How's this for a life cycle? Bok Technical High School and its marvelously New Deal deco theater (our venue for Spare A Dime) rose during the Great Depression, yet may be closed during the Great Recession.
Since COSACOSA's performance is about the Works Progress Administration (WPA), our first thought was to present the piece in a WPA-built space. Philadelphia is home to lots of WPA art, sculpture, and buildings constructed in part by the WPA (including the old Philadelphia Municipal Airport). However, the only structure we could find that was wholly built by the WPA is Edward W. Bok Technical High School in South Philadelphia. We visited the school to investigate, and what a great space we discovered -- especially the 1000+ seat theater! Designed in the shape of a letter E (for Edward Bok) by Philadelphia School Board architect Irwin Catharine, Bok Tech takes up an entire city block.
Bok himself was a larger-than-life fellow, an immigrant from the Netherlands who became a Pulitzer Prize-winning auther and editor of the Ladies Home Journal for thirty years. One of his claims to fame is coming up with the term "living room." Previously what Victorians called the parlor or drawing room was relatively unused except for visitors. Bok found such a room a waste of space and wrote, "We have what is called a 'drawing room'. Just whom or what it 'draws' I have never been able to see unless it draws attention to too much money and no taste..." FYI, Bok's wife founded the Curtis Institute of Music.
Bok Tech construction began under WPA auspices in 1935 and was completed in 1938; the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Bok Tech's exterior is solidly New Deal deco architecture, with carved shields and scrolls showing people working at various trades. Inside, the theater space features a gloriously sculpted ceiling and a stage surrounded by rolled fasces, symbolic bundles of sticks (pictured on the back of the Liberty Dime, too) representing "strength in unity." It's all a perfect design for a time when the nation need to pull together and its people need to find work. Get your Spare A Dime tickets now and see this iconic WPA stage come to life!
Bok Tech construction images, 1936 and 1937, courtesy of the school's archives.
Bok Tech construction images, 1936 and 1937, courtesy of the school's archives.