Lighting design by our Technical Emerging Artist Will Jonez
With the power vested in Painted Bride Art Center we cordially invite you to attend The Secret Show, April 24 at 7pm. Whether you hate them, love them, or love to hate them we all have experiences with weddings. And that is what director/creators Nell Bang-Jensen and Tommy Butler have set out to explore. Our curators send us on a journey that melds ceremony, nostalgia, tradition, and performance, seeking answer to a question so many of us want to know: Why tie the knot?
Every fourth Monday of the month, Secret Show invites emerging and esteemed local artists to take over the Painted Bride stage and produce the hour-long artistic experience of their dreams. The catch? You can’t know any details about the show until the lights go down and the curtain rises!
Curators of April’s Secret Show:
NELL BANG-JENSEN is a Philadelphia-based theater maker. She is Associate Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company and has worked as a director, dramaturg and performer for The Wilma Theater, Applied Mechanics, Hedgerow Theatre, University of the Arts, Plays & Players, and InterAct, among others. She served as Artistic Associate at The Wilma Theater for three years during the creation of the Hothouse Company. Nell is an Adjunct Professor at The University of the Arts and a graduate of Swarthmore College. Since 2010, she has co-created three original works (Makeshift/Looks Like Everyone Has Left/Road May Flood) and was awarded a 2011 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for independent study and travel in seven countries. Nell is a current participant in the Leadership U: One-on-One program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group.
TOMMY BUTLER is a Philadelphia-based director and play-maker, an Associate Artist with Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, and the Artistic Director/Co-Founder of #theaternow. Recent directing credits include HYPOTHETICALS: a bite-size sound spectacle (Team Sunshine), Everything’s Thing! (Passage Theater Company/#theaternow, DC Metro Theater Arts Staff Pick, favorite performance of 2016), Two Losers Present: The Exit Strategy (#theaternow), Homegrown and Growing (McCarter Theatre, Education), AMERICA: The Gayest Story Ever Told (Actor’s Express), AN ILIAD (which #theaternow toured to the Kirkgate Theatre in England), and HENRY IV: Your Prince and Mine (as Associate Director/Script Master – Team Sunshine/Shakespeare in Clark Park, 2014 Falstaff Awards Nomination for Best Script Adaptation). Tommy is a 2014 Production Ensemble Guest Lecturer at Swarthmore College (Philadelphia, PA), 2011 Directing Fellow at The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), 2011 Project Intern with The Civilians (New York City, NY) and a 2010 Resident Directing Intern at Actor’s Express (Atlanta, GA). Tommy holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Performance from Westminster College of Fine & Performing Arts (Rider University).
2017 SECRET SHOW SCHEDULE
January 23: The Tuesday Boys
February 27: Doug Greene
March 27: Joshua Campbell
April 24: Tommy Butler and Nell Bang-Jensen
May 22: MR Stine
