Venissa Santi, in character as The Mother, sings Dimestore Lullaby. Instagram image and set projection by Gerardo McGarity-Algrett; drawings by Steve Teare. | Khrista White and Victor Rodriguz in character as The Merchant and The Builder, sing Change in the Making. Instagram image and set projection by Gerardo McGarity-Algrett; drawings by Steve Teare. |
Song, story, and new media design came together seamlessly in our first performance.
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Spare A Dime provides a grand finale for Bok's New Deal deco grandeur. Above: the Bok Tech Theater entrance, photo by Bradley Maule at Hidden City.
Spare A Dime's performances this weekend are a wonderful opportunity for the community at large to see Bok Tech High School and its glorious theater before the building is closed by the School District of Philadelphia in June. Hidden City is publishing a two-part article this week on Bok and the Spare A Dime project. You can read about Bok in Part 1 here and Spare A Dime in Part 2 here. It's also a special chance for all Bok alums in the area to visit the school as we celebrate its 75th anniversary and Works Progress Administration origins. Bok's culinary department is even cooking up some Depression-era recipes for our concession stand! Please join us! Your $10 ticket cost benefits COSACOSA's youth programs! Tickets online: www.pifa.org/events/10 Tickets by phone: 215-893-1999 Tickets at the door, starting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week: Bok Tech Theater, 8th and Mifflin Streets in South Philadelphia For more information, please call COSACOSA at 215.385.2554 We look forward to singing for you! It's almost time; less than 2 days 'til Spare A Dime! Spare A Dime's cast works it at the final number of our final dress rehearsal! Please join us!
If you don't already have your tickets, it's not too late! Just $10 gets you great entertainment, and supports COSACOSA's youth programs citywide! Tickets online: www.pifa.org/events/10 Tickets by phone: 215-893-1999 Tickets at the door, starting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week: Bok Tech Theater, 8th and Mifflin Streets in South Philadelphia For more information, please call COSACOSA at 215.385.2554 We look forward to singing for you! Spare A Dime song samples are available on COSACOSA's SoundCloud stream. Less than one week until Spare A Dime is performed at the historic Bok Tech Theater! We've posted some rough cuts from the forthcoming cast album on SoundCloud – check them out at soundcloud.com/cosacosaartatlarge Remember to get your tickets to the show today at pifa.org/events/10 – support the arts and COSACOSA's youth literacy, leadership and life skills programs throughout the city! image above: floating dimes fill the Spare A Dime stage
For the WPA's Federal Project Number One, the image was the message. We're in the thick of Spare A Dime rehearsals and tech set-up at the Bok Theater. In an homage to Federal Project Number One (the artists' initiative) during the song Changing Places, Spare A Dime's set animations celebrate the wide variety of civic posters created by WPA artists. These two (at left), about healthy eating and the value of science are some of our favorites, illustrating the wide range of subject matter tackled by WPA posters. They especially resonate with COSACOSA staff, as we're in the midst of testing new art & biology and art & healthy eating curricula in North and South Philly middle schools! (And it's ironic that Spare A Dime composer Kimberly Niemela was a chemist in her first career! Click here to buy Spare A Dime tickets – just $10 general admission! Proceeds benefit COSACOSA's youth programs citywide – including those where art meets science! The historic Bok Tech Theater now is Spare A Dime's stage. After nearly a year of planning, community interviews, writing, artwork creation, and music-making, the Spare A Dime cast and crew moved our set, gear, and rehearsals to the historic Bok Tech Theater today! With the help of our amazing professional tech crew (thank you, George, Walter, Terry, Mike, and Rodney!) and dedicated Bok students working with COSACOSA and Bok staff, the Spare A Dime stage was set in perfect time for our singers and musicians to rehearse. Please join us next week for our premiere performances – Thursday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. • Friday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m. • Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. General admission is $10. Tickets may be purchases online at www.pifa.org/events/10 or by calling COSACOSA at 215.385.2554 We want you – to hear all about the WPA in song and to see this gorgeous WPA-built space! Spare A Dime's projected sets unite city residents, past and present. Illustrations by artist Steve Teare animated by designer Gerardo McGarity-Alegrett create projected backdrops for Spare A Dime singers, while photographic replicas by city residents create visual counterparts to audio stories. We call this corner store our dimestore, where the character of The Merchant sings Pocket of Blues, a song describing the Great Depression. The Builder later joins her here to sing a duet, Change in the Making – look for a WPA poster to appear in the window!
Join us for Spare A Dime on April 18, 19, and 20, 2013! Get your tickets today! Community members step into the shoes of their 1930s counterparts. As visual counterparts to the audio stories played in-between each song of the Spare A Dime cycle, COSACOSA constituents from around the city recreated the historical photos on which each character is based. Above, William Hilton, master craftsman and builder from North Philadelphia's Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood, recreates the historical stance of The Builder from Spare A Dime (before the founding of the Works Progress Administration, of course). Check back tomorrow to see his recreation of the post-WPA image of The Builder. And get your tickets to Spare A Dime today at www.pifa.org/events/10!
Spare A Dime's community stories create Gardens of Liberty. For over a year, COSACOSA youth, artists, and staff have collected stories of the Great Depression and our current "Great Recession" from community residents citywide. These interviews created the taproot of Spare A Dime, defining the project's characters and anchoring the storyline through their powerful interplay of hope and hopelessness in times of crisis. This summer, thanks to the support from the Knight Arts Challenge, the Kresge Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Union Benevolent Association, and other generous funders, these collected stories will also find a home in a new series of Site and Sound Gardens we're is creating with community members in North Philadelphia. Transforming abandoned lots into "sacred" spaces for our city neighborhoods, the new Gardens join COSACOSA's existing Healing Garden. The Gardens will feature two- and three-dimensional visual art plus temporary sound art exhibitions, including stories, songs, and poetry by neighborhood residents. Visit COSACOSA's website, www.cosacosa.org, for upcoming dates and times to volunteer to help create and maintain the Site and Sound Gardens. You can also read about the Gardens and other community-building efforts in the recently published Philadelphia edition of US Airways magazine! Best of all, hear our collected stories as part of Spare A Dime on April 18, 19, and 20, 2013! Get your tickets today! |
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