CLOSE UP Video Interviews

Docent Charlie Karl gives a floor-by-floor history tour of the Rosenbach Museum and Library in downtown Philadelphia. Known for its collection of important manuscripts first additions, illustrated copies of literary works and artifacts the Rosenbach houses the personal collection of the rare book dealer Dr. A.S.W, Rosenbach. With his brother, Philip, he had a 50 year run as a dealer in books and manuscripts. "Renowned dealers in books, manuscripts, and fine art, the brothers played a central role in the development of private libraries that later became our nation’s most important public collections of rare books, such as the Folger and Huntington Libraries."  (from the Museum's website). Karl sprinkles narrative with anecdotes. For an exhibition to celebrate Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, first published as “The Whale,” lamps were lit with whale oil. At the very top of the multi-floor staircase, we encounter a miniature model version of the Rosenbach’s New York office. So much attention is paid to detail that six tiny books in the model are actually miniaturized books. Watch video tour here.

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A portrait of the renowned actress Fanny Kemble painted by James Sully in 1833 is the departure point for docent Charlie Karl’s fact-filled and wry tour of the Rosenbach Museum and Library. Karl relates that Kemble, who came from a renowned British theatrical family traveled to the U.S. with her father in 1832 to do dramatic Shakespeare readings along the East Coast. During a stay in Philadelphia she met Pierce Butler and in 1834 they married. Britain had abolished slavery in 1833. The fact that her husband owned 700 slaves on a Georgia plantation and made trips there without the family was such a source of discomfort to Kemble that she insisted on going with her husband and children to visit. There she journaled and tried to improve the lot of the women slaves. The experience became the basis for her book “Journal of a residence on a Georgia plantation” not published until Kemble had divorced, returned to England and the civil war had ended. In her later years, Kemble, who saw herself more as an artist and writer, resumed dramatic readings, crisscrossing the ocean. Watch video of portrait and short life story of actress writer Fanny Kemble here.

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In a room of the Rosenbach Museum and Library dedicated to the literature of Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland the James Joyce manuscript of Ulysses sits in several boxes behind a glass covered bookcase. Guide Charlie Karl recites a ditty Joyce had written exhibiting his distain for Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, as a collector.

“Rosy Brook he bought a book
Though he didn’t know how to spell it
Such is the lure of literature
To the lad who can buy and sell it”
(According to the Rosenbach blog, a telegraph operator had apparently misspelled the title in a message)

Karl relates the backstory: At a manuscript auction, Rosenbach had purchased acclaimed Joseph Conrad manuscripts for a hefty sum but was able to acquire Joyce’s Ulysses manuscript from a collector, to whom Joyce had sold it, at a relative bargain. Subsequently, Joyce wanted the manuscript back but Rosenbach declined. Karl posits that Joyce didn’t really sufficiently appreciate Rosenbach as a bibliophile, who held literary works in such esteem that he mentored a generation of private collectors and enthusiasts dedicated to the preservation of these works. Watch video here.

Your correspondent is helping out with "Witness for Prosecution," the Agatha Christie play at the Stagecrafters Theater in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia running November 22nd through December 8th. He cornered a few actors who indulged him by delivering their favorite lines.  The clip below features Jaime Roanne Schwartz as Greta, Mark Sherlock as Leonard Vole, John Pinto as Justice Wainwright, Tom Tansey as Sir Wilfred, Tom Libonate as Mr. Myers,and Leah O'Hara as Romaine.NOTE: CONTAINS POTENTIAL SPOILERS

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Participating in Renaissance fairs is what brought teacher Ken Nichols and student Ann Nicholson together in Nichols' current class through the Mount Airy Learning Tree, "Swashbuckling for Stage and Screen." At fairs around the country, Nichols would focus on swordplay, jousting and choreographing. He eventually earned certification in stage-fighting and now teaches the art at colleges and choreographs fights for theater productions. At the medieval fairs, Nicholson, alternatively focused on the dramatic portrayals and now hopes to add combat skills to her repertoire. Your correspondent signed up for the course fancying it might be fun to flourish a sabre like Errol Flynn. In class, we are learning and practicing an array of thrusts, slashes and parries with our blunt edged and tipped swords along with some footwork. We are working our way toward performing a convincing sword-fight scene and, with proper cuing, not getting hurt! Video of class stage-fighting with swords for theater and movies

​Performing and visual artist Karla Milugo from Brooklyn and beyond is taking an artist hiatus in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. In the month she is planning to spend here, Milugo is doing art and exploring the Philly environs. Your interviewer encountered her wearing a large, crafted camera apparatus at the Germantown Kitchen Garden urban farm oasis where a potluck picnic and concert was taking place. The camera is also a balloon pumping station and Milugo entertains kids by blowing up balloons and drawing their likeness on them. Milugo also spoke of her Preacher Faith Faucet  person and her book divination projects and  she indulged your interviewer by demonstrating her whistling prowess and singer creds. As the sun was setting the lively salsa band Combo Melaza rocked the crowd including Milugo who videoed while she salsa-ed.

​Sarah Mitteldorf's physical theater ensemble, Kaleid ("As in Kaleidoscope. As in Collide") had a work in progress last fall and then, as she tells it, "November 8th happened" and they had to scrap the piece. In response to the nasty and violent rhetoric directed against women, people of color, and the LGBT community that led up to President Trump's election and in response to what Mitteldorf calls a developing "national narrative" of disconnect and exclusion, they are using the tools available to them as creative artists. In her director role, Mitteldorf asks her actors to express the emotions that the current social climate triggers, such as disbelief and anger, through layered text and movement. Kaleid Theater will perform "Scape-ing" at the First United Church of Germantown on April 27, 28 and 29. Watch video interview here.

When Tiffany Gaal is not selling popcorn or sweeping up spilled popcorn at the 100 year-old, one screen Hiway  [Movie] Theater in Jenkintown, Pa., she’s auditioning for or appearing in musical theater. After the early evening screening of “Jersey Boys,” the story of singer Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, your correspondent cajoled Gaal into singing while she was restocking the snack stand. She chose “Come with me” from the epilogue of Les Miz, the musical she is most desirous of performing in. For good measure, I got her to sing some of Valli’s hit song, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”  

Watch video here.

In the accompanying video, Andrew Heller, Gaal’s work partner at the Hiway, appears in a non-singing role.

Watch video interview here At the next to last performance of “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde at the Stagecrafters Theater in Chestnut Hill, 78 year old __________ fondly recalled how, as a child, she used to chased chickens, play hide and seek and jump rope with her many cousins in the theater auditorium back when it was her grandparents’ barn. (Aiman family)

In Bethlehem, because there was no room at the inn, in a barn Mary had just given birth to a baby boy named Jesus, weighing in at 8 pounds 2 ounces. Wise men guided by the north star brought gifts of gold incense and myrrh. Baby Jesus was wrapped in white linen and in this reenactment of the nativity scene by members of the Conshohocken PA Methodist Church, wore earmuffs because of the cold. Watch video here.

“Nayus, son of Hamuka. You wish me to talk into your box, yes? There’s a man in there. He captures the moment as though it was real for all the world to see. He comes to the festival to partake in such beautiful festivities. Look at the lovely, lovely lasses as they play their music. Nayus likes to  do such… Nayus is actually from a place called Tamriel. Yes, for you see he was transported here. Oh yes, my name is Nayus, apologies yes. Nayus, son of Hamuka is my name. I am from a place called Tamriel. A lot of people don’t understand what Tamriel is.  Maybe you have actually heard of Skyrim, yes? No, you have not heard of Skyrim? It is a place really popular among these people, they understand. Nayus, on his last trip, he encountered, how you say, the dragon priest, yes. And the battle raged on for hours on end. And finally, Nayus finally got the upper hand on the dragon priest and the dragon priest got weak and tired and ripped open a portal and sent Nayus through the portal and here is in this realm amongst all the lovely young women and lasses and lads. And now I am here but I really wish to return to my home even though, like I said, the lasses are truly beautiful. Yes, that is who- Nayus…” Nayus, son of Hamuka, of Tamriel of Skyrim, in the realm of the Japanese Sakura Festival, Fairmount Park Horticultural Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Watch video here.