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Sweetie Pie

Madi Distefano

Recipient

Grant Year 2006

Grant Amount $10,000

Status Completed

Updated May 30, 2023

Actor, director, and playwright Madi Distefano wrote and performed in the original work Sweetie Pie, a bold re-imagination of Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Oedipus. Presented by Azuka Theatre as part of the 2007 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the work was inspired by such pop culture icons as Madonna and Courtney Love, as it examined love and vanity in a fame-obsessed, contemporary culture. Directed by John Clancy, Sweetie Pie served as the final piece in a series of plays that included Distefano's Eye-95 Re-Tarred and Popsicles Departure, 1989.

Recipient

Madi Distefano

Independent theater artist Madi Distefano is the founder and former artistic director of Brat Productions, a company dedicated to "caus[ing] a stir." Her memorable productions include several revivals of The Twenty-Four Hour Bald Soprano, in which Ionesco's classic hour-long play was repeated 24 times, on the hour, for audience members free to come and go, and the Center-supported Haunted Poe, an immersive journey from room-to-room of a 10,000-square-foot warehouse, where actors performed from Edgar Allan Poe's supernatural writings. Distefano's original quick-change comedy, Meanwhile..., challenged two actors to play all 12 roles, using stock characters from crime noir and mid-century pulp fiction.

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