Striking Accord

Under new leadership, Brat assembles a motley crew to create ad hoc rock operas.

by Juliet Fletcher

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: May 2, 2007

BRAT PACK: Top, L-R: Ian Jarvis, Andrew Lipke, Heather Henderson, Deanna Downes, Aaron Cromie, Lee Etzold, Allison Polans. Bottom, L-R: Michael Alltop, Katie Gray, Seth Bauer. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

For a few brief moments before the stampede of footsteps is heard on the stairs, Michael Alltop stands surveying his new office space. It inhabits a converted apartment, complete with retro lime-green kitchen counters, in the upper stories of the building where, two floors below, The Khyber's bar staff are wiping up last night's beer spillages. The third floor, by contrast, is rarely the scene of a capacity crowd. Until this week. "Somehow," Alltop puzzles, "I need to work out how to get 30 people into this room."

As if on cue, they start arriving:

Ian Jarvis, one-half of the duo known locally as Franzschubert, followed soon by his partner in rock, Andrew Lipke.

Lee Etzold, taking time away from her ensemble acting work with New Paradise Laboratories.

Heather Henderson, a filmmaker whose short work, Podonuts, just screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival.

They've all come to the offices of Brat Productions to meet Alltop, the new artistic director, many for the first time. Eventually, the crowd tops out at 10, but within the week Alltop's estimate will be met: More than 30 musicians, writers, performers and directors will gather here, ready to form five groups, and each will have five days to whip up a short play powered by rock music and dramatic surprise.

"Logistically, this show is tough," Alltop says, laughing, perhaps at the understatement. Within days of his hiring, Alltop was reminded by Brat's board that two new shows had to go up before June � which, he adds, "is kind of how Brat rolls." But since Alltop had moved down from New York � and away from a six-year stint with educational theater purveyors TheatreWorks � to take the job in February, he has treated the show, Three Chord Fiction, as a hyper-speed meet-and-greet with some of Brat's longtime collaborators. As he takes the reins from Madi Distefano, who founded the company in 1996, how Brat continues is up to him. "One of my main goals," he said, "is wanting to make these connections a little more explicit. Is there a way to make this more of an artistic home for some of these people?"

Distefano, now spreading her wings as the company's resident artist, is adamant: "Brat really needed this transition." While known for her bold ideas, she is the first to admit that the time she spent as an artist couldn't also be spent on the company's plans. "Budgeting, pre-production, grant-writing � I kept falling behind on all those things." Stepping into her new role so far hasn't limited or dictated her involvement in any Brat show � and when Alltop discussed rounding up a crew of musicians and theater folk to work on Three Chord Fiction, she didn't hesitate to pass along her contacts. Or, to be more exact, her list of friends on MySpace.

Clicking through Distefano's Top Eight and beyond, Alltop spotted who might share a taste for mushing together styles of music and performance � ones that don't belong but might get thrown together in a chaotic play-writing process. Allison Polans, a musician whose band has a newly minted name, Papertrees, hopes she'll be bringing her cellist to take part in her segment. And Franzschubert, who performed at Brat and New Paradise's oil-wrestling throwdown/fundraiser last July, have mastered theatricality, led by Lipke's musical chops and Jarvis as white-suited bandleader. "This all began," Jarvis explains of the band, "as we used to try to outjoke each other." Other musicians slated to take the stage (and possible roles) include Danny MacKane of psych-rockers Quadrogong, folkie Devin Greenwood and skate-punk Toothless George. As Distefano puts it, "To say, 'I'm an actor-singer-dancer-writer-director,' that's very Philadelphia."

Perhaps it's that breadth of genres in the group's backgrounds that causes a collective hesitation when this reporter mentions the words: "rock opera." Isn't that what they're creating? The form has resurged in the city, thanks in great part to Pig Iron's James Joyce is Dead and So is Paris, The Broken Hipsters (both from 2003) and James Sugg's 2006 Fringe hit The Sea. And Brat's Eye-95, created by Distefano in 1996, got a fully charged upgrade last year (as Eye-95 Re-tarred) with a rockabilly songbook.

Katie Gray, writer and performer, is the first to jump in. "I've got to say, I prefer 'rock opera' to the alternative � 'rock musical,'" she laughs. "Rent is a rock musical." Seth Bauer, a writer and recent New York transplant, agrees: "Let's pile on Rent."

Polans, who undertook Brat's Moby Dick: Rehearsed as an actor in 2004, says that she jumped at the chance to walk that musical-theatrical line again. "My music has grown so, so much since then," she says. For Henderson, "What matters is how much fun this is � and why can't there be more like it?" And Alltop can't help noticing: "Bands have ready-made audiences. I've so often worried about bringing in a crowd � with this one, the names are enough."

And the crowd breaks up, discussing the relative merits of audiences sitting or standing at a rock show that's also theater. One of the directors, Deanna Downes, confides that she expects the venue and the performers' energy to take her halfway there: "I might just need to stand in the corner and point."

Spoiler alert.

Minutes later, up on the roof above the offices, a piece of paper is being passed around. It reads, "Glitter and Doom." That's their mission, the shared title of all five plays. Jarvis starts riffing on his chronic glitter phobia, and it suddenly feels as if these scripts and songs would need mere hours, not days, to gestate.

There's beauty in that speed. As Aaron Cromie, director and Eye-95 veteran, puts it: "The whole thing's like a whirlwind hookup. ... Afterward, you say, 'That was amazing. Now we have to break up.'"

Lipke adds: "And don't call."

But staying MySpace friends? Not so hard.

(j_fletcher@citypaper.net)

Three Chord Fiction runs Sat.-Sun., May 6-7, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $15, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-627-2577, www.bratproductions.org.

 

Things That Matter To People Who Matter
First Friday Focus
Direct, Current
Galaxy Quest
Mamet is for Closers
Mod Squad
Manon of Means
How Sassy Changed My Life
Irene Zabytko