Anna Frangiosa ("Annie A-Bomb") is a

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

-based theater artist, costume designer, burlesque performer, director, instructor and model.

Education and early life

Frangiosa went to

Lower Merion High School Lower Merion High School is a public high school in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia. It is one of two high schools in the Lower Merion School District; the other one is Harriton High School. Lower Merion serves ...

and graduated in 1993. She then studied design at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in ...

and anthropology at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

Costume design work

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 Lantern Theater Company is a not-for-profit regional theater founded in 1994 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Led by founding artistic director Charles McMahon and executive director Stacy Dutton, the Lantern produces a mix of classics, modern, and ...

, and many other theater and dance companies.

Performance history

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 Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

mixed with sexy strip tease. Revival has been called "''Saturday Night Live'' with boobs" in the ''

Philadelphia City Paper ''Philadelphia City Paper'' was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The independently owned paper was free and published every Thursday in print and daily online at citypaper.net. Staff reporters focused on labor issues ...

''. Frangiosa was the co-director, with Peter Gaffney, of the agit-prop and politically charged Cabaret Red Light, a vaudeville, burlesque and puppet theater company. She was a writer, performer, puppeteer, director and designer for Cabaret Red Light from 2008 to 2011.

The Cabaret Administration

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 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( , ; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of science fiction# ...

. In 2014 the Cabaret Administration produced an original three part series of shows titled "Fin" and staged both a

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the ma ...

adaptation titled "Of Oz" and a

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" () is a fairy tale written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which a young girl's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker doll, Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in ...

adaptation titled "Nutcracker." In 2015 The Cabaret Administration re-staged the "Fin" series as one longer production, also titled "Fin," and produced "Metropolis, a re-imagining of the 1927

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...

film of the same name. Both productions were staged at the

Plays and Players Theatre Plays and Players Theatre is a theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1911, it is one of the oldest professional theater companies in the United States. The theater building was designed and constructed in 1912 by Philadelphia archi ...

in Philadelphia. In 2017 The Cabaret Administration produced a two part re-imagining of

The Last Unicorn ''The Last Unicorn'' is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the ...

, 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.

Modeling

Frangiosa is also a pin-up model. She has been painted by illustrators

Boris Vallejo Boris Vallejo (born January 8, 1941) is a Peruvian-American painter who works in the science fiction, fantasy, and erotica genres. His hyper-representational paintings have appeared on the covers of numerous novels in the science fiction, sword ...

Julie Bell Julie Bell (born October 21, 1958) is an American fine artist, illustrator, photographer, bodybuilder and wildlife painter. Bell is also a fantasy artist and a representative of the heroic fantasy and fantastic realism genres. Bell has won Che ...

, and was pictured in their 2008, 2009, and 2010 fantasy art wall calendars. She appeared in ''

Heavy Metal Magazine ''Heavy Metal'' is an American science fantasy comics magazine, first published in 1977. The magazine is known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy, science fiction, erotica, and steampunk comics. Following a brief hiatus in 2023, it plans to ...

'' via illustrations by

David Palumbo David Palumbo (born 1982) is an American illustrator and fine artist. Life Palumbo is the son of science fiction scholar Donald Palumbo and illustrator Julie Bell, brother of artist Anthony Palumbo, and stepson of illustrator Boris Vallejo. He l ...

. Anna was a model for

Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School is both a burlesque cabaret and life drawing event originating in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the Lucky Cat. Dr. Sketchy's was founded in New York City in 2005, by illustrator and former artist's model Molly Crabapple ...

Philadelphia chapter in 2008, and 2009.

Other information and projects

Frangiosa founded the Philadelphia School of Burlesque in 2009. She is known for her political involvement and often participates in demonstrationsLocals join Occupy Philly movement
/ref> 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.

References

''Philadelphia Inquirer''
''

South Philly Review ''Philadelphia Weekly'' (''PW'') is a website based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a newspaper in 1971 as ''The Welcomat'', a sister publication to the ''South Philadelphia Press''. In 1995, the paper became ''Philadelphia Week ...

''
''Philadelphia Weekly''''The Daily Pennsylvanian''Article about the Philadelphia School of Burlesque
(City Paper)
Article on Revival Burlesque
(City Paper)
Article on Anna Frangiosa in ''Philadelphia City Paper''
(City Paper)
CBS News on Annie A-Bomb's Burlesque class with Cabaret Red Light footage

External links

official websiteThe Cabaret Administration on Vimeo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frangiosa, Anna American neo-burlesque performers Artists from Philadelphia Living people Fashion Institute of Technology alumni Lower Merion High School alumni Year of birth missing (living people)