Tribe of Fools to Present One-Man Show SCHOOL PLAY

After multiple Fringe Festival hits Tribe of Fools is expanding their season and shrinking their cast size with School Play.

School Play is a one-man show featuring artistic director Terry Brennan. School Play was created by Brennan and director Jack Tamburri. It will run at St Peter's School on 3rd and Lombard June 9th through June 25th at 8pm with 3pm matinees on Sundays.

School Play takes audiences on a journey with a hyper-active, enthusiastic 4th grade student named, Terry Brennan - played by Terry Brennan, battling his inability to sit still, his need to ask "silly questions" and his love for "non-academic" subjects. Through comedy and acrobatics the show digs into the emotional life and silent desperation of children who aren't a natural fit for traditional schooling

Brennan conceived this piece after talking to a colleague about how difficult school was for him. His colleague was confused stating that, "I never thought school was very hard. I loved it." It occurred to Brennan that not everyone understood what it was like to try really hard and still be really bad at school. So Brennan reached out to director and Yale graduate Jack Tamburri about creating a one-person comedy with him about his difficulty learning.

Brennan said that Tamburri's training at Yale wasn't the reason he picked Jack, but it was a nice quirk to a piece that lampoons traditional education. "I really liked Jack's work, and I wanted to try a new approach to creating material. Finding an totally new collaborator with a very different point of view was a big part of that."

Brennan trained in hand-balancing in addition to the usual acrobatics and parkour that defines Tribe of Fools' signature style of physical theatre. The decision to make the show only one-person was to highlight the loneliness of school for Brennan. "Whether they meant to or not, most of my teachers convinced me that there was something inherently wrong with me - that I was lazy or apathetic or just bad. This attitude stuck with me long after I left school and affected the way I thought about myself for years. That being said, I wanted to tell this story in a funny way. It's a really good time, but it's also very personal for me."

School Play has toured to Boston, UPenn and New Jersey. School Play is directed by Jack Tamburri. Set design is by Peter Smith. Lighting Design is by Robin Stamey. Sound Design is by Kyle Yackoksi. Performances will be at St Peter's School June 9th -24th.

Performances:

Friday, June 9, 8 pm

Saturday, June 10, 8pm

Sunday, June 11, 6pm

Monday, June 12, 8pm

Thursday, June 15, 8pm

Friday June 16 8pm

Saturday June 17 8pm

Sunday, June 18, 3pm

Thursday, June 22, 9pm

Friday, June 23, 8pm

Saturday June 24 8pm

Sunday June 25 3pm

Tickets can be purchased at tribeoffools.org.

Watch a trailer for the show below!

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Accessible. Affordable. Exceptional. Physical. Theatre.

Tribe of Fools is dedicated to creating new plays that blur the lines between theater, dance, acrobatics and other physical story-telling disciplines in order to affect the audience in the most visceral way possible. While blurring the lines of genre Tribe also keeps their stories accessible to a contemporary audience and affordable for most Philadelphians.

The creation process is a collaboration of multi-disciplinary artists including actors, writers, dancers, acrobats and directors in a workshop atmosphere that lasts between 6 and 12 months. The company specializes in creating works that are fun, challenging, unique, and highly physically stylized. Their signature physical style has garnered them both audience and critical acclaim as well as pushed them to the finals on TruTV's hit show Fake Off.

Some of Tribe of Fools' more notable plays are: Heavy Metal Dance Fag. Two Street, Zombies... with Guns and most recently School Play. Over the years Tribe of Fools has collaborated other artists and organizations such as Swim Pony's Adrienne Mackey, The Annenberg Center and The Kimmel Center. Tribe of Fools has been hailed as "A fascinating young physical theatre company with a bright future" by Philadelphia Weekly, "The best surprise of 2007? by the Philadelphia Metro and "the dark horse hit" of the 2011 Philadelphia Fringe Festival by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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