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| City Guide - Philadelphia - Culture | ||
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Culture So popular are the arts in Philadelphia that the city has renamed a section of South Broad Street the 'Avenue of the Arts', with many theatres, concert halls and performing arts schools located along here. Entertainment listings can be found in the main daily newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, as well as the free magazines City Paper and Philadelphia Weekly. Tickets can be purchased directly from the venues or from TicketMaster (tel: (215) 336 2000; website: www.ticketmaster.com). Another agency to try is A First Class Ticket Company (tel: (888) 848 3836; website: www.afirstclassticket.com). Music: The renowned Philadelphia Orchestra currently performs at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust Streets (tel: (215) 893 1999), which opened in 1857 and is the oldest music hall in the country still in use. In December 2001, the Orchestra will move to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce Streets (tel: (215) 790 5800; website: www.rpac.org), a state-of-the-art facility with a 2500-seat concert hall, a recital theatre and other performance spaces. The Orchestra's summer venue is the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park (tel: 215) 893 1999; website: www.manncenter.org), which also features jazz, pops, dance and musical theatre. The Academy will remain home to the Opera Company of Philadelphia (tel: (215) 928 2110; website: www.operaphilly.com), which performs many of opera's greatest hits. The October to May season of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (tel: (215) 569 8080; website: www.pcmsnet.org) includes more than 50 performances, mostly held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the heart of downtown. Theatre: Philadelphia has a strong theatrical tradition embodied by the Walnut Street Theater, Ninth and Walnut Streets (tel: (215) 574 3550; website: www.wstonline.org), America's oldest theatre. Other leading theatres include the Freedom Theatre, 1346 North Broad Street (tel: (215) 765 2793), an award-winning African-American theatre company. The Forrest Theatre, 1114 Walnut Street (tel: (215) 923 1515), named for matinée idol Edwin Forrest, performs Broadway blockbusters, while the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut Street (tel: (215) 972 1000; website: www.princemusictheater.org), produces original musicals. The Arden Theatre Company, 40 North Second Street (tel: (215) 922 1122; website: www.ardentheatre.org), in the Old City, stages innovative productions ranging from musicals to the classics. Productions at the Wilma Theatre, Broad and Spruce Streets (tel: (215) 546 7824; website: www.wilmatheater.org), range from new drama to black comedy to world premieres. Dance: The Pennsylvania Ballet (tel: (215) 551 7000; website: www.paballet.org), performs classics and new works at the Academy of Music (see above), including the perennial holiday favourite The Nutcracker. Film: Philadelphia has been the setting for a number of films, including Rocky (1976), The Sixth Sense (1999) and Trading Places (1983). Among the best of the cinemas showing mainstream films are The Ritz Five, 214 Walnut Street, and The Ritz at the Bourse, Fourth and Chestnut Streets, which also show foreign and limited release films and have comfortable reclining seats. Cutting-edge films by local and worldwide film-makers can be seen at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema (tel: (215) 895 6542; website: www.libertynet.org/pfwc), which takes place in April. The Philadelphia International Film Festival (tel: (215) 849 2716) is held in July. Cultural events: The Mummers Parade on New Year's Day is a unique Philadelphia tradition, with string bands and extravagantly costumed 'Mummers' strutting up Broad Street. The Philadelphia Flower Show (tel: (215) 988 8899; website: www.libertynet.org/flowrsho), held in early March, is one of the largest in the world. In May, Philadanco Annual Spring Concert (tel: (215) 387 8200) showcases the work of one of the country's leading African-American dance companies. The Mellon Jazz Festival (tel: (610) 667 0501) is held throughout the city in June. Independence Day celebrations around the city on the Fourth of July range from parades to music to fireworks. The Greater Philadelphia Blues Fest takes place at various venues for three days in October (tel: (215) 662 1612). Literary Notes Philadelphia's best-known literary figure is Edgar Allan Poe, who came to the city in 1837 and lived here for ten years. In a house at North Seventh and Spring Garden Streets, which is now the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, he penned some of his most famous stories, including The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) and The Gold Bug (1843), as well as the poem Annabel Lee (1849), dedicated to his beloved wife. A century earlier, Benjamin Franklin was writing his timeless word of wisdom in the annual Poor Richard's Almanack (1733-58). His philosophies are further explored in Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Franklin: His Life As He Wrote It by Esmond Wright (1990). Other famous literary Philadelphians include the poet Walt Whitman and the author James A Michener, who hails from nearby Bucks County. There is a museum in Michener's honour at Doylestown. Bucks County was also home to the Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize-winning author Pearl S Buck, author of The Good Earth (1931), and her farmhouse at Perkasie can also be visited. Upper-crust Philadelphia society was portrayed in Philip Barry's play The Philadelphia Story (1939), which was made into a film starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart. |
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