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Browse This Issue: August 30th, 2007

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Fringe Takes On the World
All Over The Map
by Patrick Rapa
This year Nick Stuccio and Co. lured artists from Vietnam, Congo, Bulgaria — and a bunch of other places we see only on Google Earth — to Philly stages.

Sticking To It
Talking X's and O's with Tar's dancer-choreographer Charles O. Anderson.
by Janet Anderson
Charles O. Anderson seems huge, with his bare, muscled chest, shaved head and, usually, an African wrapped skirt at his waist. When his bare feet are slapping the floor and his arms are swiveling like a windmill, it doesn't matter if he's surrounded by his Dance Theatre X troupe, because he's The Man.

Global Warming
An increasing number of Live Arts/Fringe acts are from far, far away.
by Rachel Frankford
"There's been this great buildup of arts here, and people around the world know that. I can go to London or ... Hong Kong, and people go, 'Yeah I know your festival.' 'Yeah, I know Pig Iron' — in Prague."

From Afar
A guide to this year's Live Arts/Fringe imports.
by Rachel Frankford

Off Script
Improv master Bobbi Block lures veteran stage actors to take a leap outside the lines.
by Mark Cofta
"My interest in exploring realism," says Block, "is that what's real could make you laugh, could cut you, could pull your heart. ... It isn't just pushing, pushing, pushing for the funny. I have great respect for comedians — but I want more."

Improv (No Lines!)
They're making it up as they go.
by Mark Cofta

Exquisite Corpse
How Pig Iron got hooked up with Shakespeare — and retrofitted him with a necrophiliac mortician.
by Steve Cohen
"Because a character is going to be executed for having premarital sex, we thought of setting our version in Arabia and we used veils and sand, but it didn't work. Then Dan thought of setting it in a morgue."

Cooking With Gas
Thaddeus Phillips returns to Earth with a peak oil parable.
by A.D. Amorosi
CP: You seem to enjoy putting performance artists in treacherous, uncomfortable situations. What's that say about you? TP: I am a very curious person. Sometimes that curiosity brings on trouble.

Fest Guesses
Our staff handicaps the best bets and must-sees at this year's Live Arts/Fringe Festival