CLOWNCUTERIE
Sep
5
to Sep 7

CLOWNCUTERIE

  • Asian Arts Initiative Storefront (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Bite-sized bits from a variety of Philly's most scrumptious clowns sharing food-inspired works. Made in a facility that processes the horrors of life with haha's. Flavors may be silly, or sexy, or sad - it's a charcuterie of contemporary clown!! It's Clowncuterie!!!

Curated and produced by Francesca Montanile Lyons.

🍕FRIDAY with host Wet Betty!! - September 5, 2025 9.30pm

     🔸Rose Luardo 

     🔸Queen Conch 

     🔸Kayo Kenshin 

     🔸Ryann Elise 

     🔸Michael Amendola 

     🔸Francesca Montanile Lyons

🦪 SATURDAY with host Queen Conch!! - September 6, 2025 9.00pm

     🔹Dinah Loneliness 

     🔹kiss the clown 

     🔹Marisol Rose-Shapiro 

     🔹Alyse James + James Gentile 

     🔹Francesca Montanile Lyons

🎂 SUNDAY with host Queen Conch!! - September 7, 2025 8.00pm

     🔺Alex Tatarsky 

     🔺Caresse Deville

     🔺Wet Betty

     🔺Alyse James + James Gentile

     🔺Kayo Kenshin

     🔺Francesca Montanile Lyons

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VILE
Sep
13
to Sep 25

VILE

  • Asian Arts Initiative Black Box Theater (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Are you sad? Me too, bestie. Welcome to VILE, a wild award-winning solo show from Francesca Montanile Lyons. VILE blends clown and bouffon in an exploration of muddling through depression, surviving rape culture, and drowning in modernity. Expect a riot of absurdity, tenderness, and the kind of laughter that feels more like a cathartic gag reflex. Ingredients include: greasy toes, green cellophane, a balloon penis, and a side of BDSM. VILE has toured nationally to US Fringe Festivals in Providence, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.

WINNER:
Encore Series Cannonball Fringe 2024
Golden Lanyard MN Fringe 2024

“It’s raunchy, authentic, and hilarious... a fantastic piece of performance art and a real gem of the fringe.” —Twin Cities Geek

“The sort of fringe theater experiment that has people talking long after”. —Twin Cities Arts Reader

FOUR SHOWS:

  • September 13, 2025 9.30pm

  • September 15, 2025 7.00pm

  • September 19, 2025 9.30pm

  • September 25, 2025 9.30pm

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What is the Butt Game?
Sep
20

What is the Butt Game?

By Savannah Reich, Directed by Connor Hogan. Cannonball Fest in Philadelphia Fringe 2024.

In 1989, Savannah Reich’s daycare was shut down by the Child Protection Agency under suspicion of child abuse related to the so-called “butt game,” part of the Satanic Panic era. These false accusations ultimately brought the community closer, forming a chosen family.

With the help of her collaborator Connor Hogan and an ensemble of local actors, Savannah attempts to answer the question: why did CPS see danger where Savannah saw love and community? How much of truth is objective? And what actually was the butt game?

Guest Performers 9/20/2024:

  • Francesca Montanile

  • Mason Rosenthal

  • Ben Rosenthal

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Creativity & the Erotic Imagination: Art-Making as a Tool for Exploring Desire
Nov
30

Creativity & the Erotic Imagination: Art-Making as a Tool for Exploring Desire

Join us as we welcome Francesca Montanile Lyons (she/her) for Creativity & the Erotic Imagination: Art-Making as a Tool for Exploring Desire on Wednesday, November 30th at 7:30 pm EST over Zoom!

​About the workshop: In this workshop, we’ll tap into our creativity to ignite and explore our erotic energy. We will use the art-making process to actively reflect on our desire and imagine how we might bring them into being through communication. Participants will be invited to bring paper and mark-making materials to the workshop (pens, crayons, markers, etc). We will work on one visual art exercise and one writing exercise throughout the workshop, and sharing will be optional.

​By the end of this workshop you will:

  • ​Discuss and reflect on your desire: what it means to you, how you recognize it, what desires you hold that are being met or unmet, and the barriers to sharing that desire with others.,

  • ​Practice naming those desires for yourself (through artmaking and sharing), and how you might communicate them to others when you're ready.

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You Art Not Alone
Jun
29
to Aug 10

You Art Not Alone

You Art Not Alone is a lightly structured comaking and coworking time for artists of any discipline, hosted by Francesca Montanile Lyons at Indy Hall. It's time and space to work individually, but in community, on whatever you need to get done: finishing a project, working on an application, responding to emails, creating something new, etc. There will be an optional warm up at the top to greet each other and get centered, and an optional group share out at the end to get feedback on something you've worked on &/or ask a question that has come up for you.

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