Talking Fringe with Nick Stuccio

Nick Stuccio, once a Pennsylvania Ballet dancer, found his mission in his second career as a theatrical Moses, leading Philadelphia out of the mainstream and onto the Fringe.

The first Philadelphia Fringe Festival - five days in September 1997 - introduced the city to a free-floating profusion of theater, music, dance, performance art, and what can only be described as "events." Now Stuccio has wrapped up Fringe 2014, 16 days long and divided into Presented Fringe, a handful of shows his organization imports and/or supports, and Neighborhood Fringe, a lively, messy free-for-all.

Q. How does this year measure up in terms of scale, size, and aesthetics?

A. I really feel that this year was a turning point . . .. [Previously,] we weren't ready sometimes. We'd bring [a performance] here and audiences really didn't understand it. . . . We weren't evolved enough as a presenter to be able to contextualize and explain it and find the audience. So we were playing catchup. The last couple of years we've arrived.

Q. Example?

A. The really abstract, very difficult work [of Romeo] Castellucci, who is as philosophical an artist as there is in the world - smart guy, but his work is really tough. We sold out three shows [of his The Four Seasons Restaurant], 340 seats. The last show was filled with a bunch of young, hip people who all stayed . . . and listened to this man talk about his work. That's a test. If there's a post-show talk and a big group stays, typically that means it's landed well. That's been very rewarding.

Q. You've been been to fringe festivals all over, right?

A. I've been to one fringe festival in my life besides this one, and that is in Edinburgh . . .. We pilfered all [their] ideas: a platform for artists we shouldn't be picking or a platform for anybody doing anything - an homage to the independent spirit of artists everywhere, which is what Edinburgh does. But also a platform, which we have here, of work that we should see here - world-class artists saying really important things about the world we live in . . .. That's what makes a great festival.

Q. How do the shows you select and present from around the world fit into the idea of "fringe"?

A. That is really not a fringe . . .. I don't know what it is. It's an arts festival, picked by me and Sarah [Bishop-Stone, programming manager], that worked. We call it "fringe" because 18 years ago we really didn't know what we were doing and we called the whole thing the "Fringe." There are kind of two ways to use the term . . . free-from adjudication, artists on the fringe, [or] synonymously with a kind of art-making which is contemporary or experimental. So we kind of use both those terms.

Q. What do you try to bring here?

A. We like innovation and experimentation. Also . . . 'what can Philadelphia tolerate?' I don't program in a vacuum. And the third thing is my interests . . .. I like political things and I like physical things and I like tech-based things . . .. We try to make something that's well-rounded and diverse and dynamic and reflects our interests.

Q. You now have a permanent year-round center and restaurant on the Delaware. How has the burden of the city's economic-development interests affected the Fringe? Has it become institutionalize?

A. I don't think of it as a burden, I think of it as a great challenge. I want to be part of the revitalization of the waterfront. We want to be a catalyst. We want to be at the center of it. Bring it on. In terms of [being] institutionalized, I've been asked that question since 1999. . . . I have the same answer. It's about the work. It's about the ideas, the artists, and what their role is in the world we live in.

My view of that has not changed. I'm able to find and bring pretty much anybody we want now. And that to me is a great thing. I think we're still scrappy.

Inquirer theater critics pick one favorite show from the 2014 Fringe Festival lineup.

Toby Zinman Shakespeare's epic poem The Rape of Lucrece, by Dan Hodge of the Philadelphia Artists Collective (Neighborhood Fringe). "Theater without a net, a 90-minute monologue in rhymed couplets, a tour-de-force performance, riveting and absolutely accessible."

Wendy Rosenfield The Four Seasons Restaurant, by Romeo Castellucci and the Societas Raffaello Sanzio (Presented Fringe). "It was like watching the bottom drop out of the universe. Beautiful and horrifying all at once."

Jim Rutter Suspended, by Brian Sanders' JUNK (Neighborhood Fringe). "It blended religious ritual with sexual abandon to create a work at once erotic, exotic, and full of potent imagery and athleticism."

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