Buy Tickets for Thursday Sept. 20 @ 8:00pm
Buy Tickets for Friday Sept. 21 @ 8:00pm
Buy Tickets for Saturday Sept. 22 @ 8:00pm
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Friday, Sept 21 ONLY: 8pm performance followed by post-show discussion moderated by Nick Stuccio, producing director, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.
Saturday, Sept 22 ONLY: 8pm performance followed by post-show discussion with psychologist and author Dr. Dan Gottlieb, host, WHYY’s “Voices in the Family."
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“We aim for the show to take place in the audience member’s head—not just on the stage.” Bruce Gladwin, director of FOOD COURT
”In the long silence that followed, before the lights came up and the audience broke into a storm of applause, everyone there was holding their breath. Stunned is a word that is easily reached for, but in this case, I think it is a precise description.” Alison Croggon, Theatre Notes (Australia)
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Part concert, part theater show, FOOD COURT follows a near death experience in a suburban mall by the Asian Hut and the Juice Bar. Played out in a psychological space constructed from light and sound, the stage transforms a mundane seating area into a shadowy void, where the edges between floor, walls, and ceiling become indistinguishable. This majestic canvas then moves its performers into a forest, a place of nightmares where the moral and ethical framework keeping our fragile civil existence together no longer exists.
FOOD COURT features the remarkable vision of Australia’s Back to Back Theatre and the live music of The Necks, who create a new score for each performance. FOOD COURT is a hypnotic work of art that cannot help but unsettle its audience, who must confront the strange dynamics of power, its allure for all, and its consequences in forms of vulnerability, oppression, guilt, nakedness, human disempowerment, and violence.
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Community Resources
Click here to find organizations that deal directly with some of the issues that FOOD COURT presents.
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Join us for these additional Food Court events!
Performance workshop with Back to Back Theatre
Free / 120 minutes
Sept 22 at 2pm
Back to Back Theatre explores the ideas and concerns of company members and uses devised and improvisational methods to create their shows. Discover their unique method of creating work in this interactive discussion and workshop. Interested participants should email tara@livearts-fringe. org. Selected participants will be notified by September 15.
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Director and Devisor Bruce Gladwin Music The Necks: Chris Abrahams, piano, Lloyd Swanton, bass, and Tony Buck, drums Set Mark Cuthbertson and Bruce Gladwin Lighting Andrew Livingston, bluebottle Animated Design Rhian Hinkley Sound Hugh Covill Costumes Shio Otani Performers and Devisors Mark Deans, Rita Halabarc, Nicki Holland, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price
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Back to Back Theatre was founded in Geelong, Australia, in 1987 to create theater with artists who are perceived to have disabilities. The company has become one of Australia’s leading creative voices, focusing on moral, philosophical, and political questions about the value of individual lives. The Necks are one of the great cult bands of Australia and a leading producer of experimental jazz. Previous Live Arts show: small metal objects (2009).
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This presentation of FOOD COURT has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative. This presentation of FOOD COURT has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Back to Back Theatre is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria.
Festival Co-Producers
Lynne and Bert Strieb
