Tennessee Williams' THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE Comes to The Bethany Mission Gallery at Philadelphia Fringe

Tennessee Williams' rewrite of his earlier study of a claustrophobic small town and its gossipy residents, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale comes alive amid a renowned collection of outsider art at The Bethany Mission Gallery in Spring Garden, September 4 - 23, as part of the 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

The IRC's production is the Philadelphia premiere of the author's preferred rewrite of his earlier play Summer and Smoke, which opened on Broadway decades earlier (1948) at The Music Box Theatre. Clive Barnes' review of Eccentricities for The New York Times on November 24, 1976: "Perhaps the most eccentric thing about Tennessee Williams's new (yes new) and pungently atmospheric play The Eccentricities of a Nightingale is its provenance...it started as a rewrite for the London production of Summer and Smoke, obviously a radical rewrite. But that production was already deep into rehearsal when Mr. Williams arrived with his revised script, which was put away and did not emerge until years later. Now Mr. Williams has worked further on the script...and the resultant new play...knocks Summer and Smoke off the map, except as a literary curiosity." Eccentricities is a sometimes gentle, often brutal indictment of how our instinct to marginalize and discard others different from ourselves can destroy lives; the play honors the unique in Tennessee Williams and in us.

Eccentricities will preview Tuesday and Wednesday September 4 and 5 @ 7:30 pm; opening night is Thursday, September 6 at 7:30 pm. Eccentricities will run Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm; Sunday at 2:30 pm through Sunday September 23. Tickets and information: https://Eccentricities.bpt.me; www.idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org or 215.285.0472.

Eccentricities features performers John Zak, Jane Moore, Tomas Dura, Carol Florence, Carlos Forbes, Kassy Bradford, Jim Guckin, Bob Schmidt and Tina Brock, who will also direct and design sound. IRC Associate Artistic Director Erica Hoelscher will design set and costumes. The lighting designer is Maria Shaplin.

Glorious Hill, Mississippi, the setting for Eccentricities, will come to life amid two hundred works of outsider art including drawings & paintings by James Castle, Sam Doyle, Howard Finster, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Bill Traylor and George Widener. Modern renovations to the 1869 Quaker meeting house were completed in February 2012 to accommodate and display the internationally-recognized collection, which also features objects including radios, antique metal toys and milk glass. The gallery will be open to the public one hour prior and following each performance. BMG was the setting for the IRC's critically-recognized 2017 Fringe production of Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano.

The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium is recognized as a leading interpreter of rarely-produced absurdist gems from authors around the globe. Noted for their humorous and thoughtful interpretations of seldom-seen works, the IRC's 2017 season included critically-acclaimed sold-out productions of Jean Giraudoux's The Enchanted and Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano.

The IRC is a 501C3 non-profit organization, and a member of The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and a participant in the Barrymore Awards, a program of Theatre Philadelphia. The IRC's 2018 season is funded in part by generous grants from from Wyncote Foundation; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; The Charlotte Cushman Foundation; The Virginia Brown Martin Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation; The Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also provided by PECO and administered regionally by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia.

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