The large stone chapel at 42nd and Spruce streets no longer echoes the sound of sermons, but soon the sound of guitar riffs and recordings from the '60s will reverberate through the building.
As one of three University-owned venues hosting events for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the former seminary chapel will house a play about Philadelphia in the '60s produced by experimental theater group New Paradise Laboratories.
From Sept. 2 to 17, the Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, as the program is formally known, will present over 150 cutting-edge arts performances throughout the city. More than 47,000 tickets were sold at last year's festival.
But what is the Fringe?
"This is a movement. A grassroots movement around the world," said Nick Stuccio, the festival's producing director. "It's artists from all over the world ‹¨« making as wild shit as possible."
For the first time in the festival's nine-year history, Penn students will have the convenience of watching major Fringe performances and finding festival information in their own neighborhood.
"Every other year of the Fringe Festival, you would have had to go to Second and Arch [to get information and buy tickets]. Now ‹¨« you can go to 3925 Walnut St.," said Andrew Zitcer, Penn's cultural asset manager. "That is something we have never had before."
The former site of the Cinemagic theater will serve as a hub for the festival, with a box office, brochures and staff available to answer questions.
The ex-movie theater will also serve as the stage for Brian Sanders's Patio Plastico, a dance act involving a tire swing and plastic soda bottles used as tap shoes.
In promotional materials, the venue is described as the "appropriately cement-faux-suburban-strip-mall," and Stuccio said the site is perfect for the show.
"This is a 1980s vintage place," he said. "The carpet, the whole thing. It's very much of an era that was kind of plastic. "
A few blocks away at 4012 Walnut St. , the Rotunda will host the first show in its domed room in over a decade. The Siobhan Davies Dance Company will perform Bird Song, aiming to perform a visual interpretation of sound.
The expansion of the Fringe Festival in West Philadelphia hints at the improving reputation of the area, Zitcer said.
"The trend-setters of the city are beginning to realize that West Philadelphia has a combination of a thriving economy ‹¨« as well as a diverse, committed and activist neighborhood that supports the arts," he said. "It is a perfect climate for arts to come in and shape a community consciousness."
For students navigating the festival for the first time, however, it can be a crap shoot, Stuccio said.
"The whole thing is risk-taking," he said. "The work is risk-taking, and your attempt at finding what you like is risk-taking too."
But guidance is available on the festival Web site and at the old Cinemagic site. Students will also receive $2 discounts with valid identification and $3 discounts with a Campus Philly tag, available at the three West Philadelphia locations. Regular ticket prices for all Fringe shows range from free to $25.
