Philly arts get personal with the second annual “Nice and Fresh” series

Is a new and diverse artistic experience worth $7 to you? For that amount, you could buy a cheeseburger and fries or a latte and a half, or spend about an hour marinating in four unique short works of theater, dance, performance, and/or circus arts. That’s what SmokeyScout Productions’ Nice and Fresh performing arts series is all about.

The series was created by husband-and-wife SmokeyScout co-founders Josh McIlvain and Deborah Crocker, and it “creates work that brings the absurdity of contemporary life to the stage with brilliant acting, bold humor, inventive staging, and a respect for audience intelligence.”

Second anniversary show

The duo produced the first series last year because they wanted to offer shows with an informal vibe but with professional pacing in their Mount Airy neighborhood, rather than downtown. McIlvain believes there is a large audience for theater and performance art in his area. “There are few options in the Northwest for professional-level theater and for something that’s more original,” he said.

He also wanted to collaborate with other artists to create new, finished performances, which encourages artists to create regularly, and combine several disciplines into one evening. Each show features four pieces, about 12 to 15 minutes long, “enough to be artistically substantive, but not so long it will kill the artist to make it,” he said. “The goal is to showcase great artists and interesting art being made.”

The first event this year features the New York City comedy troupe Awful DJ; a duet choreographed by local dancer Barbara Tait; and a piece by Washington, D.C. dancer Katie C. Sopoci Drake. It also features a play by McIlvain — he wrote and directs The History of Rock and Roll, a semi-autobiographical story about being in a band: “It’s about what it’s really like and what interpersonal relationships of that kind are.”

Though he enjoyed being a musician, his focus is theater now, and he’s happy about that. “I feel connected to it, and I like writing plays,” he said.

Keeping the actors in the room

He also likes making theater feel less stagy. “Sometimes it feels as if [the actors] are not in the room with you,” he said. From his time being in a band, “I’m conscious of how to play a crowd. I like using some of that to insinuate actors into the audience’s physical and emotional space.”

Last year’s show featured performers from Philly only; this year, two performers are from outside the city. That just goes with the show’s theme and title: new people, new ideas, and new performances that even McIlvain hasn’t seen. He asks the artists, whom he knows or who are recommended to him, to create something, and then he waits to see what they come up with. “I’m trusting them to do something and it will be cool,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m getting until the first night.”

That’s exciting and helps to remind him of why he and other performers do what they do: “The important thing is that artists need to create and performers need to perform.”

The venue for the Nice and Fresh fall performances is Moving Arts of Mount Airy at Greene Street and Carpenter Lane (across from Weavers Way Co-Op), in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, at 6 and 8pm on Oct. 3 and 4. Tickets are $7. For more information, check out the 2014-15 season online.

The lineup for the rest of this year’s Nice and Fresh performances, on November 15 and 16 and December 5 and 6, will be announced soon.

At right: Jenna Bryant and Barbara Tait, appearing in Nice and Fresh in October. Image courtesy of SmokeyScout Productions.