Midweek News Podcast, Washington Post, ‘Oh, Mary!’ on Broadway, Artblog Art Market, InfoSpace Gallery, Mycology and theater picks for the week

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan and this is the Midweek News

Roberta: On Artblog Radio. We should talk about the news. One thing I want to say is. For you, a theater guy? Yeah. My son Max and his wife Kim, are going to New York on Thursday and one thing that they’re going to do is go go to the theater to see, ‘Oh, Mary!,’ which you may have heard of.

It’s about Mary Todd Lincoln. It’s sort of a comedy spoof of Mary Todd Lincoln trying to put together a burlesque review, shall we say, at the same time that I think the war was going on, and maybe her son Willie was dying and all these sort of things crashing in around her. It’s supposed to be good. I read about it. But we’ll have some more updates on that after they get back and I’ve pumped them for information on how it was.

Ryan: well, I know that it won the best new play for off Broadway, but I don’t really know, I don’t know anything beyond that.

Roberta: Anyway, that’s it for me. In terms of my off the cuff remarks. Let’s march along into the news.

And I have three things today and two of them are sort of real news and the other is a gallery notable. So Opera Philadelphia, we learned in the newspaper today now is offering $11 tickets for its opera productions – any seat in the house. It doesn’t confine you to the nosebleed section.

I don’t even know where they perform these days. Is it the Academy of Music? [Yes, it is – they perform at The Academy of Music.]  I’ll have to look that up. We’ll look that up for you. Anyway, they have a new play opening or a new opera opening and, this fall and they have a new executive director or director of the company [ Anthony Roth Costanzo] who is himself a countertenor, which I didn’t look up, but I think those are the tenors who are quite high [the highest adult male singing voice, says the dictionary].

They have very high voices. So this is his first step in. Revivifying what they’re doing. The Opera Philadelphia, like all the arts organizations during the COVID pandemic had a terrible time and they’re still recovering. And so it’ll be interesting to see how this all happens and comes about. Anyway, more power to them.

It’s really great. And this is all about deinstitutionalizing opera. To let newbies come, people that haven’t ever been before and have the curiosity. I mean, $11 is really a good price point for an opera ticket. In fact, when I was in college, we used to travel to New York from Madison, WI, driving over the icy roads with the 18 wheelers skidding around every place in the middle of winter. And we would go to the opera. I would go to the opera. Standing room tickets at the Met – it was really great. You had to stand, but it was still an awesome experience. Anyway.

Next up on my list is sad news that the Washington Post has dropped its gallery coverage, and this comes to us via BMore Art, which announced it in its pages after the writer of the gallery column, the long-term reviewer of gallery shows in the DC regional area announced that the day before his editors had just gotten in touch with him and said basically, ‘By the way, we’re letting go of this column on August 25th. So this is your last hurrah.’ Wow. Anyway, yes, really abrupt, really abrupt, really sad, and of course.

That’s the Washington Post, sort of like the other dominoes that have lost their coverage of the arts through the years, like the Inquirer, which doesn’t have gallery reviews anymore.They, for many years had wonderful gallery reviewers Edie Newhall and Tom Hine and Ed Sozanski. They were fabulous, really gritty, sort of deep thinkers and writers, really good stuff. And then it’s like they made a decision not to have it anymore, so we’re sorry to hear it. But we hope BMore Art picks up the slack and covers a lot of Washington DC art now because they do a great job in Baltimore. And if they could reach out to Washington, that would be a good thing.

The third thing I want to mention is Information Gallery. There’s a gallery that we know. The people who run it are Celia Jailer and her cohorts (we believe). They started the quilt show in West Philadelphia a bunch of years ago. The quilting Bee group that they have put its quilts up on the cyclone fencing surrounding the Kensington Rec Center basketball courts. I thought it was amazing, and they’ve done that a couple years in a row now. So then they had something called The Store on Dickinson Street, which was also amazing. Showed a lot of interesting art and clothing and things that were artistic, but the work didn’t come up out of an art school and now at InfoSpace, which I think you’ve been to, right, Ryan?  I have not been there. It’s in someone’s abode, right? Yeah. Someone’s apartment in Port Richmond, I think it’s way up there. Anyway, they put out a “no BFA” open call, meaning they were looking for people who came up outside of the system, outside of the art schooling.

And they’re saying that they’re promoting it because there’s lots of ways to express yourself artistically, and it doesn’t have to come from a degree like A BFA or an MFA, and so more power to them. I embrace that also. And that show opens on, I think, September 14th, yes. It’s called The Dirt in Our Garden. September 14th, 5 PM to 9:00 PM. And we’ll have links to all those things, including the sad news and the gallery in the transcript. So that’s about it for me. How about you, Ryan?

Ryan: Those changes (at the Washington Post) always seem abrupt. ‘Hey, you’re doing a great job. Keeping the good work in. This is your last day.’ It’s like, so sad.

Roberta: Very sad. Very sad. Ugh.

Ryan: Well on that positive note. So I’ll keep my things to three as well. School is back in session for most, and so it also means everyone else’s lives are coming back to the city and hopefully you feel reenergized and rejuvenated from your summer. Tyler School of Art and Architecture has Black Like That: Our Lives As Living Praxis. And you can see that review up on an Artblog as well. That event is up… August 30th is the opening for that. That’s at 5:00 PM and that’ll run through December. Yeah. So you can see a pre ‘ahead of time’ preview on the Artblog.

Then I want to talk about the Boy Bands Have Won. That’s my theater pick of the week. It’s part of Fringe. It’s just a couple-day show, so I thought I would send it out in advance. The love-hate I have with Fringe is that it’s hard to find out information about them. It’s hard to know if it’s going to be any good or if it’s just going to be wild and you’re just there for the experience of having gone. And some of them (the performances) are so amazing, and they’re only there for two shows and you don’t have enough time to get everyone else to have the time to go see these shows. So this show is September 6th, it’s at Rosy’s Taco Bar East, 624 S. 6th St. Which you’re going to have to love. I’m not quite sure what it’s going to be, but I thought it looks really cool. It definitely seems like it’s going to be music and fun and festive. It’s going to be Fringe, so, you know, use that as your metric, your gauge to assess if that’s for you.

My third thing is the Philadelphia Mycology Club is having their first annual fun Philadelphia festival. Again, just a little over a week, on Saturday, September 7th. That’s from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia. That’s 8480 Hagy’s Mill Road. If you haven’t been there, it’s a little bit funny to get to, but it’s not too hard. That looks pretty interesting. If you’re interested in mushrooms, fungus, fungi, fungi.

Roberta: I have to mention that we have a post coming up soon that’s a Q and A between Lane Spiedel, one of our writers, and Chenxi Shao an artist who is big into mycology and grows mushrooms as part of her art. So yes. Mycology, coming up for you, people.

Ryan: Yeah. I love it. There have been so many fascinating books on mycology and underground networks and how mushroom spores communicate and share nutrients with one another through mycelium networks. No kidding. It’s really profound. If you haven’t read those books, there’s a couple really standout pieces about trees and tree communication and sharing of nutrients and mother trees in the forest. Really amazing stuff.

Roberta: Do they all have souls? They must all have souls. Ryan, don’t you think?

Ryan: Yeah. It’s wild. You know, I remember anecdotally just reading a section that was talking about how a dying tree will pass on its nutrients to the younger ones as like it’s dying act. Wow. That’s a tree we’re talking about.

Roberta: Amazing. I’ve heard of two trees that grew up as siblings sort of close together and one of them dies and then the other one dies. Like they can’t live without each other.

Ryan: It’s a mirror world as much as we see the difference. There’s a lot of similarities.

Roberta: Yeah, for sure.

Ryan: We all share the same mother, I guess.

Roberta: Yeah. Yes we all have cells, molecules, that sort of thing. So we’re all made out of the same kind of stuff basically.

Ryan: Those are my three. Yeah. Fringe coming up. So there’s going to be a lot of interesting theater stuff. The theater world is just popping right now too. There are a lot of things happening at Temple too, which has really been interesting. They’re pushing a lot of different things. A lot of those are on Connect already. Other ones that if we’ve missed, throw them up there. We’ll keep the list growing and active so you have the one-stop shop place to look for everything. If you find something that is interesting and random, send it our way. And we’ll get it up there.

Roberta: Definitely.

Ryan: Well, those are my three picks for the week.

Roberta: Cool. Well, let’s give people a glimpse of what’s coming at the Artblog Art Market. We’ve been talking about this a little bit behind the scenes and a little bit on the news post with you, but we are ready to announce it and we’ll be rolling out the PR pretty soon.

We’ll put a link into where you can find information about it. Like what are the artists? There are going to be 24 artists in this. Plus, Partners and Son and Ulises and Artblog are tabling. So it’s going to be affordable art by local artists that we’re very happy to work with and it was co-curated by Artblog along with Terri Saulin, Chris Hammes, and Tim McFarlane.

So shout out to those guys. We’re going to have lots of programs to go with it, like Keyonna Butler‘s Black Hippie Art Sketch Club. We don’t have a date for that yet. We need to work with Keyonna and schedule it. And of course Artblog’s 21st birthday party, which we always, every year, have one. And it’s always fun and everybody’s welcome.

So this is going to be — did I say where? Moore College of Art and Design in the Paley Gallery, which is a beautiful space. Lots of art, lots of affordable art, and right before the holidays it opens October 4th and goes till December 7th. So, yeah, and this is in conjunction with another show at Moore going on at the same time that is kind of a sister show called Price Lists and Placements, not Place Mats, placements. And it’s a show curated by. Moore College Gallery Director Gabrielle Lavin, and it has nine artists in it, I believe. And again, affordable art is the hallmark of this show, and it should be really wonderful. It’s a shopping event at Moore College!

Ryan: Your pre-Black Friday Art Sale. Yes, but ours will cover black Friday as well. We’ll be open.

Roberta: We’ll be open.

Ryan: We also hope to do our podcast from there as well. So if you want to come by and be in our audience or ask a live question and get yourself on there for posterity, get yourself interviewed.

Roberta: Why not come in and be interviewed.

Ryan: Come hang out with us.

Roberta: Absolutely.

Ryan: If you go to school there, just come have lunch with us.

Roberta: Yeah, bring lunch. Okay. We’ll be sitting there. So bring us something to eat.

Ryan: Yeah, well, sure. Snacks for the whole class.

Roberta: Yes. Enough for the whole class. Exactly. Cupcakes for everyone.

Ryan: Sounds good.

Roberta: Okay, well that’s it for me today. Ryan. I think that’s it. Are you okay?

Ryan: I am super great.

Roberta: Okay, great. Anyway, so let’s talk again, reconvene next week, but now let’s say Arrivederci. This is Roberta saying, Bye-Bye.

Ryan: And this is Ryan, and this has been the Midweek News on Artblog Radio. Bye-Bye.