic offspring of a family of immigrants,
revolutionaries and entertainers, they live on the edge of eviction, in a
free fall from grace. The Carcasses debate salvation strategies and tussle
over the plethora of family possessions stashed inside the ancestral
cabinets. With impending foreclosure, no destination or relatives in site,
they can only take away what they can carry.
Cabinet of Wonders, An Impossible History explores the definition of a
family. Is it a collection of artifacts and stories, memories, genetic
information or what the census tells us? In the course of this highly
theatrical evening, Leopold and Christina attempt to reconcile their own
impossible histories with the story that the cabinet reveals. Caught in an
elaborate web of family fairy tales, the characters impress us with a torrent
of stories, songs, vaudeville routines and the animation of unlikely
heirlooms. Secret drawers pop open unannounced, letting loose lemons and
letters, bones and beans, wishbones and rats – and the boundaries between
tale and fact, between memoir and fiction burst apart, unleashing shards of
truth that insist upon their own new story.
This inventive new show brings together a multi-talented team of creative
collaborators, committed to developing a theatrical experience that will take
the audience on a journey that activates minds and stimulates the
imagination. Directed by Lisa Jo Epstein, and performed by Catharine K.
Slusar & Ross Beschler, this World Premiere marks Gas & Electric Arts’
official move to become specialists in immersive, experiential theatre
productions. Cabinet and object creations are by Minneapolis visual artist
Irve Dell, and the soundscape is by Tim Harbeson, light design by James
Clotfelter and costumes by Rosemarie McKelvey.
At Gas & Electric Arts, the ordinary and the extraordinary fluidly mingle. In
their productions, they strive to make the invisible visible through
provocative, evocative physicality, vocal exploration and unique scenography
that embraces and explores the plasticity of bodies, voice, objects and
light, cut out in theatrical space and time, thus creating an entire
theatrical universe unto itself. Gas & Electric Arts’ intrepid performance
style is an athletic task for the actors’ bodies, voices, imagination, heart
and the senses. Their intensely physical approach to acting leaves quotidian
expression behind as the actors devise vivid, extraordinary forms for their
bodies so that thought becomes a physical activity.
Kira Obolensky’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway and across the country
and have been commissioned by theatres such as the McCarter, the Guthrie,
Geva, and Steppenwolf. She was a playwright in residence at the Julliard
School, has received a Guggeheim Fellowship as well as numerous grants and
commissions. Lobster Alice won the 1998 Kesselring Prize (Tony Kushner’s
Angels in America was an earlier winner), and it premiered at the Jungle
Theater in Minneapolis and was produced by Playwrights’ Horizons in New York.
After seeing Gas & Electric Arts’ unique, physical and visual approach to her
play Quick Silver in 2007, Obolensky entered into conversations with artistic
director Lisa Jo Epstein about originating a new play with the company. In
2008, with funding from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through the
Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, Gas & Electric Arts was able to officially
commission Obolensky to write and collaborate on Cabinet of Wonders along
with her husband Irve Dell as the installation artist and creator of puppets
and molded objects. Cabinet of Wonders, An Impossible History has become a
bi-city collaboration with a creative team in Minneapolis (playwright, visual
artists and a crew of object and cabinet builders) and a team in Philadelphia
(director, designers & performers). After a year in the making, the project
will come together this fall as a multi-sensory ride through the basement of
the Wolf building located on 12th Street in Philadelphia.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Tchotkies at Twilight: An Estate Sale - Everything must go! Forced by
foreclosure, Leopold and Christina Carcass will hold a nightly estate sale of
one-of-a-kind treasures and other family heirlooms. Come early to get the
best bargains! Free refreshments. The estate sale happens an hour before
each performance.
Chocolate Tastings – There will be a chocolates tasting by John & Kira’s
“Revolutionary” Chocolates every Wednesdays during the run of the show at 6
pm. John & Kira’s –featured in Cabinet of Wonders – are artisan chocolates
handmade in Philadelphia with Valrhona couverture and flavored with exquisite
sustainable & natural ingredients. Featured on Martha Stewart, on Gourmet
Magazine’s cover as their “Favorite Chocolates,” raved about in NYT, Oprah
Magazine, Wine Spectator, Food & Wine, and USAToday. www.johnandkiras.com.
GENERATING: An Urban Storytelling Series
Theme: un/told family stories
Come laugh, reminisce, confirm and connect with others by telling seemingly
impossible yet amazing true tales about your family histories. In Gas &
Electric Arts’ intimate “Generating” storycircles, you’ll tell and hear
inspiring stories while being reminded of the power of your own. Led by
Artistic Director Lisa Jo Epstein, these free events will take place at:

InFusion Coffee & Tea Gallery - 7133 Germantown Ave in Mt. Airy
Dates in September & October TBA - FREE

Mugshots Coffee House & Cafe - 2100 Fairmount Avenue
Tuesdays, Aug 11, Sept 8 and Oct 13, 7pm - FREE
About The Collaborators
Lisa Jo Epstein - Director
Lisa Jo is a theatre director, educator and community-based artist. Her foray
into physical theatre began in Minneapolis at Theatre de la Jeune Lune. She
continued her explorations in physical and intercultural theatre and
socially-engaged theatre practices at the University of Texas at Austin where
she obtained a Master's and Ph.D. She then moved to Paris France where she
served as Ariane Mnouchkine's assistant during the Théâtre du Soleil's
creation of Molière's Tartuffe. While in Paris, she also worked at Augusto
Boal's Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed. Upon returning to the US,
Lisa Jo became an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Theatre
& Dance at Tulane University for seven years where she won awards for
teaching and directing, both inside the university and in the community. Lisa
Jo facilitates interactive, experiential theatre workshops with a variety of
populations around issues of identity and empowerment, community and social
justice. Recent productions include: Anna Bella Eema (Lisa d'Amour) 2008,
2005; O Yes I Will (Deb Margolin), Quick Silver (Kira Obolensky) Voices
Underwater (premiere, Abi Basch) for Gas & Electric Arts, Pop Out (Jessie
Bear) and Everlasting Father: A Religious Fantasy (premiere, Hannah
Harvester) at Swarthmore College; O Wholly Night and Other Jewish Solecisms
(remount, Deb Margolin) at Painted Bride Art Center; What the Moon Saw; or, I
Only Appear to be Dead (Stephanie Fleischmann), The Trestle at Pope Lick
Creek (Naomi Wallace) and The Love of the Nightingale (Timberlake
Wertenbaker) at Ursinus College; Spinning into Butter (Rebecca Gilman)
Southern Repertory Theatre, New Orleans. In Philadelphia, she has taught at
Temple University, Arcadia, and University of the Arts and is currently a
guest artist at Towson University’s MFA in performance.
Kira Obolensky – Playwright
Kira Obolensky's new work includes Raskol, an adaptation of Crime and
Punishment with an improvisational jazz band, which was commissioned by Ten
Thousand Things Theatre and premiered in an area prison in April 2009. She
wrote the story for Open Eye Figure Theatre's winter show, Snowman, and is
currently adapting Alice in Wonderland for The Acting Company in New York:
the play will open at the Guthrie Theatre in January, 2011. Her novella,
"The Anarchists Float to St. Louis", recently won Quarterly West's national
novella contest and will be published in the winter. Other plays: Quick
Silver, a play for puppets and actors, commissioned by 3 Legged Race and
produced in Minneapolis, Prague and in Philadelphia by Gas & Electric
Arts. Modern House (finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Lune,
pronounced loony, commissioned and produced by B Street; Lobster
Alice (Kesselring Prize winner; productions in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Los
Angeles, Off Broadway) The Adventures of Herculina, productions in Chicago,
Minneapolis. Awards and Fellowships include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a
McKnight Advancement Grant, Jerome Fellowships, two Henson Foundation grants,
a Bush Foundation Fellowship. Kira is a graduate of Williams College; she
attended the Playwrights' Program at the Juilliard School; and recently
received an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers. She
teaches at the University of Minnesota, at the Minneapolis College of Art and
Design and is on faculty at Goddard College's MFA Program in
Interdisciplinary Arts.
Irve Dell - Objects and Cabinets
Irve has exhibited both in Minneapolis and regionally including exhibitions
at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Rochester Arts Center and St. John’s
University. He was awarded a Bush Fellowship in 1988. His work is fairly
evenly divided between gallery or studio pieces, private commissions, and
public art projects. Recent commissions include work for the Ohio State
University, Grinnell College, Inver Hills Community College and the Minnesota
Department of Transportation.
Having become increasingly interested in the creative intersection of art and
theater or performance, Dell worked on a successful collaboration with Kira
Obolensky called Quick Silver -- an object and puppet theater piece which was
named by Twin Cities’ critics as the “most outstanding experimental theatre
event of 2003.” He has also has worked with Obolensky and Shawn McConneloug
on Force Matter, which was recently performed at the Tampa Bay Performing
Arts Center. In February of 2008, he created and performed his first solo
piece called Hierarchy of the Box at Open Eye Figure Theater in Minneapolis.
Dell graduated from Williams College in 1983 with a major in biology and
significant course work in art. He received an MFA in sculpture from the
University of Minnesota in 1988 and is currently an Associate Professor of
Art at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Dell lives in Minneapolis
with his wife, playwright, Kira Obolensky and their son Isaac.
About Gas & Electric Arts
Gas & Electric Arts was founded in 2005 by Lisa Jo Epstein and David Brown.
Our purpose is to lead audiences to experiences that shimmer with
theatricality and shiver with social reality. In our work, we are
passionately committed to corporeal, visual, vocal and spatial investigation,
fusing the richly textured language of risk-taking playwrights with a
physically rigorous performance style and compelling stage imagery. Together,
we hope they offer a great sense of play, which unshackle our imaginations
and renew our perceptions of the exquisiteness of being alive and of our
mortality, the necessity of empathy and the imperative to live responsibly.
Through our productions, we are instrumental in introducing Philadelphia to
exemplary, nationally-recognized women playwrights who are boldly redefining
American theatre. These are playwrights who are in love with the art of
theatre as a way to respond to the ever-shifting cultural and political
landscapes that comprise our lives. Their plays lead us to unchartered
theatrical territories and enable us to make total, fresh theatre whose
images and stories linger long after the show is over.
Productions include: Anna Bella Eema by Lisa d’Amour (2005, 2008), Quick
Silver by Kira Obolensky (2007), O Yes I Will (I Will Remember the Spirit and
Texture of this Conversation) by Deb Margolin (2008) and Voices Underwater by
Abi Basch (2006).
Cabinet of Wonders: An Impossible History
Listings Description:
Philadelphia and Minneapolis performance & visual artists collaborate to create evocative physicality and
object theater in this multi-sensory, magical ride through the tangle of family fairy tales. Two enigmatic
siblings on the verge of eviction collide over family heirlooms through a torrent of stories, songs, and
vaudeville routines, unleashing shards of truth that topple their house of cards forever. Presented by Gas
& Electric Arts. Location: Underground Arts at the Wolf, 340 N. 12th St. in Center City Philadelphia
Tickets: www.GasAndElectricArts.org or 215.407.0556.
September 29-October 24
Tickets: Previews: $18 / Tues – Thrus: $22, Fri-Sun, $25
Come early: Tchotki Tag Sale and Refreshments (one hour before show
time)
Chocolate Tasting by John & Kira’s Wednesdays at 6pm (see schedule)
Tuesday, September 29, 7pm – preview
Wednesday, September 30, 7pm – Preview
Thursday, October 1, 7pm – Opening Night Reception
Friday, October 2, 8pm
Saturday, October 3, 8pm
Sunday, October 4, 4pm
Wednesday, October 7, 7pm – Pre-show: John & Kira’s Chocolate taisting 6pm
Thursday, October 8, 7pm
Friday, October 9, 8pm
Saturday, October 10, 8pm
Sunday, October 11, 4pm
Wednesday, October 14, 7pm – Pre-show: John & Kira’s Chocolate taisting 6pm
Thursday, October 15, 7pm
Friday, October 16, 8pm
Saturday, October 17, 8pm
Sunday, October 18, 4pm
Wednesday, October 21, 7pm – Pre-show: John & Kira’s Chocolate taisting 6pm
Thursday, October 22, 7pm
Friday, October 23, 8pm
Saturday, October 24, 8pm
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