upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Featured Artist: Elizabeth Castiglione, Jax Peters Lowell, Indah Nuritasari, Yowei Shaw & Barbara Grant
Produced by Erin Gautsche
Hosted by Michaela Majoun
LIVE AT THE WRITERS HOUSE FEATURES LEEWAY AWARD WINNERS
7:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
Full program here
Another round of Leeway grant recipients graced the Writers House for this edition of LIVE, navigating the depths of documentary and memoir in a night with equal parts emotion and humor. Elizabeth Castiglione illustrated how unsettling the ordinary can become in an exploration of bipolar disorder, equating her situation to a 6th-grade writing assignment involving PB&J. Esteemed gluten-free author Jax Peters Lowell offset the dread of her husband's brain-surgery recovery with a slew of quirky characters – from a Cockney-speaking crossing guard to an elite "Connecticut preppy" – in "Coconuts." Indah Nuritasari asked audience members to pardon her accent as she recounted her migration from Indonesia to Philly, emphasizing the small miracles of everyday life. The Swimmers followed with a fresh take on the synthesizer; the progressive combination and separation of male and female vocals mesmerized. Yowei Shaw, a Penn senior, shared a scene from her radio documentary about The People's Revolutionary Party in Philly, proving that even communists eat cookie cream pie. A reporter's composure and clarity distinguished a final reading from Barbara Ann Grant, in which the humiliation and frustration of securing care for her elderly mother was balanced by small comic details (a 75-year-old boy toy and the redefinition of "HONDA," for instance).
Michaela Majoun - Introduction
Elizabeth Castiglione - Introduction
Elizabeth Castiglione - From the first chapter of Stumbling in the Dark
Jax Peters Lowell - Introduction
Jax Peters Lowell - "Coconuts"
Indah Nuritasari - Introduction
Indah Nuritasari - "Relying on Miracles"
Swimmers - Introduction
Swimmers - "Anything Together"
Yowei Shaw - Introduction
Yowei Shaw - Reading
Barbara Ann Grant - Introduction
Barbara Ann Grant - Reading
Swimmers - Closing Performance Introduction
Swimmers - "Save Me From the Brightness"
Michaela Majoun - Closing
"LIVE at the Writers House" is a long-standing collaboration of the people of the Kelly Writers House and of WXPN FM (88.5). Six times annually between September and April, the Writers House airs a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, along with one musical guest -- from our Arts Cafe onto the airwaves at WXPN. "LIVE" is broadcast on WXPN. "LIVE" is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc.
For more information about the show, or if you are interested in reading or being a part of the audience, contact series producer Erin Gautsche (gautsche@writing.upenn.edu) c/o "LIVE at the Writers House," 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia PA 19104-6150.
"LIVE" stands in a tradition of "new writing" on radio; Cid Corman, a poet and great supporter of experimental poetry in the 1950s, created his own broadcast, "This is Poetry," over WMEX-FM (Boston).