One Last Chance to See Cartogoraphasia!

It's not over yet! The good news is, in light of Cartogoraphasia's success, the Swarthmore Theater Department has asked us to bring the show to Swarthmore and perform Cartogoraphasia in the Frear Ensemble Theater. The performance will take place on Friday, October 1st and begin at 8pm. The show runs about 80 minutes and afterwards we will host a talk-back in case any audience members have questions about the process of creating, writing, directing and performing this piece together.

Our performance at Swarthmore will be FREE to audience members, and we'd love to have support from the community. If you missed the show when it was in Philly, want to see it again, or simply want to tell your friends to go, we'd greatly appreciate it!

xox,

TB

A Great Big THANK YOU to everyone who came out to support Telephone Bronco this Fringe Season!

To everyone who came out to see Cartogoraphasia, everyone who reads this blog, and everyone who helped us out along the way… THANK YOU.

We took a big risk this summer, a leap of faith that not only could we survive a summer of collaboration but that people like you would come out and support us at the end of it. We cannot express our gratitude to you enough; just seeing an audience actually show up to see the play we made from scratch was a thrill.

Cartogoraphasia played a successful 7-show run at the Philly Fringe Festival, delighting hundreds of Philadelphia theater-goers. We are extremely proud of the show we made, not just for its Fringe success but also because we were able to truly work as a collective to create it. Our work together this summer was exhausting, chaotic, and contentious but ultimately exhilarating. We’re proud of ourselves, proud of our show, and grateful to you.

We hope you loved the ride as much as we did.

All our love,

Telephone Bronco Theater Company

Nell, Jessie, Emma, Sam, Eric, Louis, & Isa

Sneak Peek at Cartogoraphasia!

FOUR PERFORMANCES LEFT! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW.

According to people on Twitter, Cartogoraphasia is "charming" and Telephone Bronco is a group of "up and coming, talented artists." Come see for yourself!

Directions to Circle of Hope!

JOIN US TOMORROW NIGHT AT 8PM!

Here are some directions to the Circle of Hope Church, 1125 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA. It's located on the east side of Broad St, just south of Washington. We will have sandwich boards that say "Cartogoraphasia" and "Philly Fringe" on them! Also, look for a large marquee that says something about check cashing. Our entrance happens to be right underneath it.

From Swarthmore on Public Transit: Take the R3 from Swarthmore to Suburban Station. In Suburban Station, look for a sign for the Broad St. Subway Line (this will take you to the 15th St subway stop; it's accessible from any Suburban Station entrance). Take the Broad Street Line Southbound, and get off at the Ellsworth-Federal stop. Walk north up Broad St, away from Elsworth and towards Washington. It should be on the right.

(If you live in Philly, you might want to take the subway too!)

Driving From Swarthmore: Head south on PA 320/ Chester Road towards Chester (away from the Baltimore Pike). Take a left onto Fairview Road (just before Swarthmore Pizza), and then a right onto MacDade Blvd. Merge onto I-95 N towards Philadelphia. Take Exit 17 to Merge onto Broad St. Continue up Broad for a long time--you'll pass Oregon Ave, Snyder Ave, and Tasker St. Circle of Hope will be on the right, just north of Federal St. All the street parking in the neighborhood is free!

Driving From North; New Jersey/ New York: Either Via I-78, or the New Jersey Turnpike, Make your way to I-95 S Toward Central Philadelphia. Take Exit 20 for Columbus Blvd towards Washington St. At the end of the ramp go right onto Columbus; then take a right on Washington Ave. Take Washington to Broad St (about 14 blocks) and go left on Broad. Circle of Hope will be on your left, almost immediately!

Cartogoraphasia From the Swarthmore Perspective

Below is an article written by Cami Ryder for The Phoenix (Swarthmore's campus newspaper): (http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/2010/09/02/living/theater-fringe)

Creating and exploring new maps for theater

BY CAMILA RYDER

In print | Published September 2, 2010

From the Frear Ensemble Theater to the renowned Philly Fringe, the Telephone Bronco Theatre Company, comprised of Swarthmore alumni and current students, hits the ground running with their first show, “Cartogoraphasia,” debuting this Friday, September 3. A brainchild of Louis Jargow ’10 and Sam Goodman ’10, Telephone Bronco began with the goal of debuting a piece at the Philly Fringe. A director, a playwright, a set designer and four actors make up Telephone Bronco, which includes Jargow, Goodman, Emma Ferguson ’10, Jessica Bear ’09, Isa St. Clair ’11, Nell Bang-Jensen ’11 and Eric Holzhauer ’10, respectively.

Telephone Bronco received a Swarthmore Project in Theater grant, which allowed them to utilize the Frear Theater over the summer.

“I’ve only had Swarthmore to thank for [the] use of space and support and I think the [theater] department really encourages [the] small theatre company [and] collaborative model that is just the … absolute best way to do theater,” Bear said.

Though the company appears to follow the typical format of defined director, writer and actors, all seven artists work collaboratively in a devised theatre form, where all the members of a company write and create the work together.

“We wanted everyone to have the opportunity to have his or her voice heard,” actor St. Clair said. “That … has really affected the structure and the tenor of the piece that we have made — you can see it doesn’t follow one person; it follows six different people.” Telephone Bronco’s collaborative process allowed for every member to have hir or her own input and the character building, script, and staging fell easily into place. At the start of summer, the group got right to work.

“We all kind of just brainstormed themes and ideas that we … wanted to see on stage or our ideas we had about characters,” Jargow said. “We came across characters that we liked and … we tried to figure out how to tie them together in the most rich and dynamic way.”

Following the devised theater model, all the artists started the process by presenting and talking about their ideas, combined with hours of improvisations and creating characters. They would also have one-on-one interviews with each other as their characters, building backstories.
“We started by playing, and then we did a lot of improvisation, so once we knew which characters we wanted to highlight, we figured out what scenes we need[ed] to tell their stories,” Bang-Jensen said.

There was also a video camera recording their improv games and scenes, which playwright Goodman later watched and edited to pick out the strongest characters and stories.

“[It] was fun for me to have these scenes that the actors had done so much in developing and to just put them in order and streamline them,” Goodman said, translating the fast-paced movement of improv to dialogue or a scene.

While other theatre companies can’t dedicate as much time as Telephone Bronco did (20 hours a week through the entire summer), the process led to stronger characters and defined themes. Even before rehearsals, the group agreed on two themes: the brain and cartography, the study of map-making. They wanted to explore how the inner workings of the brain translate into the external world and the borders and lines in which we place and define ourselves. The title came from merging cartography with aphasia, an acquired language brain disorder.

“At first, we were really interested in the idea of exploring sort of how to physicalize brain science on stage and … ideas of perception and theatricality,” Bang-Jensen said. “We were also really interested in exploring [and] ‘Cartogoraphasia’ formed from that.”

“We started with these themes in mind,” Holzhauer said. “But what ended up coming out in the end of the improvisations were dozens and dozens of characters.” They eventually whittled down the list to six main characters, with a handful of supporting characters. “The script … follows the different story lines of the characters,” he added. Not all of the storylines intersect.
Focusing on their theme of exploration, “Cartogoraphasia” follows six characters who are all, in their own way, exploring, whether it’s a country, their body or their own mind. One character is the literal explorer, another is a little girl, played by Bear, who dreams up her own adventures; two teenagers explore their bodies and sex; one woman with memory loss tries to piece together her life, and another character searches for her keys to happiness.

Though the play may highlight the exploration of six characters, it really is an exploration of the members of Telephone Bronco and what it means to be an actor, a director, a playwright or a set designer.

“Cartogoraphasia” debuts this Friday, Sept. 3 at 8:00 p.m. at the Circle of Hope on 1125 South Broad Street, with show times on Sept. 4, Sept. 10 and Sept. 11. Tickets are $15. Get off at Ellsworth-Federal station on the Broad Street Line. For more information, check out www.livearts-fringe.org or Telephone Bronco’s Facebook page.