Philadelphia City Paper, June 4th, 2015

Inside: Pop genius Brian Christinzio’s back in town.

P H I L A D E L P H I A

JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 ISSUE #1566

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

IN THIS ISSUE …

Sea urchin pasta

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BEYOND BAKLAVA “OPA HAS ALWAYS BEEN a solid restaurant,” says food critic Adam Erace. “Now it’s a great restaurant.” The difference-maker is new head chef Bobby Saritsoglou, who’s turned a menu of Greek classics into “an exciting, multiethnic tour-de-force.” Erace HILLARY PETROZZIELLO was especially fond of the uni, aka sea urchin. “Saritsoglou blends the apricot-colored roe into a lemony white wine sauce for a tangle of housemade egg noodles, meaty shrimp and clams like pats of butter.”

CP STAFF Associate Publisher Jennifer Clark Editor in Chief Lillian Swanson Senior Editor Patrick Rapa Arts & Culture Editor Mikala Jamison Food Editor Caroline Russock Senior Staff Writer Emily Guendelsberger Copy Chief Carolyn Wyman Contributors Sam Adams, Dotun Akintoye, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Bryan Bierman, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Mark Cofta, Adam Erace, David Anthony Fox, Caitlin Goodman, K. Ross Hoffman, Jon Hurdle, Deni Kasrel, Alli Katz, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Alex Marcus, Gair “Dev 79” Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, John Morrison, Michael Pelusi, Natalie Pompilio, Sameer Rao, Jim Saksa, Elliott Sharp, Marc Snitzer, Nikki Volpicelli, Brian Wilensky, Andrew Zaleski, Julie Zeglen.

Production Director Michael Polimeno Senior Designer Brenna Adams Designer/Social Media Director Jenni Betz Contributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Charles Mostoller, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria Pouchnikova, Neal Santos, Mark Stehle U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239) Account Managers Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Amanda Gambier (ext. 228), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262), Susanna Simon (ext. 250) Classified Account Manager Jennifer Fisher (215-717-2681) Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel founded City Paper in a Germantown storefront in November 1981. Local philanthropist Milton L. Rock purchased the paper in 1996 and published it until August 2014 when Metro US became the paper’s third owner.

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COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY Maria Pouchnikova COVER DESIGN Brenna Adams

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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THE BELL CURVE

QUICK PICKS

more picks on p. 23

+2

City Council is considering measures that would limit the use of anonymous “dark money” political ads. They’re also considering legislation that requires all horses to return to the barn.

-2

Two women are arrested for attempting to defraud the city’s Victims Compensation Assistance Program. Luckily, the arrest is rough enough that they now qualify for the program.

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The six cops acquitted of corruption charges are briefly named “grand marshals” of this year’s Hero Thrill Show, the annual stunt show organized

by Philly Police, before being replaced by the owner of the Irish Pub restaurant chain. She is later replaced by a cute beagle puppy that only barks at Black people.

Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says he’d rather the Pope didn’t issue a statement on climate change, since religion has frequently been on the wrong side of science. Listen, Rick: You can’t do 25 years of crazy and then start talking rational when it suits your political agenda.

Flip-flopper!

JEFF FUSCO

WEST PHILADELPHIA TRANS FEMME CONFERENCE Organizers of this first-annual conference say they aim to create an event “wholly defined by the needs of trans femmes.”

They invite trans women and CAMAB (coercively assigned male at birth) genderqueer individuals to attend (and submit programming ideas to transfemmesubmissions@gmail. com). The event is in response to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, which organizers of this weekend’s conference say has become less inclusive of trans women. Search “West Philadelphia Trans Femme Conference” on Facebook for more info. 6/5-6/6,A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave. —Mikala Jamison

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The FAA is investigating a hobbyist who was fined for flying a drone near Citizens Bank Park during a Phillies game.

FAA: It’s illegal to do this when there’s a game in progress!

Man: There was a game in progress?

FAA: Yes. Man: But, then where are all the cars?

FIN.

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A company called PinkBox unveils its first sex-toy vending machine in Philly. As for Bell Curve, we still prefer our local hole in the wall.

BEANIE SIGEL: THE RETURN The last time Philly’s famously infamous MC Beanie Sigel “returned,” it was in 2012 and we did a cover story on him and his then-charting new album This Time. Pretty much right after that he got arrested and sent to prison — only to be shot and hospitalized when he got out in 2014. The lesson here: You cannot stop the ever-righteous Beans. Let him rap on, and return. 6/6, TLA, ticketmaster. com. —A.D. Amorosi

MARK STEHLE

THIS WEEK ’S TOTAL: +1 // THE YEAR SO FAR: +15

OUR WEEKLY QUALITY-OF-LIFE-O-METER

BLACK-TIE GAYBINGO Suit up for some over-the-top camp and a worthy cause — proceeds go to HIV/AIDS services in Philly. At BlackTie GayBINGO you can eat a fancy dinner, sip cocktails, act rich by bidding in the silent auction and play six rounds of bingo while being entertained by the glam-drag BVDs (Bingo Verifying Divas). The AIDS Fund is also awarding their “Favorite Straight Person of the Year” award to the Preston and Steve Show — they do support the AIDS Fund and AIDS Walk Philly each year. 6/6, Crystal Tea Room, aidsfundphilly.org.

—Mikala Jamison

K IM B E R LY

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A South Philly group, including Jerry Blavat, is looking to raise money to re-create a mural now at Ninth and Passyunk depicting Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker, among others. None of those names sound familiar, but we assume they were the Kurt Viles of their day.

BELLE & SEBASTIAN It’s been about a decade since these twee Scottish sylphs could make you dance and cry at the same time, but that’s as much your fault as theirs.

You’re a bit older, they’re a lot happier, and we’re going to have to get down with dry eyes from now on, judging by their latest, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (Matador). It’s a pretty record, upbeat and gently Motown-ish. 6/9, Tower Theater, thetowerphilly.com.

—Patrick Rapa

STOOPID-NATURULL POP-UP ART SHOW What’s not to love about audiovisual collaborations? Take in some quirky mixed-media 2-D paintings along with live multimedia presentations by Juan Dimida, Jombi Supastar and James Tafel Shuster. Dimida and Supastar return to the gallery, and Shuster’s exhibiting for the first time. He sums up this show’s aesthetic pretty well: “My paintings strive to allow the image to move.” Neat.

Check out more First Friday art picks on p.19. 6/5-6/7, Jed Williams Gallery, jedwilliamsgallery.com. —Mikala Jamison

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THENAKEDCITY

NEWS // URBAN DEVELOPMEN T // REAL ESTATE

HOME RUSH: New construction, like these homes at 22nd and Race streets, is a common sight in Greater Center City. More than 16,000 units have been added since 2000. Last year, 1,983 new residential units were built.

MARK STEHLE

REAL ESTATE

BY ANDREW ZALESKI

A REPORT CARD ON GREATER CENTER CITY

Housing and population continue to grow, but jobs citywide aren’t keeping pace. How will all this affect public schools?

MILLENNIALS, EMPTY NESTERS and families with children are powering Greater Center City’s red-hot population and housing growth, according to a Center City District report, but there’s a red flag that is a cause for concern amid the prosperity: the lack of significant job growth citywide.

Center City District’s “State of Center City 2015” report, released in May, contains a wealth of information about how the city is changing. In a swath of Philadelphia bordered by Girard Avenue to the north and Tasker Avenue to the south, and the Schuylkill to the Delaware rivers from west to east, here is the picture in plain numbers: From 2000 to 2014, 16,661 new housing units were added to the section the Center City District calls Greater Center City.

Residential construction in 2014 alone saw 1,983 new units completed, a slight drop from the record set in 2013, when 2,168 new units were built. The new housing in 2014 included 1,358 apartments, 183 condos and 442 single-family homes.

A total of 2,772 units were sold in 2014 in Greater Center City, 25 units fewer than the 2,797 sold in 2013. But the average sales price rose 6 percent between 2013 and 2014, from $401,976 to $426,142. At the same time, the number of days a residence was on the market declined 14 percent, from 81 to 70.

The most sales took place west of Broad Street in Point Breeze, while the core of Center City, especially east of Broad, drew the highest prices. The largest growth in average sales prices, 14 percent year over year, occurred in the neighborhoods south

of Pine Street and east of Broad. Those who purchased a home in this area in 2014 paid on average, $419,419, compared to an average price of $368,764 in 2013.

“Philadelphia can be proud that job and population trends have turned upward.

But in each recovery cycle in the last four decades, gains were never sufficient to recapture losses from the prior downtown,” Paul Levy, president and CEO of Center City District, wrote in a foreword to the report. “Being a little bit better is not enough. If strong leaders focus on tax reform, infrastructure and education, this time can be different.”

Levy sat down with City Paper last week to talk in-depth about the outlook for Greater City City. Mostly, he painted a rosy picture, punctuated by points of concern.

“This has been one of the most steady and sustained areas of residential growth,” he said. “Girard to Tasker, river to river. …

That is the fastest-growing portion of the city, which is very, very good news.”

Indeed, the amount of people crammed into Greater Center City’s 7.7 square miles is staggering: 183,240. That’s 16 percent more than in 2000, and makes Greater Center City second only to Midtown Manhattan when it comes to the population size of the country’s downtowns.

The population growth is influenced by the increase over the years in the number of jobs concentrated there. With 293,700 jobs, Greater Center City holds just above 43 percent of all jobs in Philadelphia. Nearly 28,000 people live and work in Greater

Girard to Tasker, river to river. …

That is the fastest-growing portion of the city, which is very, very good news.

Center City.

About 148,000 Philadelphians work in Center City’s core, an area bordered by Vine Street on the north and Pine Street on the south. While the office-based economy still dominates in Greater Center City, Levy said that the education and health care sectors have also been growing rapidly in recent years, a key fact that contributes to the interplay of jobs, job seekers and the housing market.

“Eds and meds bring a huge number of students into town, and this has been key to the city’s housing health,” he said. “About 116,000 students who are here in Center City, University City, Temple [University], are drivers for retail, restaurants and apartments.”

Restaurants and retail shops have been factors in pulling people into Greater Center City. The report tallied nearly 1,000 restaurants, including “a record 369 outdoor cafés,” and Levy cited the opening of new stores along Chestnut Street specifically. Not to be overlooked as well is Philadelphia’s transit system, the buses and trains that Levy said are “maybe underinvested in” but still “really good in terms of feeding the downtown” with people from all over Philly.

Levy acknowledged that a minimal amount of displacement is taking place. The pattern, he said, is that young renters

continued on p. 6

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A REPORT CARD ON GREATER CENTER CITY

continued f rom p. 4

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CONVERSION: The historic Icon Building, 1616 Walnut St. in the heart of Center City, has recently been converted from offices to residences.

The first tenants moved in in the spring.

MARK STEHLE

move from apartments in the core of Center City to houses in the surrounding neighborhoods that make up Greater Center City.

“They can’t afford the downtown housing market, so they’re moving outward and that’s the housing market working in many ways,” he said. “It’s this sort of outward trend that’s going on.”

But Levy said that neither displacement nor “hyper growth” — like what has happened to skyrocketing rents in San Francisco — are major sources of worry here. Rather,

he said two constraints that could determine whether Philadelphians, particularly millennials, make that progression from the core of Center City to nearby neighborhoods: funding for schools and dynamic job growth.

“At its best, Philadelphia has been a slow-but-steadygrowth city. I think it needs a kick in the ass to be a slightly more dynamic growing city,” he said.

Philadelphia lags in job creation compared to

continued on p. 8

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A REPORT CARD ON GREATER CENTER CITY

continued f rom p. 6

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Washington, D.C., Boston and New York City. According to the “State of Center City 2015” report, Philadelphia has lost 6.8 percent of private jobs since 1990.

In the four suburban counties — Delaware, Montgomery, Chester and Bucks — employment rates have increased; in Philadelphia, unemployment has gone from 6.3 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2013. Job growth in the office sector, the number one economic driver in Greater Center City, has “actually been going downward,

‘At its best, Philadelphia has been a slow-but-steady-growth city. I think it needs a kick in the ass to be a slightly more dynamic growing city.’ which is a challenge,” Levy said.

The “State of Center City 2015” report explains the benefit of jobs within the office sector: “Office buildings offer the broadest range of opportunity at all skill levels, house the highest-compensated positions, and drive the largest demand for service and retail expenditures in the city.”

Levy also mentioned that it’s better job growth that will be the reason for many older millennials — the ones

between ages 25 and 29 who are finished with school and looking for work — to stick around Philadelphia and continue building up Greater Center City.

“We have a steady supply of young people who will become college students and come out, but then it drops off,” he said.

“If you’ve got dynamic job growth in a portion of the city for young talented people, you can get strong housing demand in that area.”

Growing the job base will also help fund schools, Levy said.

“This is a great opportunity for Philadelphia to lock in people who want to be here by making sure there’s jobs and schools,” he said.

“You don’t get these opportunities too often.” (editorial@citypaper.net)

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LGBT AFFAIRS

BY NATALIE POMPILIO

SEEKING ‘DIGNITY AND RESPECT’ FOR TRANS MEN AND WOMEN ONE OF THE FIRST NEWS REPORTS about the fatal stabbing of 21-year-old London Chanel inside a North Philly row home on May 18 made a crucial mistake: Chanel, a transgender woman, was called a man and referred to using the male pronouns “he” and “his.”

Nellie Fitzpatrick, the city’s director of LGBT Affairs, immediately went into action, making sure police officials knew of the error and then contacting the city’s TV and radio stations. Chanel, who also went by the name London Banks, should be referred to using female pronouns, she told them. To not do so, as she wrote in an email to a reporter, would be to “misgender her.”

“I am desperately trying to get ahead of this misreporting, misidentification and ensure that her identity is reported with dignity and respect,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

Words matter, LGBT activist Deja Alvarez said. The fact that Fitzpatrick and Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner/LGBT liaison Kevin Bethel immediately

took steps to correct the mistake — and that media outlets were eager to comply — is a big step forward for the community.

“That’s all about respect. For trans people, using the proper pronoun, acknowledging who we are, is the single most important thing you can do,” Alvarez said. “If you run to a police officer and the first thing he says is, ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ it’s a sign of disrespect. [But] if you make an effort, or at least ask which pronoun we use, that’s an automatic sign of respect. If you show us that, that allows us to put our defenses down and say, ‘This person is safe.’”

Alvarez compared modern efforts to treat members of the LGBT community with respect versus what life was like for transgender women like her as recently as 10 years ago, when uniformed police officers felt comfortable shouting slurs like “faggot” at her as she went about the most innocuous tasks, like grocery shopping with children in tow.

“It’s like two completely different worlds,” she said.

But these changes have come slowly. The Police Department

RAISING AWARENESS: Nellie Fitzpatrick, the city’s director of LGBT affairs, addresses Philadelphia Police cadets at the Police Academy.

formed a LGBT liaison committee in the late 1990s under Commissioner John Timoney, taking steps like adding sensitivity training to the Police Academy’s curriculum.

When then-Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey took over the department in 2008, he encouraged LGBT officers to be open about their sexual identities, telling the press, “What people do in their personal lives is not important. … I just want good cops.” During recent budget hearings, Ramsey told City Council he wanted to recruit more officers who identified as LGBT. Bethel, who oversees the department’s patrol operations, took on the role of LGBT community liaison about two years ago. One of his first projects was to work with the community to hammer out a policy that would educate officers and

continued on p. 10

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continued f rom p. 9

SEEKING ‘DIGNITY AND RESPECT’ FOR TRANS MEN AND WOMEN

guide them in the way they interacted with LGBT citizens. Directive 152, which was officially put in place in December 2013, defines words like “transgender” and says officers will use the names and pronouns requested by the individuals.

“As a young cop, 28, 29 years ago, I never thought my use of pronouns was having a damaging effect on people.

We have to be respectful and be conscious of the person in front of us,” Bethel said. “It’s been an eye-opening experience. I listen to the struggles I hear within the community and think about the civil rights movement and think, ‘Wow. It’s amazing here in this time, 2015, that we still have groups that feel marginalized and discriminated against.’”

And while there has been progress, more work needs to be done. Thomas Ude Jr., legal and public policy director for the Mazzoni Center, said the LGBT community is still segregated.

A 2011 survey of more than 6,400 transgender and gender non-conforming participants by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality concluded that anti-transgender prejudice can, in many cases, cause “a series of biasrepeated events [that] lead to insurmountable challenges and devastating outcomes for study participants.”

The study’s respondents were almost four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000 a year and about one-fifth had been homeless at some

For trans people, using the proper pronoun, acknowledging who we are, is the single most important thing you can do.

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point. The unemployment rate for respondents was double the national rate, with 90 percent saying they’d been mistreated or harassed at work and almost half saying they’d been fired or denied promotions because they were transgender or gender non-conforming.

One of the things that has helped the LGBT community gain greater acceptance, Ude says, has been “the growing number of people who are out and who have engaged with members of the broader community. … People get to know people.”

Police have classified Chanel’s murder as a “domestic,” and not a hate crime. The man arrested in connection with her stabbing, Raheam Felton, was the boyfriend of Chanel’s roommate, another transgender woman. The two women and Felton lived together in an abandoned house in North Philadelphia.

But it is likely that Chanel was living in those dangerous conditions because of earlier discrimination, said Kylar Broadus, transgender civil rights project director for the National LGBTQ Task Force. That means that, in many ways, her death is a hate crime.

“Pervasive discrimination against people who are gender non-conforming and of color is systemic and structural,” Broadus said. “They’re automatically put in harm’s way without access to education, housing or

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jobs. ... They’re locked out of opportunities that put them on the streets.”

His organization has recently launched a campaign called StopTransMurders. It’s a response to the increasing number of transgender women of color who have died violently. Chanel was the eighth such transgender woman killed in the U.S. so far this year. In all of 2014, 12 transgender women of color were reportedly killed nationwide.

“These murders don’t hit everybody’s radar,” he said. “We want to educate people about these murders and charge that it’s everybody’s responsibility to take action. … We’re asking for a lot, but we don’t think it’s unreasonable.

Human life is human life.”

Through her advocacy work, Alvarez knows of a local transgender woman who recently was stabbed multiple times. She sought medical attention immediately, but felt disrespected at the hospital and left without care.

She was forced to seek help again when her wounds became infected. Thankfully, Alvarez said, the victim was not beyond treatment.

“What if it wasn’t a slight infection?” she asked. “What if it was a severe infection and she hadn’t sought treatment because of the way she’d been treated? So many people don’t think of those things.” (editorial@citypaper.net)

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C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

MAKING WAVES: Adam Garber, (center) field director for PennEnvironment, touts the new EPA safeguards for small waterways. At far right, Democratic mayoral nominee Jim Kenney questions those who would turn back the clock on clean water laws.

ENVIRONMENT

BY JON HURDLE

EPA RULE HEADS UPSTREAM TO PROTECT DRINKING WATER

NEW FEDERAL SAFEGUARDS for the city’s drinking-water quality enacted last week are being welcomed by environmentalists and Philadelphia Water officials, but even supporters say the rule is likely to face challenges in the courts.

The Clean Water Rule, unveiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 27, is expected to impose tougher standards on businesses such as developers and energy companies that are seeking permits to operate near small waterways.

These tributaries and wetlands feed the rivers that supply cities such as Philadelphia with their drinking water.

The new rule removes the uncertainty over whether smaller waterways were covered under the 1972 Clean Water Act. The EPA’s action came after U.S. Supreme Court decisions twice excluded wetlands from the waterways that can be protected under the Act. For Philadelphia, the new rule means that streams and wetlands feeding the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, where the city gets its water, will be subject to new protections that would prevent the entry of potentially harmful contaminants before they make their way downstream to water-

treatment plants.

“PhiladelphiaWater obviously does a lot of work to make sure that we have safe drinking water, but it will make their job easier in keeping toxins out before it gets to them,” said Adam Garber, field director for the environmental group PennEnvironment, which welcomed the EPA measure.

Tougher restrictions on upstream effluent also will make it safer for swimmers, kayakers and fishermen to use the streams that might otherwise have high levels of pollution, Garber said at a news conference Monday at the Fairmount Water Works.

“We’re thrilled to see the EPA protect all of our waterways,” he said. “This rule is about ensuring our water is safe and healthy.”

Local waterways expected to get better protection under the rule include Wissahickon Creek, some of which is already covered, but whose water quality is impaired in its headwaters, leading to pollution downstream in the Schuylkill, Garber said.

“If the headwaters are polluted, it doesn’t really matter what you do downstream,” he said.

To comply with the new rule, a developer, for example, would have to apply for

continued on p. 12

11

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EPA RULE HEADS UPSTREAM TO PROTECT DRINKING WATER

continued f rom p. 11

12

a permit to the EPA, which will determine on a case-bycase basis whether the company’s plans would affect upstream bodies of water in a way that would comply with the Clean Water Act, Garber said.

“We can still develop, but we have to do it in a smart, responsible way that protects our streams,” he said.

Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry, too, is likely to face more restrictions on its ability to build drill pads or pipelines near streams or wetlands, although its activities don’t affect the Delaware River watershed, which has a moratorium on gas development.

While the new rule aims to improve the quality of streams, it won’t change existing exclusions from the law’s requirements for some land uses, including planting, harvesting and moving livestock. It does not change private property rights.

The measure also removes a layer of red tape by limiting the number of cases in which water samples could be subject to a lengthy analysis.

Garber said the rule is likely to be challenged in the courts, but he predicted that it would be upheld on the grounds that the protection of upstream waterways is consistent with the original aim of the law.

“We know that the intent was always to protect our large streams, and the EPA has a 40-year record of doing that in a responsible way,” he said.

Garber accused Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of opposing the rule, and he called on supporters to urge Toomey to change his mind. Bill Jaffee, a spokesman for Toomey, did not return two phone calls seeking comment.

Christine Knapp, deputy chief of staff for Philadelphia Water, said the new rule will make it easier for the city agency to ensure safe drinking water supplies.

“The Clean Water Rule enhances the ability of Philadelphia Water, and of utilities across the nation, to honor our pledge to protect and preserve water resources that allow us to safeguard public health,” Knapp said.

While the city’s water utility screens supplies for upstream pollutants, those substances still present a challenge, she told about two dozen supporters and a handful of journalists at the press conference held atop the Water Works dam.

“There is still much more work that we need to do to make sure our drinking water is protected,” Knapp said.

Gretchen Dahlkemper, national field manager for Moms Clean Air Force, an activist group, said she allows her three children, ages 2, 4 and 6, to drink Philadelphia water straight out of the tap and play in local creeks. She argued that the availability of clean water indicates that the Clean Water Act has worked.

“I’m very confident that the water my kids are drinking is clean,” she said. “But I do know that it’s because of regulation that’s worked.”

Jim Kenney, the Democratic Party’s nominee for mayor of Philadelphia, said the new rule would encourage the continued improvement of water quality, which has allowed fish such as bass to return to the previously polluted Delaware River. The river has recovered enough

that it now plays host to a nationally televised bassfishing tournament.

Kenney called the condition of local rivers an “improving environment,” and accused conservative opponents of environmental regulations of having a regressive attitude. “ T h e r e’s n o r e a s o n why we should be stepping back,” he said. “I’ve never understood why the right seems to have this propensity to want to take something that’s been improved, and then re-pollute it again. It just makes no sense,” he said.

While the new measure is designed to prevent toxins from entering the city’s water supply, its effectiveness will be hard to monitor with any precision because of the wide range of possible pollution sources that accumulate over long periods, said Rob Simmons, program director of the master of public health program at Thomas Jefferson University.

But he argued that government has a legitimate role to play in preventing, rather than attempting to cure, the contamination of public water supplies.

“Do you want to wait, not have the protection, and then deal with the cleanup?” he asked. (editorial@citypaper.net)

We can still develop, but we have to do it in a smart, responsible way that protects our streams.

PARODY

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

13

BEHIND THE SCENES AT

CHARLIE PARKER’S YARDBIRD — OPERA PHILADELPHIA’S FIRST WORLD PREMIERE IN 39 YEARS.

I

t could be said that the only �me Charlie Parker ever truly felt comfortable during his brief, tragic life was when he had his horn in his hands.

Lawrence Brownlee, on the other hand, has to learn to be comfortable while holding an alto saxophone.

Rehearsing for his role as the legendary bebop pioneer in Opera Philadelphia’s rehearsal space, Brownlee assembles and disassembles the instrument repeatedly, like a Marine prac�cing with his rifle; he takes the sax from its case, puts it back, caresses it, cradles it to his chest, even sings a roman�c aria to it.

The only thing he doesn’t do with the horn is put it to his mouth.

For the purposes of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird — the much an�cipated new produc�on that opens this weekend in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater — he doesn’t have to.

There were quali�es in Brownlee’s bel canto voice that immediately evoked Parker’s playing to composer Daniel Schnyder, inspiring the piece. Bel canto

BY SHAUN BRADY

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

is a vaguely defined Italian opera�c style that emphasizes lithe singing of beau�ful melodic lines.

“Larry has a very flexible, high tenor voice that is capable of musically represen�ng the virtuosity and flexibility of Charlie Parker,” Schnyder says. “That gave me the idea to come up with a Charlie Parker opera.”

Brownlee, who spends the vast majority of his �me onstage singing Rossini, admits he had only a cursory knowledge of Bird’s music when he took the role. “It was cool in college to listen to Miles Davis because girls thought you were a Renaissance man,” he says. “But to be quite honest, I wasn’t an aficionado or authority on jazz music.”

Neither were the members of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra, who expressed some reserva�ons about their ability to perform a “jazz opera.” Schnyder was quick to reassure them that whatever trace elements of jazz exist in his piece — a few stray bebop quotes are laced into the score — the members of the orchestra would be equipped to handle them.

“The beauty of doing it here in the United States is that the players have this music in their backbone. It’s in their musical DNA, even if they didn’t prac�ce it in the conservatory. It just needs to be freed from there,” says Schnyder.

S�ll, the composer was taken aback when he was introduced to the orchestra’s principal bassist, who was par�cularly trepida�ous about playing jazz. “I thought they were making a bad joke,” Schnyder recalls with a laugh. “The bass player’s name is Miles Davis.”

C

harlie Parker’s Yardbird, which will be Opera Philadelphia’s first world premiere since 1976, begins immediately a�er Bird’s death. For two days, the saxophonist’s body was le�, mislabeled, in the morgue before being claimed, and in this telling the saxophonist’s spirit spends this 48-hour period in a purgatory designed to look like Birdland, the Manha�an nightclub named a�er him.

He’s intent on using the �me to fulfill one of the real-life Parker’s most cherished goals, composing a large-scale orchestral piece drawing on his love of Stravinsky’s music. But memories intrude in the form of the women in his life, including his mother, three wives and the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the famed jazz patroness in whose hotel suite he died.

CHASING THE BIRD: Composer Daniel Schnyder wrote Charlie Parker’s Yardbird with singer Lawrence Brownlee (pictured) in mind.

MARIA POUCHNIKOVA

The libre�o was penned by poet and playwright Bridge�e Wimberly, who has her own �es to the subject. “Ever since I was a young girl I always heard the name Charlie Parker, mostly because my grandmother hated him,” she says.

Wimberly’s uncle was a saxophonist who idolized Bird, emula�ng the jazz giant’s heroin addic�on along with his playing.

“A lot of people felt like it was the heroin that made Charlie Parker good, then they found out that wasn’t true.”

While the project was conceived in its earliest stages as almost a one-man show, Wimberly quickly transformed it into an ensemble piece revolving around Parker’s tumultuous rela�onships. “I picked the women in his life because I can understand women a lot more than I can understand men,” Wimberly says. “I read everything I could possibly put my hands on about Charlie Parker to find the flesh that went onto the bones of the people that knew him, as well as him.”

While depic�ng a character from real life could be challenging, director Ron Daniels says that the unique nature of opera and of Wimberly’s libre�o freed him from concerns about rigorous authen�city.

“Ul�mately this is not a biopic; this is not a documentary. It’s an imagina�ve rendering of the life of a troubled genius. It’s a ghost story, a ghost reliving his life and conjuring up a series of new ghosts. The danger would have been to make it very ethereal, but Charlie Parker is on a quest for meaning, for significance in his life that doesn’t just evaporate. What he learns in the course of the opera is that his legacy exists beyond capturing music on the page. So finding the balance between what is here and now and this strange, mysterious ghost story has been very interes�ng.”

While the rehearsal space at the Academy House on Locust Street looks more like a high school gym than the otherworldly jazz club that will soon be conjured on the Perelman stage, Daniels finds the nuances that will create that ghostly atmosphere.

The director regularly springs lithely from his chair and glides into the midst of the singers, not barking orders but posing ques�ons in so�, Bri�sh-accented tones:

15

Would this gesture work be�er? What if you were to carry the saxophone case with you across the stage?

At one point, as the group of female vocalists clustered around Brownlee begin to recede from him to what will be offstage, Daniels’ gaze shoots up from the page, his brow kni�ed. “Does it feel eggy to wait like that?” he asks about a bit of stage business. A moment of silence is broken by one of the singers: “What does ‘eggy’ mean?”

L

awrence Brownlee’s voice was the major impetus for Charlie Parker’s Yardbird. “It was completely ar�st-centric,” explains David Devan, general director and president of Opera Philadelphia.

“We have a list of leading ar�sts of our day that we would like to have at Opera Philadelphia, and we want to offer them an invita�on to do something here that nobody else can offer them. So we wanted to do something special for Larry Brownlee, who has an interest in new work but essen�ally works the bel canto repertoire because of his vocal range and the style of his singing.”

Brownlee, 42, is a na�ve of Youngstown, Ohio, who hailed from a musical family but didn’t grow up considering music as a career. Both of his parents were heavily involved in their church choir, and Brownlee and his five siblings were expected to perform. Shy about singing, Brownlee dri�ed between a variety of instruments, beginning with drums, then guitar and piano. He picked up the trumpet in elementary school, which was finally supplanted by singing during high school, when he joined the show choir.

Despite his ini�al reluctance to sing, his mind was changed for much the same reason he’d later dabble in the jazz world.

“I had some buddies in high school who said, ‘Girls like guys who sing.’ So I guess I became a li�le less shy.” He ended up in a program for gi�ed music students at Youngstown State University, where he found encouragement during an end-ofyear recital. “The response was so strong that I thought, ‘Wow.’ At that moment I had it in my mind that I would probably study law, but people responded so posi�vely that I thought maybe there was something in this music path for me.”

Con�nuing his studies at Anderson and Indiana universi�es, Brownlee wanted to sing the music that he heard in the C O N T I N U E D O N P. 1 7

16

PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

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CODA: Lawrence Brownlee and Angela Brown play Charlie Parker and his mother, Addie, in the Opera Philadelphia production.

MARIA POUCHNIKOVA

and have a great deal of flexibility and freedom with what I’m doing.”

D

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P. 1 5

famous Three Tenors concerts popular at the �me, which featured the iconic trio of Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavaro�. He soon found that his voice wasn’t large enough to tackle that “greatest hits” repertoire, and was frustrated un�l a voice teacher introduced him to the bel canto style.

“At that �me I really didn’t know a lot about bel canto or Rossini, Donize�, Bellini,” Brownlee says. “Like everybody else, I thought that was Bugs Bunny stuff. But the first �me I sang a piece from The Barber of Seville, there was a certain ease and naturalness to my singing. Knowing that many other people struggle to sing that repertoire, that’s where I found myself. I felt like it was something I was born to do.”

While he’s found success with the bel canto repertoire, especially Rossini — which he says he sings 95 percent of the �me — Brownlee is excited about the prospect of tackling a brand new piece, only the second such opportunity in his career. “It’s been very important for me as a Black ar�st

to establish myself,” he says. “I’m definitely not a person who dwells on that, but I’ve been steadfast in trying to make sure that I stay in my lane and do the things that give me the best opportunity to be successful.

I’ve been singing bel canto for close to 15 years and I’ve been very fortunate to sing in nearly every major theater in the world.

So I feel like I’m an established ar�st now and can take on a new challenge.”

The distance between opera and Charlie Parker may seem great, but Brownlee has come to discover some parallels, he says.

“The interes�ng thing about the music that I sing all the �me is that it’s wri�en out but it should sound improvisa�onal. What I’ve been learning about the great jazz musicians is that even though they value of the notes wri�en on the page, jazz is about swing. So if I come to this role the way I do other roles, it wouldn’t be stylis�cally right.

Even though I’m a classical singer, there’s a certain swing and bounce and delivery that I have to bring. I would never think that I could mimic the great Charlie Parker, but I have to think of myself as a jazz musician

aniel Schnyder has spent much of his career trying to erase the boundaries between jazz and classical music. Growing up in his na�ve Switzerland, he was exposed to nothing but classical music. As a child, he played cello in a family chamber group with his flau�st father and violinist sister. “For me at that �me, music was beau�ful but not very interes�ng,” he recalls. “It was basically just reading the music and playing it correctly. I didn’t see the crea�ve part.”

A jazz radio sta�on later caught his ear, but when he sought out sheet music he learned that there was none to be had, as the music was improvisa�onal and at the �me, transcrip�ons were hard to come by.

“I realized that it was possible to invent music on the spot and for me that was a miracle.” Schnyder began playing his cello in jazz bands, but unsa�sfied with the amplifica�on then available, he switched to the saxophone. He was soon composing his own music and by the age of 16 led his own big band and wrote music for the school orchestra. “It was a huge playground that obviously wouldn’t get boring,” he says. “And it hasn’t go�en boring.”

Based in New York for almost 25 years, Schnyder has established his reputa�on as someone who tries to remarry jazz and classical music, which he says were divorced a�er World War II. Parker shared that desire 60 years ago, when he expressed interest in studying classical composi�on with Edgard Varèse and Third Stream innovator Gunther Schuller. That shared dream was an obvious subject for an opera in Schnyder’s eyes.

“The score bridges the two music worlds,” he explains. “I would like to see a new classical music that reflects out culture. It would be like the 18th or 19th century, when the music of the great masters reflected every aspect of the music known at the �me. Business-wise that divide might make sense, but for the music itself, it doesn’t make any sense.

If I can contribute a li�le something to change that, I’m happy to do so.”

17

Schnyder appears to have already made some inroads along those lines.

It’s likely pre�y unusual for the music director of a major American opera company break out into scat, but that’s exactly what happened when I called Corrado Rovaris a few weeks ago. Rovaris was explaining the ways that Bird’s phrasing insinuates its way into Schnyder’s otherwise opera�c score when a sudden burst of vocalese exploded from his lips.

Rovaris met Schnyder while conduc�ng the Orchestre Chambre de Lausanne in Switzerland, where Schnyder was then composer in residence. Rovaris was immediately cap�vated by the saxophonist’s blending of jazz and classical vocabulary.

“From the first moment I heard it, I thought this is something really new, something different,” Rovaris says. “It’s difficult now to have such a personal language, but Daniel has that. He has a very strong classical background, but he’s a wonderful jazz performer and it’s very difficult to find someone so well prepared on both sides.”

Following four co-commissioned pieces that have had their second stagings by Opera Philadelphia in the last four years, Charlie Parker’s Yardbird marks an important step forward in the company’s mission of suppor�ng new work.

“We want to have an equal measure of commitment to the standard repertoire, because we believe those are masterpieces,” Devan says. “But we also want to ignite imagina�on and crea�vity in the field.

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird is the epitome of that: It takes ar�sts from the classical canon and marries them with people from outside our field to do something that’s uniquely American and comes from our �me.”

Charlie Parker’s contribu�on was likewise uniquely American and wildly crea�ve.

Says Wimberly, “In the end it was very important to me that Bird come to the realiza�on that all the people that came a�er him created new music because of the way he changed jazz. He was a pioneer without fully knowing just how big a pioneer he was. For me, Bird lives because of what he did and the people who came a�er him.” (@ShaunDBrady) Charlie Parker’s Yardbird runs June 5, 7, 10, 12 and 14, sold out, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215670-2300, kimmelcenter.org, operaphila.org. One performance will be aired in its en�rety on Sat., July 4, noon-2 p.m. on WRTI-FM 90.1 and wr�.org.

18

PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

ARTS // MUSIC // THEATER // BOOKS

HERE TODAY: Brian Christinzio, who performs under the name B.C. Camplight, went from the cover of City Paper to squatting in a Fishtown church to the toast of Manchester, England. Now he can’t go back there due to visa issues.

ROCK/POP

BY PATRICK RAPA

BANNED IN THE U.K.

Tortured pop genius and Philly expat Brian Christinzio discovers you really can’t go home again.

THE LAST TIME Brian Christinzio played a show in the U.K., he knew his days were numbered. The letter telling him to pack up and leave the country due to a visa violation wouldn’t arrive till the next day, but he knew it was coming. His eyes welled up behind his oversized sunglasses. Between songs, he stood up from the piano and offered cryptic goodbyes to the friends and fans who’d packed the club in his adopted hometown of Manchester.

Within two weeks he was gone. He left behind a fiancée, a cat, a flat and a city that had miraculously brought him back to life after he’d left Philadelphia in a rush four years ago.

Career-wise his bannishment could not have come at a worse time.

How To Die in the North — his first new record in eight years, recorded under his

stage name B.C. Camplight — was just about to drop. A tour of the U.K. had to be canceled. Same with various BBC appearances, including a session with popular radio and TV host Jools Holland, he says.

On the day he visits the City Paper office, the news is finally breaking back home about why he left. He had been advised to keep the whole overstaying-his-visa thing a secret, but he got drunk one night in Paris and emailed a journalist. “Brian Christinzio’s life was falling apart before he moved to Manchester and resurrected his songwriting career,” read The Guardian that morning. “Now, on the verge of an unlikely comeback, he’s been banned from the U.K. …”

After playing a few shows in continental Europe, Christinzio has been holed up in New Jersey and Philly for a while. An

appeal is in the works but the ban could last a year. “I Skype my girlfriend and say ‘Can you just put the cat on the screen?’ And I just sit there and look at the cat. That’s my life,” Christinzio laughs.

He can’t help but smile at the mess he’s in, partly because things have been a lot worse. The Guardian’s line about his life “falling apart” is hardly an overstatement. Last time he was in Philly, he says, he was living on the floor of a church in Fishtown, stealing electricity and Wi-Fi from his neighbors and burning bridges with all of his friends. “I was just a liar. It was almost like addict behavior. Or a lot like addict behavior, I guess,” he says. “It was a bad situation. I just basically had nothing. I had succeeded in destroying everything I possibly could in my life, and other people’s.”

Christinzio’s had self-destructive issues before. Some of them — pills, depression, suicidal thoughts — had seemed to be behind him when he graced the cover of City Paper in 2007. He’d rebounded after a stint in a mental institution, and released what then felt like a breakthrough record, Blink of a Nihilist.

His soaring soprano vocals, pounding pianos and Beach Boys-esque melodies were turning heads, especially in the U.K. Here at home, he was known for putting on indie-pop sock-hops at Johnny Brenda’s. Still, mainstream success eluded him (or maybe you could say he eluded it; he’d refused to tour behind Nihilist).

He spiraled deeply into substance abuse, anger and anxiety. “When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t really see how shit it’s getting.

But I just became a nasty person. I was still convincing myself that I was relevant to the scene even though I totally wasn’t. I was still convincing myself that I was a professional musician even though I totally wasn’t.”

Occasionally he’d get his act together enough to play a show but before he knew what was happening, he was squatting in that church, living day to day as, in his words, an entitled, self-loathing bum.

It was only a chance email invitation from a fan-turned-friend named Mark Powell in the U.K. that turned things around. “He said,

‘If you move to Manchester I’ll make sure you have a place.’ That was like a Thursday and I was in Manchester on like a Tuesday.

No plan,” remembers Christinzio. “When you have nothing to leave behind it’s not that hard.”

In Manchester, things turned around slowly. He met some cool people to drink with and some musicians he could play with. He started writing music again and it turned out to be his most adventurous and ambitious stuff yet — lush and poppy rock ’n’ roll with a psychedelic undertow. Later he discovered a recording studio in an old vicarage that would let him chip away at How To Die in the North over the course of years. And he found a new home on the Bella Union record label, known for releasing music by Laura Veirs, Fleet Foxes, Flaming Lips and several other “big” indie bands.

“Oddly I’ve sort of become the adopted son of Manchester. I mean we’re one of the bigger, not the biggest, bands in town. When we play in town it’s a big deal and I’m really honored because the heritage, the musical heritage there is ridiculous,” he says. “As a city it’s a

‘I had succeeded in destroying everything I possibly could in my life, and other people’s.’ lot like Philly. Blue collar, but it’s also more compact than Philly. I know where my friends are gonna be. I know there’s one bar that we all go to and that’s it. It’s always shitty weather, which I love.”

It could be eight more months until he sees Manchester again. Until then, he’s stuck with Philly and vice versa.

“I wouldn’t be surprised or wouldn’t blame anyone [in Philadelphia] for being skeptical.

Because I think I’d be a little annoyed if there was some guy that a city sort of invested in and then he fucked off and came back and said, ‘Whoa, I’m so much better now,’” he says. “I’m just kind of looking forward to — I’m trying not to say give back because that sounds really cheesy — but at least try to celebrate with the people that always had faith in me.” (pat@citypaper.net) B.C. Camplight plays Tue., June 9, 8:30 p.m., $13-$15, with The Get Real Gang and Southwork, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com.

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PICTURES OF PEOPLE IN PHILADELPHIA What a refreshing exhibition name that tells you all you need to know, eh? This group photography show features the triple-p (that’s “Philly people portraits,” we just coined it) stylings of Gab Bonghi, Conrad Brenner, Darren Burton and Brendan Lowry. The show is curated by Lowry, of the fascinating Instagram account @ Peopledelphia (22,000 followers strong, you better be one of them). Enjoy tunes courtesy of DJ Lucci, free snacks and drink specials and, since you’re there, maybe bowl a game or two. This is a 21+ event. Fri., June 5, 9 p.m.-1:30 a.m., free, North Bowl, 909 N. Second St., instagram.com/peopledelphia.

IT WAS A LOW-LYING FOGLIKE FLOATING And just like that, here’s an exhibition name that’s a little less straightforward. But, how intriguing: Also a group exhibition, curated by Ian Breidenbach (director of Neon Heater, an artists’ space in Ohio), this multimedia show features six artists from all over the country in an attempt to “draw attention to our relationship to art as an audience,” that is, to dive into that moment when art connects the creator and the viewer. Tiger Strikes Asteroid writes, “To look at art is to accept the unknown.” Don’t be shy. Through June 28, opening reception Fri., June 5, 6-10 p.m., free, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, 319A N. 11th St., tigerstrikesasteroid.com.

50 YEARS OF WORKS Quick history lesson on this Old City space: Ruth Snyderman founded it as the Works Gallery in 1965; Rick Snyderman joined in ‘72. They co-founded Snyderman Gallery in ‘83, and in 1996, they merged operations into the current space. Works Gallery originally concentrated on fiber, ceramics and jewelry, while the Snyderman focused on sculptural glass and studio furniture. Now (the exhibition opened May 1), the space looks back on the past five decades of supporting artists in all these mediums and more. The retrospective is actually curated by Ruth and Rick’s son Evan Snyderman of R & Company Gallery in New York — it’s an artful, family affair with something for fans of many mediums. Through June 27, Fri., June 5, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m., free, Snyderman-Works Galleries, 303 Cherry St., snyderman-works.com. (mikala@citypaper.net, @notjameson)

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FILMS ARE GRADED BY CIT Y PAPER CRITICS A-F.

MOVIESHORTS

BIOPIC

HEROES AND VILLAINS: Paul Dano as a young Brian Wilson.

LOVE & MERCY

/ B / Nearly every biopic turns on the depiction of its subject as a tortured genius, but Brian Wilson is the rare case where both halves of that term legitimately apply. Unlike most films in the genre, which tend to dwell on hardships and failings, Bill Pohlad’s bifurcated portrait of Wilson gives equal time to both, becoming more poignant in the process. Love & Mercy flips back and forth between two periods in the Beach Boys mastermind’s life. Both halves are haunted by a controlling, abusive figure looming over the damaged Wilson: the brothers’ father, Murry (Bill Camp), and Wilson’s domineering psychiatrist, Dr. Eugene Landy. Paul Dano plays the younger Wilson in his doughy, eccentric boygenius phase, centered on the recording of his (and pop music’s) masterpiece, Pet Sounds. John Cusack takes over (somewhat unconvincingly as an older Dano or as Wilson) for his lowest period, in a perpetual daze thanks to the pill regimen and tight leash controlled by

Dr. Landy. Dano’s half is far more successful. Seeing Wilson laboring over every minute sound on Pet Sounds, down to the placement of bobby pins on piano strings, is thrilling, and Pohlad’s depiction of his onrushing mental issues as a cacophony of voices and music suggestively blurs the line between inspiration and insanity. The Cusack scenes are perhaps inevitably less compelling. Likely due to access, the focus is on Wilson’s wife-to-be Melinda Ledbetter, played as a headstrong ’80s “new woman” by Elizabeth Banks, and interest lags whenever Wilson leaves the screen, even in his drug-induced stupor. The standout in this section is Paul Giamatti, whose performance as Landy captures the doctor’s sleazy L.A. charm against the equally vapid allure of a soullessly sunlit 1980s’ SoCal. Still, the earlier studio sounds resonate so strongly that the sight of a zombified Cusack unable to even lift his fingers to the piano keys becomes unexpectedly moving.

—Shaun Brady (Ritz East)

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WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE // B

If When Marnie Was There is truly the last movie created by Japan’s Studio Ghibli, whose animation staff has been on hiatus since last year, then it’s a bittersweet finale — perhaps appropriately for a company that has produced so many melancholy Miyazaki and Takahata masterpieces.

Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who also directed The Secret World of Arrietty, hasn’t ascended to his masters’ heights, although the problems with Marnie lie less in its characteristically breathtaking images than its sometimes jumbled script.

The movie, based on a novel

by Joan G. Robinson, plays for a while like a kid-lit gloss on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: Self-loathing orphan Anna (voiced by Sara Takatsuki in the Japanese version, Hailee Steinfeld in the American; the Ritz is showing both) retires to the countryside, where she’s drawn to a mysterious house in the marshes.

There, she finds blond, blue-eyed Marnie (Kasumi Arimura/Kiernan Shipka), a solitary girl who spins tales of her absent parents and seems drawn to an abandoned silo that locals have warned Anna is haunted. As opposed to Miyazaki’s enigmatic spirit world, this apparent ghost story is always hinting at a so-

lution or several, sometimes getting bogged down by the mechanics of plot when it means to soar. Still, the shots of the marsh house gleaming iridescent in the setting sun, or the yawning ache of Anna facing the water, a sketch pad her only defense against infinite loneliness, have a power that cannot be diminished, and that Ghibli’s absence, if it is indeed final, will leave us longing for. — Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

citypaper.net/movies

BY DREW LAZOR

REPERTORY FILM

NEW

Film events and special screenings.

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BRYN MAWR FILM INSTITUTE

824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-5279898, brynmawrfilm.org. Don Giovanni (2014, Austria, 184 min.): Theatercast of Mozart’s tragicomic telling of the Don Juan legend, as performed at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Sun., June 7, 1 p.m., $20. Ladies in Retirement (1941, U.S., 91 min.): Oscarnominated noir about a conniving housekeeper (Ida Lupino) who manipulates a group of wealthy sisters. A 35 mm screening. Mon., June 8, 7:15 p.m., $12.

THE COLONIAL THEATRE

227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, 610-917-1228, thecolonialtheatre.com. The Hills Have Eyes (1977, U.S., 89 min.): Wes Craven’s influential audience shocker, about a vacationing family hunted by a clan of mutant cannibals. Fri., June 5, 10 p.m., $9.

COUNTY THEATER

20 E. State St., Doylestown, 215-345-6789, countytheater.org. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, U.S., 108 min.): A young girl begins suspecting that her kind uncle is actually an elusive murderer. Thu., June 4, 7 p.m., $10.50.

It Happened One Night (1934, U.S., 105

min.): Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are unlikely travel companions in this oppositesattract romantic comedy directed by Frank Capra. Wed., June 10, 7 p.m., $10.50.

FREE LIBRARY, TACONY BRANCH

6742 Torresdale Ave., 215-685-8755, freelibrary.org. Rio (2011, U.S., 96 min.): A sheltered macaw from the Midwest (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) heads out on a South American adventure with a free-spirited friend (Anne Hathaway). Sat., June 6, 2 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE

3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly. org. The Painting (2012, France/Japan, 78 min.): An animated fable of stringent societal castes, forbidden love and exciting adventure, all taking place within the canvases of a none-the-wiser painter. Fri., June 5, 7 p.m., $9. Evolution of a Criminal (2014, U.S., 82 min.): Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe turns the camera on himself in this revealing documentary, which explores the many consequences of his decision to rob a bank years prior. Monroe will be in attendance. Tue., June 9, 7 p.m., $10.

THEATER

EVENTS

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GET OUT THERE

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Interest in Sherlock Holmes never dies. In theater, two comedic versions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel are earning raves: This three-man farcical adaptation by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, plus Ken Ludwig’s four-person retelling, which Philadelphia Theatre Company hosts next season. Barrymore Award-winner Matt Pfeiffer’s direction and Lantern’s crack comedic ensemble of Damon Bonetti, Daniel Fredrick and Dave Johnson guarantee a lot of spooky fun. —Mark Cofta

thursday

6.4

HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE

$27-$37 // Through Sun., June 28, People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, 610-6443500, peopleslight.org.

THEATER Playwright Bill Cain’s painful yet uplifting experience caring for his dying mother resulted in a diary that the Jesuit priest adapted into a book and this acclaimed play. Directed

by Abigail Adams, People’s Light resident actors Alda Cortese, Peter DeLaurier, Stephen Novelli and Greg Wood re-create Cain’s family in a drama praised for its inspirational joy and its fearlessness about life’s end. The script won the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s first Terrence McNally New Play Award. —Mark Cofta

MERLE HAGGARD

$38-$88 // Thu., June 4, 8 p.m., Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, 215572-7650, keswicktheatre.com.

COUNTRY Merle Haggard is approaching 80 the way a cowhide approaches leather.

The country legend wears his years in the hard-etched lines of his face and especially in the dust-caked voice. Hag doesn’t go in for showiness — he performs largely immobile, like a one-man Mt. Rushmore, behind black shades and under a black hat, rarely letting his strings stop resonating before embarking on the next memorable outlaw ballad. —Shaun Brady

RELEASE THE HOUNDS: $10-$56 // Through Sun., June 28, Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater, 923 Ludlow St., 215829-0395, lanterntheater.org.

PLATE3 PHOTOGRAPH Y

f riday

6.5

movement. Their new album Wire does all the above and more. —A.D. Amorosi

WIRE

$22-$23 // Fri., June 5, 8:30 p.m., with Julian Lynch, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com.

ROCK When Colin Newman

named his company “Post Everything,” he described everything that he and his Wire bandmates Graham Lewis and Robert Grey have come up with since their inception in 1976. Every Wire album — some more abstract or energized than others, always linked by their Dadaist lyrical approach — has been post-punk, post-industrial and post-electro while acting as a predecessor to each

WADADA LEO SMITH’S GOLDEN QUARTET

$15 // Fri., June 5, 8 p.m., Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz, 738 S. Broad St., arsnovaworkshop.com.

JAZZ The one thing that has

always united the members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) has been their determined individuality and innovation. So as the groundbreaking and influential organization turns 50 this year, it’s not surprising that its members refuse to wax nostalgic. Ars Nova will host two typically forward-

looking performances celebrating the landmark anniversary, beginning with trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith, a founding member. —Shaun Brady

BEHN GILLECE

$15 // Fri., June 5, 8 and 10 p.m., Chris’ Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131, chrisjazzcafe.com.

JAZZ Vibraphonist Behn Gillece shares credit with saxophonist Ken Fowser on four co-led CDs that exemplify the pair’s hardbop chemistry. With his new release, Mindset (Posi-Tone), Gillece’s name is alone on the cover for the first time, though Fowser is still along for the session — the leader is at the fore more as a com-

poser, with 10 new pieces emphasizing a simmering melodicism. —Shaun Brady

saturday

will present two large-scale orchestral suites, from the pens of French high Baroque composers Rameau and Leclair, with music fit for a king, as was undoubtedly the original intention. —Peter Burwasser

TEMPESTA DI MARE

CALEXICO/ GABY MORENO

6.6

$28 // Sat., June 6, 8 p.m., and Sun., June 7, 7 p.m., Curtis Institute, 1616 Locust St., 215-755-8776, tempestadimare.org.

CLASSICAL There’s some-

thing uniquely thrilling about the sound of a really good period-instrument band, especially when those gloriously braying no-valve trumpets are included, as will be the case for the Tempesta di Mare season closer. They

$22 // Sat., June 6, 8:30 p.m., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-2322100, utphilly.com.

ROCK/COUNTRY This Tex-Mex multi-instrumentalist duo was at the very forefront of rusty Americana and dusty noisily ambient country. Do you think adding a few vocals and an extra member or two could change their brand of sage prairie-dog pop? Check out

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Calexico’s new album, Edge of the Sun (Anti-), and see.

Guatemala’s Gaby Moreno opens with lo-fi, jazzy bluessoul culled from her album Postales. —A.D. Amorosi

PHILADELPHIA FESTIVAL OF PLAY Free // Sat., June 6, 10 a.m.2 p.m., Independence Seaport Museum, 211 S. Columbus Blvd., 515-994-0811, popupplay.net.

FAMILY STUFF Pretty

much everything about this is adorable, plus it’s a chance to meet the kids that will probably be your boss someday: Pop-Up Play, a local org that encourages kids to lead, hosts this fest, where all the activities — obstacle courses, boat tag, giant Boggle, etc. — are sponsored by local organizations and are primarily run by the participating kids. The day also needs volunteers and people who want to work with kids. It’s probably worth

popping in just for that giant Boggle game on your way to Spruce Street Harbor Park.

—Mikala Jamison

SPOKEN HAND PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA $25-$30 // Sat., June 6, 8 p.m., and Sun., June 7, 6 p.m., Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215925-9914, paintedbride.org.

PERCUSSION Already a

multi-cultural fusion in its

marriage of four disparate hand-drumming cultures, Philly’s Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra has further expanded its horizons in recent years by bringing in open-minded collaborators like Zakir Hussain, Renni Harris and Philip Hamilton’s Voices. This weekend’s performances will find them on their own once again but with no loss of momentum — they’ll be premiering several brand-new compositions. —Shaun Brady

ROSS BELLENOIT

$10 // Sat., June 6, 9 p.m., with Madalean Gauze and Morgan Pinkstone, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.

ROCK/POP Once firmly planted in the “singer-songwriter” category — at least in my mind; dude always seemed so acoustic — Philly music keystone Ross Bellenoit dances into the rock/ pop section with his new record The Wreckage. The melodies are often catchy in a Westerberg-ish way while guitars shine with slick Matthew Sweet-ness. The title track is gorgeously jolting: noisy and blazing here, smooth and gentle there. The whole album is like that. —Patrick Rapa

sunday

6.7

NOTHING/ MERCHANDISE

$15 // Sun., June 7, 9 p.m., with Cloakroom, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.

ROCK/POP The guys of Nothing have toured heavily in the past few months, from a Mother’s Day performance at Austin Psych Fest to

stops on the West Coast and beyond. Now, we welcome them home for one night with Florida “low humor” punks Merchandise, and noisy Indiana trio Cloakroom. The three groups have been on the road together for weeks and no one’s been arrested. That’s worth celebrating. —Nikki Volpicelli

tuesday

6.9

HEEMS/ THE VERY BEST

$17 // Tue., June 9, 9 p.m., with Sugar Tongue Slim, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org.

POP/ELECTRONIC/HIP-HOP

Himanshu Suri is best known as one of the erudite post-everything yuksters in Das Racist, and his whipsmart boom-bap wisecracks remain pretty much peerless — which makes Eat Pray Thug’s (Greedhead) soberingly personal ruminations on being brown in post-9/11 NYC all the more potent.

As for fellow class-of-2008 breakouts The Very Best, their richly satisfying Makes A King (Moshi Moshi) introduces newfound space and rootedness to their glittery electronic/Afro-pop melange. —K. Ross Hoffman

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THE DØ

$10 // Tue., June 9, 8 p.m., with Aphra, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 267-6394528, bootandsaddlephilly.com.

ROCK/POP This French-

Finnish duo’s inscrutability — beyond the mystique of Olivia Merilahti’s beguiling, illustrious voice — was always more about their resistance to easy categorization than any aversion to melodies, catchy grooves or emotionalism. So Shake Shook Shaken (Cinq 7) is the most conventional and “accessible” of their three albums, mostly due to its narrowed compositional focus — sticking with a relatively standard indie-electro-pop tool kit — it just happens to contain several of their naggingest earworms to date, including the positively luminous “Trustful Hands.” —K. Ross Hoffman

p.m., The Orange Drop and Michael Rault, Milkboy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., 215-9256455, milkboyphilly.com.

ROCK/POP Jacco Gardner’s second full-length album, Hypnophobia (Polyvinyl), doesn’t do a thing to disappoint the neo-psych fundamentalists of today, with its raw, meditative sound. The Netherlandsbased artist sings and plays guitar while utilizing his full band for spacious string and flute arrangements in songs like “Find Yourself” and the Zeppelin-esque intro to “Hypnophobia.” The effect is almost wintery and very classic, like it’s been unearthed from an era long before Gardner’s 27-year-old lifespan. —Nikki Volpicelli

wednesday

6.10

JACCO GARDNER

$10-$12 // Wed., June 10, 8

citypaper.net/events

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FOOD&DRINK

REVIEWS // OPENIN GS // LISTIN GS // RECIPES

MEAT AND GREET: Chef Saritsoglou’s Meat Board is inspired by the classic combo of kebabs and beer.

HILLARY PETROZZIELLO

OPA // 1311 Sansom St., 215-545-0170, opaphiladelphia.com. Dinner, Mon.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. and Sun., 1-9 p.m.; lunch, Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

REVIEW

BY ADAM ERACE

SMASHING PLATES

Chef Bobby Saritsoglou brings new Greek soul to Opa. THE FIRST TIME I ate at Santucci’s — the first of what would be many, many times before this cozy Bella Vista pizzeria became my go-to take-out joint — I was impressed not only by the upside-down square pies and zesty black-bottomed stromboli, but also by the quality of the cooking in general.

What made Santucci’s a great spot was that you could get amazing food beyond pizza: lively salads, spiced boar meatballs, shadesof-Vetri pastas. It was a neighborhood BYOB disguised as a pizzeria, and the man responsible for the better-than-you’d-expect food was chef Bobby Saritsoglou.

I wasn’t the only one who was impressed.

George Tsiouris, who owns four-year-old Greek-chic Opa in Midtown Village with his sister, Vasiliki, ate at Santucci’s and offered Saritsoglou a job. “Everywhere

I’ve worked, I tried to add Greek flavors,” says Saritsoglou, “but this was the chance to cook a full Greek menu, the food of my family and my ancestry.”

Saritsoglou took over the kitchen at Opa in March, slowly turning over the menu of familiar Greek classics into an exciting, multi-ethnic tour-de-force that more closely resembles the cooking at places like Kanella and Zahav. Opa has always been a solid restaurant, somewhere third dates pair off by the window seats facing Sansom and happy-hour romances bud at the big, square, quartz bar. Now it’s a great restaurant, one that pulls deep from Hellenic tradition, “bringing to the table things people may not know as Greek,” says Saritsoglou, like cured meats, eggy pastas, exotic spices and the lacto-fermented pickles called tursi.

“Growing up my house smelled all the time because my father always had big buckets of tursi fermenting. When I started going to Greek restaurants, I didn’t understand why they didn’t have them, too,” the chef says.

He’s rectified that at Opa, sliding the funky, snappy ferments — turmeric-stained cauliflower, carrots sweetened with apple, spicy green tomato, herbed fennel — on to a twisted leg of octopus that has been braised four hours in white wine, marinated in olive oil, lemon and orange, flashed on the grill and posed on a smear of garlicky skordalia. Andy Brown, the original chef at Opa, served a phenomenal octopus inside this candlelit, grotto-like dining room; this specimen is its tender, honorable heir.

All dinners begin with the “Broken Plate” bread service, a shattered plank of phyllo that Saritsoglou makes in-house according to his mother’s recipe. Bready, buttery, salty and elemental, it sets the tone. More phyllo appeared later, this one imported and folded into sweet-savory origami with sharp barrelaged feta, honey, ouzo and black sesame seeds.

In a perfect world, I would eat this flaky gold package, called tiropita, every day for the rest of my life.

Another staple of the Greek diet most people don’t typically associate with the coast-lined country: uni. “When I was in Greece I had sea urchin all the time at local tavernas,” remembers Saritsoglou, who blends the apricot-colored roe into a lemony white wine sauce for a tangle of housemade egg noodles, meaty shrimp and clams like pats of butter. More uni, stacked on top, reinforces the dish’s sweet marine flavor.

But meat was where Saritsoglou really shined, whether in the bite-sized dolmades, smoky charred grape-leaf bundles rolled around aggressively spiced keftedes that positively quivered with juiciness, or the shareable Meat Board, a carnivore’s playground that shortly will become a new must-have dish in Philadelphia. Inspired by Greece’s kebaband-beer psistaria, this scene co-starred four perfectly cooked proteins on a butcherblock backdrop: oregano-rubbed chicken so moist, the word “confit” hardly does it justice; uncased pork-and-beef soutzoukakia sausages shot through with woodsy za’atar; a take

on loukaniko, a true sausage deeply perfumed with orange zest and fennel seed; and bifteki, which was like the most unearthly delicious burger patty you’ve ever eaten. The bifteki sat on a thick slice of tomato, a king on a scarlet cushion. I cut into the crunchy caramelized crust of the pan-fried 80/20 beef patty (a light dredge in flour is the key), revealing a glistening interior as red as the fruit it sat upon.

Saritsoglou painted the Meat Board with condiments (parsley pesto, tahini mustard, buttered onion fondue), but each protein sang with such clarity and purity, they rendered the accessories mere window dressing. The house-baked bread, on the other hand, was a critical addition. Sprinkled with za’atar, a soft baguette-like loaf ran the length of the landscape, while a koulouri bread ring brought to mind a cross between a Montreal bagel and an Italian taralli cookie, paved here in sesame seeds.

Not everything at Opa was this transcendent. Grilled asparagus, pan-roasted oyster mushrooms and housemade yogurt tzatziki were lovely together, but the dry brown barley toast on which they mingled was a throwback to a time when hardscrabble Greeks would use toasting as a way to preserve fresh bread for months. Even Saritsoglou’s modernized version should stay in the past. A side of lemony gigantes beans was undercooked. The cocktail list lacked a clear identity — every drink seems to contain gin, lavender, honey or lime — and seeing big names like Corona and Amstel on the beer list hurt my soul.

Best to stick to wine at Opa; it’s mostly Greek, and the wonderful staffers know their stuff.

For dessert, go with the nutty halva pudding or velvety ice creams in flavors like honey and sour cherry; none of the above disappointed. I finished the last scoop, snuggled against a torn hunk of melomakarona, a cakey, amber ginger cookie, and ate it with the satisfaction of knowing that Bobby Saritsoglou was finally home. (aerace.citypaper@gmail.com, @adamerace)

citypaper.net/mealticket

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

BY CAROLINE RUSSOCK

FEEDING FRENZY

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OUTDOOR EATING AND DRINKING THE PORCH AT 30TH STREET STATION // The cafe seating and rotating weekday food trucks at the Porch at 30th Street Station were great, but this year the side park is getting an upgrade thanks to local design firm Groundswell and chef Michael Schulson. Schulson is rolling in two food trucks, one handling lunch seven days a week and a drinks trailer that’s going to be mixing cocktails and cracking beers four afternoons and early evenings from 4 to 9 p.m. The menu is full of summertime-friendly fare like watermelon salad, burgers and spit-roasted lamb, pork and wings. Drinks-wise there are watermelon cocktails and beers plus punches and a Philly take on a margarita. Lunch, daily 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; beverage trailer, Wed.-Sat., 4-9 p.m. 2955 Market St., 215-243-0555, theporchat30th.com.

SPRUCE STREET HARBOR PARK // This year, Spruce Street Harbor Park is welcoming a new crop of eating and drinking options. First up is Port FedNuts, a nautically themed mini Federal Donuts. The short and sweet menu includes cold brew iced coffee, mini cinnamon sugar doughnuts and a buttermilk ranch fried chicken sandwich on a potato roll with pickles, American cheese and Red Hot mayo. Chef Jose Garces is resurrecting the dearly departed Chifa for the summer and bringing back Chinese-Peruvian favorites like pork belly bao buns, gingergarlic wings and glazed pork ribs. And finally, for dessert, everyone’s favorite old timey ice cream parlor is setting up the S.S. Franklin Fountain and dishing out sundaes, cones and waffle ice cream sandwiches. Open Sun.-Thu., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-1 a.m. 121 N Columbus Blvd., 215-922-2386, delawareriverwaterfront.com.

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PHS POP UP GARDENS // The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s roving pop-up beer gardens are back, this season with two in South Philly. The first is returning to last year’s 15th and South location with a few changes. This time, the menu is heavy on hot dogs and pretzels and the beer is from Barren Hill Brewery.The second pop up is located on the east side of Cheesesteak Vegas at Ninth and Wharton. The food and bev is being handled by Dave Frank and Stephen Simons, owners of Cantina, Royal, Khyber Pass and the newly openedTriangle Tavern. Bourbon mint sweet tea and vodka watermelon lemonades are coming from the bar and the food menu is an Italian-accented selection of small plates like South Philly empanadas stuffed with pork, broccoli rabe, provolone and long hots; and a Bobby Rydell Caprese. Food and beverage service Mon.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m.-mid.; Sun., noon-10 p.m. Ninth and Wharton sts. and 1438 South St., phsonline.org

@CAROLINERUSSOCK

caroline@citypaper.net

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 4 - JUNE 10, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET