Q&A with Nick Stuccio, Producing Director, Philadelphia Live Arts & Philly Fringe

In 1997, former Pennsylvania Ballet dancer Nick Stuccio started the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, a scrappy, weeklong showcase of experimental and contemporary arts held in traditional and unexpected venues throughout Old City. In the 15 years since then, the Fringe has grown in scope, size and reach, morphing into what is now the Philadelphia Live Arts & Philly Fringe, a sophisticated, boundary-busting festival with a $2.6 million dollar budget that includes both curated and unfiltered performances, a visual arts component, and much more.

Now, the Festival is about to embark on its biggest change yet: opening a year-round home. Nick and his festival team are currently at work raising money for the renovation of an historic former fire hydrant pumping station at Race Street and Columbus Boulevard, recently purchased from the City. Currently, the festival is housed in rented digs in Northern Liberties that don’t meet their needs. When the new 10,000-square-foot space opens next year, it will feature a 225-seat theater, a rehearsal studio, an outdoor plaza for performances, festival offices and meeting spaces, as well as a 2,000 square-foot bar/restaurant designed to earn income to support the year-round facility.

We sat down with Nick who told us more about how the Festival has evolved since its start, what provocative performances you can expect at this year’s fest, and why if Philadelphia is to be a top tier arts city it must have a permanent home for the contemporary, experimental performance.

Before founding the Festival, you were a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet corps for eight years. How do you make the leap from dancer to arts presenter?
I needed something to do with my life. I [helped produce] Shut Up & Dance before the Fringe. I liked being a guy who organizes stuff. I was lucky. While I was dancing I knew exactly what I wanted to do [when my dancing career was over]. I had an easy transition. I knew a lot of colleagues who didn’t know what they wanted to do.

The first Philadelphia Fringe Festival was held back in 1997, what originally inspired the idea?
As a dancer I developed an opinion about work I thought was amazing, deeply moving. As a Pennsylvania Ballet dancer I saw a lot of big theater. First time I went to Edinburgh I immersed myself. Tina Bausch, William Forsythe … I was completely transformed. My first thought was I would love to bring this work to audiences in Philadelphia.

How has the festival grown since then?
The measure is not numbers. It isn’t about capacity. It’s about understanding. We had no idea what we were doing when we started. We had to learn institutional presentation. How to market, how to fund, how to produce, how to produce site-specific. It takes years. It takes years for audiences to catch on. I was at Avignon [Festival] recently. It’s 60 years old. I can feel the audience’s deep understanding, a trust built over generations. We’re bringing increasingly more sophisticated shows. I can see a show internationally and understand how I’m going to present it, market it. That’s the kind of growth I see.

In the beginning the festival was intended to be about artists taking risks, breaking boundaries. After 15 years, is that still happening?
Next year I’m going to bring two big provocative works.

What are the biggest struggles you’ve overcome  producing this festival?
Site work is always a challenge.  Our managing director knows all about the regulations, fire safety. We’ve been shut down once by L&I. I want to keep pushing people, push our staff. Sometimes I’ve gone too far. A lot of work … how much can we handle… how provocative can the audience tolerate.

What challenges are you still facing?
Funding. Finding the resources to do it. That’s always been a challenge. Board development, governance. Now, more acutely, a tough time in the economy. Now have to find great professional fundraisers to help. That’s very challenging and it takes up a lot of my time.

You are in the process of opening  a new year-round home for the Festival. What will such a venue mean to Philadelphia?
The concept is that we’re putting this cool theater in the midst of this highly social place. Our model is a social context. There will be a 225-seat theater, a rehearsal studio, offices, 140-seat bar/restaurant, a 4,000-square-foot outdoor plaza. So many cultural [leaders], business leaders, politicians want this to be a vibrant first-tier city and yet we don’t have a year-round contemporary arts presenter. NY you have The Kitchen, PS 122, La MaMa. In Minnesota the Walker, Portland the ICA. I can go around the country. [The new building is] a proactive experiment. If we get it right, I think we will be influencing the national culture.

What can festival goers expect this year?
More, larger shows. Bigger scale, new shows.

What performance are you most looking forward to in this year’s festival?
Seven Singers, U.S. premiere of new show Sequence 8. It’s post-modern circus. [I’m] really excited about that. It’s appealing, it’s virtuosity. Australian company [Back to Back Theatre’s] Food Court. A company of actors who are intellectually disabled. Abstract philosophically about who has the power in our society. It’s really powerful and really disturbing. Only U.S. appearance. Pig Iron commissioned a play by Toshiki Okada. Thaddeus Phillips’ play about Edgar Allan Poe’s life.

What are some of your favorite performances/events from past festivals?
[Jerome Bel’s] The Show Must Go On [from 2008] is in my top 5. French choreographer Shen Wei’s Rite of Spring [in 2004]. Last year, Rude Mech’s—a brilliant show. Emio Greco’s Hell [in 2006]. Amazing. New Paradise Laboratories’ Batch four years ago.

Photos by Andrew Reiner