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Nice and Fresh December

IMG_4851Nice and Fresh December

Featured performances and creations by Putty Dance Project, Hella Fresh Theater, Almanac, and SmokeyScout Productions. A great time had by all. Above, Brent White and Lauren Putty White of Putty Dance Project performing Emoticon.

Friday December 5 at 6pm and 8pm

Saturday December 6 at 6pm and 8pm

Moving Arts of Mount Airy
6819 Greene Street
Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA

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Promo photo of Sarah Knittel for her role as Joni in Joni and the Doorman, which also featured Ethan Lipkin and was written and directed by Josh McIlvain of SmokeyScout Productions. Photo: Said Johnson

SLIDESHOW RETURNS

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“The punchy-colored slides and humorous yet heartfelt prose McIlvain recites is as uncanny and nostalgic as some of our own family scrapbooks.” Philadelphia City Paper

“Ingenious travel down memory lane!” Stage Magazine

2 special house shows in Philadelphia this holiday season!

Wednesday December 17 at 8pm

Thursday December 18 at 8pm

Chris the Brit’s House, South and Front Street (exact address provided after ticket purchase).

$10 / slideshow.brownpapertickets.com / Extremely limited seating, must purchase in advance.

Nice and Fresh: November

Nice and Fresh: November

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November 15 at 6pm + 8pm November 16 at 6pm + 8pm

READ ALL ABOUT THE SERIES IN OUR PRESS!

Featured New Creations by

Alex Dremann
Megan Flynn (Saturday only)
Josh McIlvain
Shannon Murphy
Teresa VanDenend Sorge (Friday only)

Moving Arts of Mount Airy 
Greene Street and Carpenter Lane
(across from Weavers Way Co-Op in beautiful Mount Airy), Philadelphia, PA.

Art for the price of a sandwich!

Photo by Bill Hebert.

Photo by Bill Hebert.

Nice and Fresh October!

Nice and Fresh

returns!

Nice and Fresh_Lanston Darby and Jonathan Steadman_Photo by Said Johnson

Pop-up Performances of New Theater and Dance

Thanks for coming out to Nice and Fresh October!

Art for the price of a sandwich!

New work by

Awful DJ (comedy troupe from NYC); dance by Barbara Tait; dance by Katie C. Sopoci Drake (from Washington D.C.); theater by Josh McIlvain of SmokeyScout Productions.

Each piece is 10–15 minutes long, entire show is 65 minutes.

Moving Arts of Mount Airy 
Greene Street and Carpenter Lane
(across from Weavers Way Co-Op in beautiful Mount Airy), Philadelphia, PA.

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The Nice and Fresh series is dedicated to the idea that artists need to create, performers need to perform, and audiences need to see new work.

S L I D E SHOW

 

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S  L  I  D  E  SHOW

created and performed by Josh McIlvain, just finished its run at the 2014 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, the slideshow was a staple of American life. SLIDESHOW drops audiences back in the time of Kodachrome colors, weaving a fictional family history around strangers’ real slides of long ago vacations. A bizarre, funny, and disturbing work that brings the past into the present.

“The punchy-colored slides and humorous yet heartfelt prose McIlvain recites is as uncanny and nostalgic as some of our own family scrapbooks.” Read the City Paper review!

“Ingenious travel down memory lane!” Read the Stage Magazine Review!

75 minutes

SLIDESHOW will be back and on tour in 2014/15! Check back for details and opportunities to host a SLIDESHOW performance in your living room!

Here’s some more press:

INTERVIEW IN PHINDIE.COM WITH SLIDESHOW CREATOR JOSH MCILVAIN.

PROFILE ON SLIDESHOW ON WHYY NEWSWORKS

PREVIEW OF SLIDESHOW IN CITY PAPER

Slideshow_Josh McIlvain_photo by Deborah Crocker_1

 

American Wisdom: all done!

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smokeyscout productions presents

AMERICAN WISDOM

a trio of one acts about dogs, neighbors and bosses

Directed by
Chris Czyz and Josh McIlvain

Written by
Josh McIlvian

Starring
Thomas DeMarcus
Josh Lay
Paul McElwee
Ed Miller
Valerie O’Hara
Anna Watson

April 3-5 at 8pm

JUNK Performance Space
2040 Christian Street
(South) Philadelphia, PA

Read the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer!

Read the interview in Phindie.com

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American Wisdom includes . . .

THANKS FOR THE PLANT, THANKS FOR THE CONE.
The world premiere of a skewed morality tale about a neighbor whose plant has just died, a neighbor whose cone is missing, and a neighbor who just wants everyone to get along.

For The Dogs
Debt, dogs, and love demand a complicated balance in the search for a decent life in this humorous one-woman play.

Waiting For The Boss
A tense, comedic drama about the intimate revelations between day laborers who care nothing for each other.

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Founded in 2008, SmokeyScout Productions creates work that brings the absurdity of contemporary life to the stage with brilliant acting, bold humor, inventive staging, and a respect for audience intelligence. Based in Philadelphia, the company’s production of American Wisdom is their first New York City show since 2008, and features performers from both cities.

“Brings on the funny, tinged with an urban edge.” –Philadelphia City Paper

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Nice and Fresh: Winter Series

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SmokeyScout Productions presents

Nice and Fresh: Winter Series

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Pop up Performances of New Theater and Dance and Circus Arts

Hosted by the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts in Germantown

Featuring Amazing New Creations

by

Megan Mazarick and Les Rivera

Kendra Greaves and Cole Della-Zucca

Josh McIlvain of SmokeyScout Productions

John Rosenberg of Hella Fresh Theater

Philadelphia School of Circus Arts
5900 Greene Street (entrance on Rittenhouse St), Germantown, Philadelphia

Nice and Fresh: Winter Series

kendra cole

“We find an exciting partner in Josh McIlvain and SmokeyScout Productions’ commitment to curating a cross section of Philly’s performing arts community. Circus is often overlooked as a distinct art form, and we are looking forward to presenting work alongside the dancers, movers, playwrights and art-makers that populate this series.” –Marc Miller, managing director of the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts

“I’m interested in the many artistic forms that constitute performance and yet exist separately: theater versus dance versus multimedia and all the subgroups within artistic disciplines, which tend to isolate themselves from each other. I like putting these different forms side-by-side in one show. For audiences, it’s a snapshot of the directions various artists and disciplines are stretching themselves—and for me, it’s fun to see all this wildly different work in one place.”—Josh McIlvain, series curator and contributor, director of SmokeyScout Productions

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Return of Confession of a Plate and Shoe–all done!

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Return of Confessions of a Plate and Shoe: the best ever evening of outrageous short comedies by Josh McIlvain. Performed by Danielle Adams, Sebastian Cummings, Sarah Knittel, Katherine Perry, Jennifer Summerfield, and Ryan Walter.

THANKS FOR COMING TO THE SHOW, AND IF YOU DIDN’T COME, YOU SHOULD FEEL VERY BAD ABOUT IT. READ THE REVIEW FROM PHINDIE.COM!

RETURN OF CONFESSIONS OF A PLATE AND SHOE (SmokeyScout): 60-second review

June 28, 2013 – Jessica Foley

Josh McIlvain’s RETURN OF CONFESSIONS OF A PLATE AND SHOE should be put in a time capsule and used by future generations as a how-to manual titled “How-to-produce-the greatest-show-ever.” Okay, calling this show, “the greatest show ever” may seem like an overreaching marketing phrase, but I assure its not. RETURN is the greatest show of the 2012/13 theater season. Not to disrespect the larger Philadelphia theater companies, SmokeyScout Productions is reaping one of the benefits of mounting a low-budget, black box minimal production they can afford to make bold choices. McIlvain makes all the right choices. Not a minute is wasted, every inch of the Adrienne’s Sky Box is utilized. The fearless ensemble of six actors dressed in Stanislavski-neutral black crash their bodies into walls, and floor stretching their protean muscles to the max portraying a variety of species, monkeys, fish, psychopathic caterers. I am not sure if there is anything Danielle Adams, Sebastian Cummings, Sarah Knittel, Katherine Perry, Jennifer Summerfield, and Ryan Walter can not portray. June 19 to 29, 2013; smokeyscout.com.

ReturnClownFront_72dpiRead what audiences  posted about the show:

“All I will say for now: Go see it, if you’ve ever wanted to quit the theater because you wanted to own a house in New Jersey near a duck pond, and have a toddler named Vivian. Josh McIlvain’s Confessions of a Plate & Shoe will remind you why you opted to endure abject poverty to work in theater to begin with.” JF

“Loved the show, excellent actors, would like to see anything you do.” MG

“Funny, funny show. I was kind of sorry when it was over- I could have laughed longer.” AP

“Saw opening night. Veery funny. Thanks plate. Thanks shoe.” MK

“What a fantastic opening!” JR

“It was so much fun!” TVA

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BROTHER HOUSE begins its journey

Chris and Ed

Thanks to all who came to the script-in-hand performance of a work-in-progress play.

Brother House is about an architect who is lives in the shell of a house made of wood paneling that only rises three feet off the ground. When the architect’s old college friend visits the structure after if has won an architecture prize for best conceptual dwelling, buried tensions come to the fore, including who had the idea for this house first. This seriocomic examination of the absurd meeting the mundane digs into the myth of normalcy, the desire to appropriate others’ living spaces, and the diverging paths of old friends.

Written and directed by Josh McIlvain, Brother House is being developed with the creative contributions of Ed Miller and Christopher McGovern in an intensive five-week rehearsal and workshopping process that culminated in the reading. The work will be revisited and further developed later this year.

Thanks to Underground Arts for hosting!

Ed Miller.

Ed Miller.