Mark Kennedy's CHECKERS Plays Philadelphia Fringe Festival, 9/7-11

Local theatre artist Mark Kennedy will present a world premiere solo performance piece, Checkers, as part of the 2011 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Checkers will run from September 7th through the 11th at the Fleisher Art Memorial Sanctuary, 719 Catherine Street. For tickets, contact the Festival Box Office at (215) 413-1318 or visit www.livearts-fringe.org.

Checkers imagines a secret play happening beneath Witold Gombrowicz' classic absurdist fairytale Ivona, Princess of Burgundia. In college Kennedy fell in love with the seemingly minor role of Checkers, an ever-interrupting servant who never quite fully enters a room before being ordered out of it. Checkers, Kennedy thought, must be in love with the hated Ivona, and while the court plots to kill her, Checkers tries to save her. In this piece, Checkers is stuck in the palace alone in the aftermath, unable to stop seeing the memory of her story repeat itself over and over again.

Gombrowicz, a Polish novelist and playwright, wrote Ivona, Princess of Burgundia in 1938, responding to the horrific escalations of fascism with a thinly veiled allegory that exposes the arbitrary and cruel excesses of unchecked power. Checkers takes that evisceration of absurd authority and turns it inward, exploring Checkers' own psychological dictators and how he can learn to be his own master.

Checkers will be produced en promenade in the Fleisher Art Memorial Sanctuary, allowing for its audience to follow Checkers through a lush, decaying, literal "memory palace" as he attempts to find the self he's lost and move on from the guilt of survival.

With this piece, Checkers and Kennedy find their voice. "Checkers represents my emergence as an artist to the Philadelphia theatre community," Kennedy explains. "I've worked here for two years as an apprentice or assistant, and now I get to take my own risks as an artist and storyteller." Kristen Bailey, the director, has her first opportunity to direct in Philadelphia, and has been able to collaborate with Kennedy on the development of the material as well as its production.

Checkers premiered in a workshop production in the 2011 SoLow Festival in Philadelphia in June. It was produced in Bailey's apartment in Kensington.