City Paper Review of Boneyards

Nice review by Paulina Reso in the City Paper. Ha, can’t argue with her about the final stage of the show. I know from past experience that when you risk opening a scripted entertainment up to chaos and randomness anything could happen — and sometimes nothing. Alas, too bad she wasn’t there for the fireworks last night but in the theatrical onslaught that is the Fringe one is lucky to be mentioned in the press at all so we’ll take what we can get and we’ll milk it for every drop. Read on…

Terrific review by Paulina Reso in the City Paper.  Ha, can’t argue with her about the final stage of the show.  I know from past experience that when you risk opening a scripted entertainment up to the chaos and randomness of a seance for a few minutes anything could happen — and sometimes very little.  Too bad she wasn’t there for the Ouija board fireworks last night.  And I’m not sure how switching  from talking to singing and playing a guitar before launching directly into more talking could be construed by anyone as a water break; that would truly be a supernatural feat. This show is wall to wall mouth, baby.  Read on…

Fringe review: Boneyards

By Paulina Reso
09/11/2013

WE THINK: With its penchant for the paranormal and its autobiographical focus, Jeffrey Stanley’s one-man show could come across as overly strange or egotistical, but his charisma and fascinating tales from the crypt kept it on track. Staged in a musty, 118-year-old cellar in Shivtei Yeshuron-Ezras Israel, a historic South Philly synagogue, the show began with Stanley performing George Jones’ country hit “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which, his tender rendition revealed, is a lovelier song than I had originally thought. But we in the audience weren’t sitting in a damp cellar, squinting our light-deprived eyes at a barefooted man with a painted face to get a lesson in music appreciation. We were here for a taste of the macabre, and Stanley didn’t disappoint. CONT’D at citypaper.net>>

BONEYARDS City Paper Preview

BONEYARDS is back from the dead to rock your underworld.  Four new post-Fringe shows in October just in time for Halloween. 10/17/13, 10/20, 11/2 and 11/3. Only 20 seats per show, get ‘em before they’re gone.

Blood, guts and experimental theater

by Shaun Brady, 09/05/2013

“… Maybe it’s the darker sensibility of an audience primed for avant-garde theater, but Fringe is second only to Halloween in terms of people being ready to buckle down and open their minds to horrific subject matter … Jeffrey Stanley had little need to seek out horror films or literature as a child: He grew up next door to a funeral home in rural Virginia. ‘My bedroom window looked directly into their embalming room and they never closed the curtain,’ Stanley recalls. ‘So at night I’d go up there and watch, and I could see the body laid out on the slab. For whatever reason it never scared me; I thought it was fascinating.’

That’s one story Stanley will recount in Boneyards (Sept.8-17, Shivtei Yeshuron-Ezras Israel), the one-man semi-sequel to his 2011 Fringe hit Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead. The show takes place in the basement of a century-old storefront synagogue and, for its final performance, at Laurel Hill Cemetery … As in Beautiful Zion, Stanley will conclude with a Ouija board séance, a habit he began at a teenage New Year’s Eve party. ‘We were sitting around the kitchen table in the dark and crazy things started happening. We’re all convinced that by the end of the night we spoke to Jimi Hendrix, he possessed my friend’s kitten and made it pluck his guitar strings.’

Stanley insists that his obsession, like so much horror fiction, has a cathartic side. ‘As dark and macabre and creepy as it is, I hope it’s ultimately life-affirming. In the end it’s about loving life and taking away some of the fear of death that we have in our culture.'”  full story at citypaper.net>>

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Jeffrey Stanley, Boneyards rehearsal 9/3/13

And don’t forget to watch and listen to this historic first: a casting call for the dead.  The first round of open auditions for the spirit world was held in the 1895 coal cellar using the famed  P-SB7 AM/FM scanner for listening to EVPs.  Here are the results.  No tricks, no jokes. The transcript is also included along with a few afterthoughts but watch the video first.

Last chance for Einstein/Tagore

Last chance to see EINSTEIN/TAGORE: SEASHORE OF ENDLESS WORLDS. With officially only a 20-seat storefront house, all 3 shows last weekend were sellouts: 31 people Friday night, 27 Saturday night, even the Sunday matinee was a sellout at 23. We have 3 shows left starting tonight. As of this morning the Saturday show is sold out, the Friday show has only 3 seats left, but tonight’s show remains open so if you’d like to see it then tonight is probably your best bet.

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for coming to our 2012 Philly Fringe show EINSTEIN/TAGORE: SEASHORE OF ENDLESS WORLDS. As Shiva3 Productions (which started as a lark in last year’s Philly Fringe show and then turned into something real) I’ve served as the behind-the-scenes producer, marketer and graphic designer as well as the script consultant for Einstein and Tagore’s adapted conversations recited during the show.  We’ve been truly humbled by the unexpectedly large numbers in attendance for our modest-sized art gallery space. It’s been a thrill for us. The Philly Fringe is primarily theatre-centric, so here we are off to the side in the dance category, and within that we’re something apparently called “ethnic dance” which further reduced our audience expectations, and in a storefront art gallery instead of a theatre.  This show was purely art for art’s sake. You have blown our assumptions about Philadelphia out of the water.

With officially only a 20-seat house, 5 out of 6 shows were sellouts hovering around an audience of 30, and we were literally turning more people away at the door.  If and when the show returns we promise a larger venue with better sightlines. In the meantime please enjoy our rave review in the City Paper.

Many thanks for your support,

Jeffrey Stanley

A Rave Review in the City Paper

Rave review of EINSTEIN/TAGORE: Seashore of Endless Worlds
by Josh Middleton, Philadelphia City Paper
Taking place in the intimate front room of Twelve Gates Arts gallery in Old City, producer/choreographer/director/dancer Leslie Elkins and Jodi Obeid star in this diamond-in-the-Fringe-rough show…the dancing is why you should put this on your Fringe itinerary. The dancer is a force…this little must-see will take you on a mesmerizing cultural journey you’ll want to take again and again.

by Josh Middleton, Philadelphia City Paper

“Taking place in the intimate front room of Twelve Gates Arts gallery in Old City, producer/choreographer/director/dancer Leslie Elkins and Jodi Obeid star in this diamond-in-the-Fringe-rough show inspired by the well-documented religion-versus-science discussions between Einstein and Tagore. Though there is some dialog — the dance routines are interspersed with quick, straight-from-the-script readings by Elkins and Obeid — the dancing is why you should put this on your Fringe itinerary. Dasgupta, decked out in gorgeous, traditional Indian garb, is a force, engaging every ounce of her being in routines that run the gamut from energetic and attention-demanding (“Mangalam: Honoring the Elements”) to rip-your-heart-out passionate (“Trance”). Elkins and Obeid, both with backgrounds in contemporary dance, join in on a few numbers, too, most notably the final performance to Bikram Ghosh’s refreshingly funky “Rhythm Speaks.” It doesn’t have the high-flying acrobatics you might find in some of the more-hyped Live Arts dance shows, but this little must-see will take you on a mesmerizing cultural journey you’ll want to take again and again.”  Full listing and review at http://www.citypaper.net/authors/josh_middleton/FRINGE-REVIEW-EinsteinTagore-Seashore-of-Endless-Worlds.html

 

City Paper also sez you better be there tonight

Scratch Night. Thu., Jan. 12, 7 p.m., free, with Jeffrey Stanley and Justin Jain, Live Arts Studio, 919 N. Fifth St., 215-413-9006, livearts-fringe.org. by A.D. Amorosi. Before Nick Stuccio buys a zoo, I mean, a restaubar/performance space on Delaware Ave., he and the Fringe peeps will take advantage of that Live Arts Brewery spot in Northern Liberties for several socially interactive programs between artists and audiences. Best case-in-point is the monthly Scratch Night, a salon environment funded by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge, where cross-genre performers and directors make new works based heavily on improvisation. First up are Jeffrey Stanley and Justin Jain CONT’D AT citypaper.net>>

Scratch Night

Thu., Jan. 12, 7 p.m., free, with Jeffrey Stanley and Justin Jain, Live Arts Studio, 919 N. Fifth St., 215-413-9006, livearts-fringe.org.

by A.D. Amorosi

Before Nick Stuccio buys a zoo, I mean, a restaubar/performance space on Delaware Ave., he and the Fringe peeps will take advantage of that Live Arts Brewery spot in Northern Liberties for several socially interactive programs between artists and audiences. Best case-in-point is the monthly Scratch Night, a salon environment funded by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge, where cross-genre performers and directors make new works based heavily on improvisation.  First up are Jeffrey Stanley and Justin Jain CONT’D AT citypaper.net>>