Philly Fringe Debuts THE ARTISTS' WOMEN, 9/14-16

Emerging young playwright, Annie R. Such, brings to life the wives, lovers, mistresses and mothers of famous artists throughout history in the debut of The Artists' Women, which will have five performances in the course of one weekend during the 2012 Philly Fringe Festival.

Performances will be held at The Philadelphia Art Alliance (251 South 18th Street, Philadelphia) on the following dates and times: Friday, September 14th at 8:00 PM, Saturday, September 15th at 4:30 and 8:00 PM and Sunday, September 16th at 11:00 and 4:30 PM.

The Artists' Women marries history with artistry. The story revolves around Camille Claudel, longtime lover of Auguste Rodin and a brilliant sculptor in her own right, on her journey into madness as she's paralleled and guided by the women of different artists throughout history. Accompany Dora Maar as she photographs Picasso, witness Lucrezia Buti as she rejects her convent vows for Fra Fillipo Lippi, and watch the extraordinary Marcel Duchamp as he morphs into his alter-ego, the scandalous Rose Selavy.

These women and more congregate in timeless Paris, France and share their stories of love, betrayal, fear and envy as they live with their artists and battle the artists' ideal woman, the muse.

Brought to the stage by YeuxVeuxBelle Collective, a trio of alumni from the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts at the University of the Arts, The Artists' Women is a piece of historical fiction that gives the audience a chance to see these well-known artists from a different perspective – that of the women in their lives.

The Artists' Women stars Shannon Remley as Camille Claudel, Gene Connelly as Rodin, Brendan Norton as Marcel Duchamp/Rose Selavy and Brittany Kvitko as L'Egerie (the Muse). The show also features Sam Nagel, Pamela Dollak, Maria Wolf, Ellie Ruttenberg, Gracie Martin, Will Thompson, and Judith Feingold. It will be directed by Jeffery Hyman and produced by Jarrod Ian Markman, both of whom, along with playwright Annie R. Such, are the founders of the YeuxVeuxBelle Collective.

The show is also multi-lingual, pulling from the English, French, Italian and Spanish languages to reflect the world of each woman and invite the audience into the dialogue. This play will not just be a performance, it will be a visual and auditory feast that conveys the humanity and tragedy of the interlinking stories on stage.

This play provides an opportunity for talented actresses to dive into rarely written juicy female roles. In addition, the show will integrate the Philadelphia theater community with the Philadelphia visual arts community by mounting at The Philadelphia Art Alliance, a textile and craft?basEd Gallery, and displaying original art as part of the performance.

For more information, go to www.artistswomen.com. For tickets, contact the Festival Box Office at (215) 413?1318 or visit http://livearts-fringe.org/.

About YeuxVeuxBelle Collective: YeuxVeuxBelle Collective dedicates itself to new, original work that explores the understanding of aesthetics and art and pushes the envelope in exploring the realm of beauty. YeuxVeuxBelle Collective asks, "What is beauty?" and incorporates multiple mediums with live performance to find beauty in not only the winsome, but also the grotesque, violent, and unsavory aspects of human nature. YeuxVeuxBelle seeks to challenge conventional aesthetics with the highest form of new, inventive theater.

About the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe: The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe were originally founded in 1997 as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Today, the Live Arts Festival serves as a series of selected cutting?edge, boundary?breaking performing arts events, created by some of the most renowned contemporary artists from our region and around the world. The Fringe serves as a collective home for artists bringing their work to audiences in ever-conceivable form-in traditional and non-traditional venues, using new and established artistic forms, breaking rules or redefining them.

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