For Immediate Release: February 9, 2007
Media Contact: Dawn Falato, Hotel Obligado, 215.754.4959

One of Philadelphia’s most innovative theater companies is taking a captivating look at the skyrocketing rates of HIV among gay men who use crystal methamphetamine in a world premiere production of Beauty Is.

Beauty Is uses physical theater to explore the underlying emotional reasons people engage in self-destructive behavior and to raise awareness about the dangers of crystal methamphetamine, known as "Tina" in gay communities across America. The ensemble production features a four-person cast and is an original work, written, scored and choreographed by Hotel Obligado ensemble members.

The world premiere of Beauty Is marks the culmination of over a year of intensive research by Hotel Obligado company members. Research consultants have included public health and crystal meth addiction experts, as well as former addicts in Philadelphia, San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon. Hotel Obligado’s goal has been to truthfully portray the nature of the addiction and its link to the rise in HIV infection in gay men.

Beauty Is evokes the raw emotionality of missed connections, repressed tendernesses, and painful pleasure people on Tina experience. It uses the graphic physicality and rushed extremism they embody to enact the fantasies and horrors of using crystal methamphetamine.

Performance details: Beauty Is world premiere March 2–17, 2007 at 8pm. (Additional 4pm matinees Saturdays and Sundays. No shows Mondays, Tuesdays, or on Sunday, March 11th.) Sister’s Night Club 1320 Chancellor Street, Philadelphia, PA Tickets $ 15 For tickets call 215-754-4959 or visit the P.H.A.G. Shop, 1225 Walnut Street. See www.hotelobligado.org for details.

For the first time in its six-year history, Hotel Obligado's ensemble is comprised of actors not previously trained in commedia dell'arte (see below). This is an exciting first step, since part of Hotel Obligado's mission is to foster the ongoing regeneration of a cadre of Philadelphia-based artists who use physical theatre to make socially relevant ensemble-created collaborative art that benefits from collective authorship. The extremely talented and committed cast of Beauty Is includes Kim Carson, Justin Jain, Scott McPheeters, and Josh Totora. The outstanding production team of Beauty Is: Bill Buddendorf – Music/Sound, Simon Harding – Set/Lights, Dawn Falato – Direction, and Robin Marcotte – Choreography.

“It was important to us that Beauty Is engages our audiences, but doesn’t preach to them. This is a powerful mix of theater, dance and passion” says Robin Marcotte, co-founder of Hotel Obligado and the production’s choreographer. “Crystal meth addiction can be invisible – you may not know that the person next to you has an addiction or why it’s causing him to engage in risky behaviors. That’s part of the message we’re conveying in Beauty Is.”

Financial support for Beauty Is comes from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco, the San Francisco Foundation, the Five-County Arts Fund, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and numerous much-valued individual donors. Research support has come from the Attic Youth Center, Dr. Robert Winn of the Mazzoni Center, Mike DiPilla of Crystal Meth Anonymous, as well as HIV Stops With Me and the Partnership Project at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, and The Stonewall Project in San Francisco, California. Dr. Winn has supported the project financially as well. He says, “This play needs to happen. Meth abuse is a very physical adventure. The extreme physicality of the production expresses it well.”

After the Philadelphia debut of Beauty Is in March, the production will be used by other theater groups across the country. It is already slated for performance in San Francisco in early 2008.

About Physical Theater
In physical theater, instead of literary elements, physical movement conveys the central ideas of the “play” through aspects of contemporary dance, mime, puppetry, theatrical clowning and acrobatics. Because of this, what happens on stage tends to affect audience members viscerally much more than intellectually, hitting them at a “gut” level. Hotel Obligado’s founders have studied mask, clown, melodrama, and commedia dell’arte, and they have used all of these skills to create a style of theatre the press has called “comically inventive” and “slyly provocative.”

About Hotel Obligado
Since 2001, Hotel Obligado Physical Theater has been passionately dedicated to bringing vital, innovative theatre into existence by creating and staging original, ensemble-generated performances. Our regular activities include staging original performances for various audiences, donating performances to benefits, and conducting pro bono acting workshops with the goal of engaging young people’s imaginations.

For more information, visit www.hotelobligado.org.

Note to editors: Photos of previous Hotel Obligado performances available upon request.

Go to News Releases»