Earlier Projects
The Garden
The Brick Playhouse— Philadelphia, PA
June 4 - 6, 2000
Directed by Joe Shahadi
This piece combined an Elizabethan folk song about a king who has to "cut his wife open" as she dies in childbirth to save their baby, with stories of my teenage brother's and my mother-in-law's death, and descriptions of my garden each season of the year to explore death and rejuvenation.
Petals From the Same Flower
Rosenbach Museum & Library— Philadelphia, PA
April 11 - May 22, 2001
Directed by Greg Giovanni
Costume by Gregory Nelson and Candy Depew, installation by Candy Depew
With Elizabeth Boggs on harpsichord and Michael Simmons on guitar
I was commissioned by the Rosenbach to make a piece in response to their collection of rare books, 18th century furniture and decorative arts. I was fascinated by the way the brothers used their collections to reinvent themselves: They grew up the sons of middle-class Jewish merchants who went bankrupt but as the brothers amassed a fortune from selling rare books in the 1920s, they assumed the lavish lifestyle of English country gentlemen.
My performance took the audience on a guided tour of the museum, focusing on objects that were pretending to be something else (Chinoiserie mirrors, Empire furniture, Shakespeare forgeries) as well as on my own collecting habits to examine how we use our objects to redefine ourselves. My costume was an exact replica of an 18th-century dress, constructed using a historic pattern but rendered in decidedly contemporary fabric.
Photo by Aaron Igler
Video by Ed Dormer