Minutes of Writers House/WXPN Meeting, 5/9/97

By Al Filreis

From: afilreis@dept.english.upenn.edu (Al Filreis)
Subject: Minutes over sushi
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 07:26:48 -0400 (EDT)

Several of us, bolstered by sushi and/or seaweed, discussed possible
locations for the first several sessions of "Live at the Writers House"
(to be held, of course, while the House is under renovation).

Some of the on-campus off-site locations that merited at least some
assent:

 ICA
 Palladium
 University Museum
 Eisenlohr
 Philo room(s) in College Hall
 surgical theatre in vet school

Some of-campus locations:

 Painted Bride
 [the place Bruce couldn't remember on Avenue of the Arts]
 Walt Whitman's house on Mickle Street in Camden
 the Edison-Fareira High School (mostly Latino) in North Philadelphia

Painted Bride was an obviously good choice, most agreed, for an off-campus
choice. There were lots of WH-Painted Bride connections already; and the
space at PB is perfect for performance.

Whitman's House was immediately acclaimed as a great idea.

Al discussed the Edison School. Joining with a Philadelphia Public School
would send a signal we want to send about the possibility of high-school
partnerships - esp. since Edison students who are creative writers are
keen to do something like this. For that show we could easily have three
or four Edison seniors reading.

The Ave. of the Arts site, whatever it is, Bruce recommended because Mayor
Rendell would surely want to join us then. (Vinnie urged us to broadcast
live from Rendell's home.)

Sarah has doubts about any off-campus site, emphasizing the need for us to
keep the Penn relation very strong and prominent and not let "Live" become
or seem a general venue for spoken-word art. 


Of the on-campus sites, we took a straw vote. The Palladium and ICA won
most votes.

Kristin		ICA
Bruce		ICA
Sarah		Museum
Jeff		Philo
Joe		ICA
Vinnie		Palladium
Al		Palladium
Derek		Palladium

We discussed the great advantages of broadcasting from the ICA. ONe of
them is simply that that's a venue most obviously associated with the
cutting-edge contemporary scene the Writers House also enables.

The Palladium is interesting for many reasons. For one, we could create a
program for earlier in the evening - a dinnertime event.

In any case, most of us agreed, we would want the off-site host to help
pay for the event. It would entail for them lots of free publicity,
especially mention on XPN in promos for the event.