Painted Bride Art Center

In This Place…. and Place Philadelphia
2011 Company Project Grant
$187,000

Painted Bride Art Center will commission writer/director/actor Ain Gordon to create a new play that unearths a “forgotten” story from Philadelphia’s past. Over the course of an 18-month residency, Gordon will work in collaboration with Philadelphia documentarian/filmmaker Nadine Patterson and do extensive research in this area in order to find the untold or unknown story that will come to be the subject of the play. The two artists will conduct interviews, visit archives, and traverse the city. Community partners including The National Museum of American Jewish History, The Free Library of Philadelphia, Scribe Video Center, and Mother Bethel African Methodist Church will provide Gordon and Patterson with entryways into a diverse range of communities and will host events as the work is developed. Once research is complete, Gordon will write, cast, and direct the show’s production in May 2013. During the residency, Painted Bride will also present one of Gordon’s earlier works, In This Place…, inspired by a Kentucky home once inhabited by freed slaves who disappeared.