Pig Iron Theatre Company, OBIE-winning creators of interdisciplinary performance, present “Poor Judge,” a new work of concert theater featuring the witty, haunting music of Aimee Mann. Dreamed up by legendary singing drag queen and Pig Iron Co-Founder Dito van Reigersberg and directed by Pig Iron’s new Artistic Producer Eva Steinmetz, this live music mixtape is part woeful tale of lost loves, part Hollywood audition, and part spy story.
Through vignette and song, “Poor Judge” offers glimpses of an inviting, seductive Los Angeles and also its shadow: the frightening underbelly of the American Success Story. Be prepared for a night of lonely California highways, movie theater breakups, and sly acoustic reimaginings of Aimee Mann’s haunting catalog.
Hugely talented and heavily decorated with a career spanning multiple decades, Mann has become a patron saint of self-aware loneliness. “I’m a closet poet,” van Reigersberg confesses when asked what drew him to Aimee Mann. “And her lyrics are like poetry to me, complex and rich and rewarding multiple listens. But she’s also a brilliant crafter of melody, and her sound is really singular. I have always loved Aimee Mann’s music, but the weird despair of the last few years drew me closer to her. Her ability to see anyone as both tender and flawed somehow reassured me about my own humanity.”
Though “Poor Judge” was originally conceived in 2022, van Reigersberg was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia later that year, putting the project on pause. He spent a majority of 2023 undergoing chemotherapy and receiving a bone marrow transplant to emerge triumphant and cancer-free in 2024. “Poor Judge was a lifeline,” van Reigersberg says. “Eva and I even had phone meetings when I was in the hospital, and it was really helpful to think of future projects waiting for me while I was in recovery. Certainly the melancholy part of Aimee Mann felt apt to me as I was undergoing treatment, with all its ups and downs. But Aimee’s not the type to feel sorry for herself—she keeps her sense of humor in the face of tragedy. She is keenly observant and self-aware through all life’s strangeness, and I tried to follow her lead on that.”
“No matter what I’m working on, from dumdum comedies to expressive dramas, I try to use the theater-making process as a sort of excavating tool for human grief and collective healing,” Steinmetz explains. “Aimee Mann’s work is shot through with grief, but it’s also super funny. Her music really speaks to the heart of this ensemble, this group of queer, misfit, experimental artists, who have their own particular relationship to loneliness. We’re reconnecting, wistfully, with some internal teenage angst, but with a little more worldliness.”
“Poor Judge” features an all-star ensemble cast of Philadelphia performer-musicians that includes Emily Bate, Josh Machiz, izzy sazak, Jackie Soro and Justin Yoder. Multi-instrumentalist and music director Alex Bechtel anchors the ensemble with sly new arrangements of Mann’s songs.
If You Go:
Performances for “Poor Judge” are Friday 9/13 at 7pm, Saturday 9/14 at 8pm, Sunday 9/15 at 2pm and 7pm, Tuesday 9/17 at 7pm, Wednesday 9/18 at 7pm, Thursday 9/19 at 7pm, Friday 9/20 at 7pm, Saturday 9/21 at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday 9/22 at 2pm and 7pm.
Wheelchair/Limited Mobility Seating and Assistive Listening Devices available upon request.
Open-Caption and Audio Descriptions offered for the performance on Sunday 9/22 at 2pm.
Patrons who subscribe to The Wilma’s 2024-25 Season have an exclusive offer to purchase $25 tickets to “Poor Judge” as an add-on. Single tickets are $35, with student/25-and-under, artist, and FringeArts membership discounts available. Tickets are available for purchase through FringeArts: https://phillyfringe.org/