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Anna Frangiosa ("Annie A-Bomb") is a Philadelphia-based theater artist, costume designer, burlesque performer, director, instructor and model.
Frangiosa went to Lower Merion High School and graduated in 1993. She then studied design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and anthropology at Temple University.
Frangiosa has designed and built costumes primarily for new plays. Including for InterAct Theatre Company, B.Someday Productions, Brat Productions, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lantern Theater Company, and many other theater and dance companies.
Frangiosa began her burlesque career with the Peek-A-Boo Revue and performed with them from 1998 to 2005. She founded the troupe Revival Burlesque in 2006. Revival is known for its sketch comedy mixed with sexy strip tease. [1] Revival has been called "Saturday Night Live with boobs" in the Philadelphia City Paper . [2] [3]
Frangiosa was the co-director, with Peter Gaffney, [4] of the agit-prop and politically charged Cabaret Red Light, a vaudeville, burlesque and puppet theater company. [5] She was a writer, performer, puppeteer, director and designer for Cabaret Red Light from 2008 to 2011.
In 2013 she founded The Cabaret Administration with their first production titled "F.T.L.F. or Free Think Love Frankenstein" a dance theater piece about Percy and Mary Shelley. [6] [7]
In 2014 the Cabaret Administration produced an original three part series of shows titled "Fin" and staged both a The Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptation titled "Of Oz" [8] and a The Nutcracker and the Mouse King adaptation titled "Nutcracker." [9] [10]
In 2015 The Cabaret Administration re-staged the "Fin" series as one longer production, also titled "Fin," [11] and produced "Metropolis, a re-imagining of the 1927 Fritz Lang film of the same name. [12] Both productions were staged at the Plays and Players Theatre in Philadelphia.
In 2017 The Cabaret Administration produced a two part re-imagining of The Last Unicorn, staging "Unicorn: The White Mare" and "Unicorn: The Red Bull" one month apart in March and April respectively. These halves were combined as one production in 2018. [13]
Frangiosa is also a pin-up model. She has been painted by illustrators Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, and was pictured in their 2008, 2009, and 2010 fantasy art wall calendars. She appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine via illustrations by David Palumbo. Anna was a model for Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School Philadelphia chapter in 2008, and 2009. [14]
Frangiosa founded the Philadelphia School of Burlesque in 2009. [15]
She is known for her political involvement and often participates in demonstrations [16] and direct actions including with Axis of Eve in 2004, and Occupy Philadelphia in 2011. In 2013 she marched from Philadelphia to Harrisburg with Decarcerate PA, a group focused on bringing attention to prison expansion in Pennsylvania.
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance but usually sits at tables. Performances are usually introduced by a master of ceremonies (M.C.). The entertainment, as performed by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is often oriented towards adult audiences and of a clearly underground nature. In the United States, striptease, burlesque, drag shows, or a solo vocalist with a pianist, as well as the venues which offer this entertainment, are often advertised as cabarets.
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860–1926), a sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and her romance with sharpshooter Frank E. Butler (1847–1926).
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/poet Julian Beck. After Beck's death in 1985, company member Hanon Reznikov became co-director with Malina; the two were married in 1988. After Malina's death in 2015, her responsibilities were taken over by her son Garrick Maxwell Beck, Tom Walker and Brad Burgess. The Living Theatre and its founders were the subject of the 1983 documentary Signals Through the Flames.
Andrea McArdle is an American singer and actress best known for originating the role of Annie in the Broadway musical Annie.
Shuler Paul Hensley is an American singer and actor.
Christine Ebersole is an American actress and singer. She has appeared in film, television, and on stage. She starred in the Broadway musicals 42nd Street and Grey Gardens, winning two Tony Awards. She has co-starred on the TBS sitcom Sullivan & Son, in which she played Carol Walsh, and earned an Emmy Award nomination for her work in One Life to Live. She is also known for her recurring roles as Ms. Newberg on Royal Pains and White Diamond in the Steven Universe franchise. Since 2019, she has played the role of Dottie on Bob Hearts Abishola.
The Theatre of Living Arts is a concert venue that is located on South Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The venue, which opened in 1988, dates back to the early 1900s as a nickelodeon.
Katherine Renee Shindle is an American actress, singer, dancer, and AIDS activist. She is currently serving as the President of the Actors' Equity Association. She was Miss America 1998 in 1998 and Miss Illinois in 1997.
Beth Leavel is an American stage and screen actress and singer.
Moscow Ballet has toured the United States and Canada during the holiday season since 1993 and is exclusively represented by Talmi Entertainment Inc for these tours. There are 70 to 80 Russian-trained classical dancers on the annual North American tour who fly in from the former republic of Russia. Stanislav Vlasov, a former principal artist of the Bolshoi Ballet, was the first artistic director on the North American tour in 1993. Vlasov's debut in the United States was at Carnegie Hall in 1957.
Neo-burlesque, or new burlesque, is the revival and updating of the traditional American burlesque performance. Though based on the traditional burlesque art, the new form encompasses a wider range of performance styles; neo-burlesque can include anything ranging from classic striptease to modern dance to theatrical mini-dramas to comedic mayhem.
The Hollywood Pantages Theatre, formerly known as RKO Pantages Theatre, is located at Hollywood and Vine in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, it was the last theater built by the vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages. The palatial Art Deco theater opened on June 4, 1930, as part of the Pantages Theatre Circuit.
Meg Bussert is an American actress, singer and a university professor.
Lara Teeter is an American dancer, actor, singer, theater director and college professor.
Cabaret Red Light was a theater group based in Philadelphia that performed vaudeville, burlesque, spoken word and puppet theater, set to original music by The Blazing Cherries. In their first season, between November 2008 and July 2009, Cabaret Red Light staged the series "The Seven Deadly Sins". Their second and third series began in 2010, and they recently performed the premiere of their ballet-and-burlesque version of The Nutcracker based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's original Gothic short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King."
Lenora Nemetz is an American stage and musical theatre actress.
American burlesque is a genre of variety show derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall, and minstrel shows. Burlesque became popular in the United States in the late 1860s and slowly evolved to feature ribald comedy and female nudity. By the late 1920s, the striptease element overshadowed the comedy and subjected burlesque to extensive local legislation. Burlesque gradually lost its popularity, beginning in the 1940s. A number of producers sought to capitalize on nostalgia for the entertainment by recreating burlesque on the stage and in Hollywood films from the 1930s to the 1960s. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.
Ogunquit Playhouse is a regional theater at 10 Main Street in Ogunquit, Maine. Ogunquit Playhouse is one of the last remaining summer theaters from the Summer Stock which still produces musical theatre. The Playhouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Level of Significance "in consideration of the significant contributions made by its founder Walter J. Hartwig and the Playhouse to Performing Arts Education throughout the nation."
James William Thomas Cundall is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals and theatrical shows. He is a founder of Lunchbox Theatrical Productions and The Imperial Ice Stars, conceived York's annual Christmas ice-rink The Ice Factor and created York's Shakespeare's Rose Theatre.