Programs and Events
Darwinii: The Comeuppance Of Man
October 24, 2009
What if Charles Darwin fathered a child when his ship, HMS Beagle, stopped briefly at Tierra del Fuego? What if his great-great-great-great-love grandchild is named—not Groucho or Harpo, or Curly or Gogo—but Cristobal? What if this intense, seriously geeky savant, illiterate but deeply knowledgeable about the theory of natural selection is on a lecture tour? What if his postmodern spin on the origin of species was presented in the august precincts of the American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum?
You’d have Darwinii: The Comeuppance of Man, a swashbuckling, one-man tour de farce that deftly skewers everything you think you know about Darwin. It is a unique and imaginative trip ‘round Darwinism, deep time, evolution, and survival of the fittest that’s serious fun.
Darwinii: The Comeuppance of Man debuted as part of the 2009 Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe
Additional performances: October 16, 17, 23 & 24 at 6:30pm and October 18 & 25 at 3 pm.
Performance duration: Approx. 65 minutes
held at the APS Museum, 104 S. Fifth Street (adjacent to Independence Hall, for directions click here).
Purchase tickets for October 23 & 24 at 6:30 pm
Purchase Sunday tickets for October 25 at 3 pm.
All sales are final. Limited tickets may be available at the door (cash only).
Receive 10% off your meal at Fork (306 Market St.) and National Mechanics (22 S. 3rd St.) with a voucher from the Darwinii performance.
(Vouchers are good only on the day of performance. Alcoholic drinks are not included in this offer.)
Please note: Performances will begin promptly. There is no late seating.
Glen Berger is an award-winning playwright and co-author with Julie Taymor of the book for the upcoming Broadway musical Spiderman, Turn Off The Dark (with music by Bono and the Edge) opening in February 2010. His works include Underneath the Lintel (over 450 performances Off-Broadway and productions in 100 cities in nine countries earning several Best Play awards), O Lovely Glowworm and Great Men of Science, Nos. 21 & 22, among others. He has received commissions from the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis, Berkeley Rep, the Alley Theatre and the Lookingglass Theatre. He has won two Emmys and written over 90 episodes for children’s television series and for the past five years, he has been head writer for the PBS series Fetch. Berger is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Brett Keyser is a Philadelphia-based performance artist. Beginning in 2003, Keyser has served as an artist-in-residence at the APS Museum where he created and performed Horridus! Horridus! Name-calling in the Wilderness; The Natural Legacy of Lewis and Clark; Turkish Delightenment; Tann, Horns & Dead Dogs: Tales of Civic Effluvia; and You Are Here. He is an associate artist with the North American Cultural Laboratory, recently collaborating on the rock and roll touring production The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes (Here Arts/New York) and a core collaborator with the Cleveland-based performance group Wishhounds. He has worked as an arts educator and led workshops and educational programs integrating performance and environmental science. Keyser studied at Odin Theatret in Denmark, Canada’s Primus Theater and at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. He has a BA in Folklore and Folklife Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
Nightjar Apothecary, established in 2008, is a Philadelphia producing company that presents theatrical investigations into the history and philosophy of science that are stimulating, entertaining and always accessible.
Darwinii: The Comeuppance of Man was made possible in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
