Joe Torsella spent a decade running the National Constitution Center, four years as a U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, and one term as Pennsylvania's treasurer before voters sent him packing in 2020. Now the 62-year-old former statewide official is stepping into a very different spotlight: the Bob & Selma Horan Studio at Philadelphia's Arden Theatre, where he's making his debut as a playwright and solo performer.
The show is called Declaration, and according to WHYY, it centers on a fictional former elected official named Joe who is loosely based on Torsella himself. It's billed as Torsella's first original script, and it runs as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, with WHYY reporting the show focuses on the journey of its fictional Joe character as he searches for a civic voice after losing office. Per the same report, Torsella has described the piece as a reflection on finding purpose after political defeat rather than a straightforward memoir.
Torsella's political career ended abruptly in November 2020, when he lost his reelection bid for state treasurer to Republican Stacy Garrity by roughly 52,500 votes, a margin under 0.8 percentage points, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. It marked the first time since 1994 that an incumbent Democratic statewide row officer had been defeated in Pennsylvania. Torsella, who was elected treasurer in 2016, had also unsuccessfully pursued seats in the U.S. House and Senate earlier in his political career, per WHYY's account.
A Return to Theater, Not a New Hobby
Torsella's move to the stage isn't an impulsive pivot. He began acting as a youth apprentice with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and later trained formally at the Stella Adler Studio and William Esper Studio in New York, according to Arts News Now. He met Nick Stuccio, who would later found the Philadelphia Fringe, as a teenager at Wyoming Seminary, a prep school near Wilkes-Barre, and even cast Stuccio in a high school production of Neil Simon's The Good Doctor, per WHYY's reporting.
Stuccio went on to spend eight years with the Pennsylvania Ballet before founding the Fringe Festival and eventually returning to it after stepping down as its director in 2024, WHYY reports. He now serves as executive producer of Declaration. WHYY notes that Stuccio has said the play emphasizes Joe's personal journey more than politics.
Torsella majored in history and economics at the University of Pennsylvania before entering public life. He later served as deputy mayor under former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, became founding director of the National Constitution Center, and was elected Pennsylvania treasurer in 2016, according to WHYY. During his time in that office, he created Keystone Scholars, a statewide program that automatically deposits $100 into a 529 college savings account for every baby born or adopted in Pennsylvania, as reported by WHYY in its earlier coverage of his 2020 concession.
Rereading the Declaration in a New Light
The idea for the show grew out of Torsella rereading the Declaration of Independence itself, which he has said sounded both contemporary and dangerous to him on a fresh read, per WHYY. The founding document lists 27 complaints against King George III, including grievances that the king placed his will above the rule of law, forced the legislature to meet in obscure places, and obstructed the naturalization of foreigners, WHYY reports.
Torsella has drawn on his own experiences with the Declaration of Independence throughout the writing process, and the show reflects his response to the current presidential administration, according to WHYY. Still, the outlet reports the play is not intended as a partisan polemic. Torsella has said theater can speak to politics in a way he could not as a politician, per WHYY's account.
The framing isn't entirely new territory for scholars of the document, either. Writer Leisl Schillinger has published work drawing contemporary parallels to the Declaration of Independence, and WHYY notes that her students identified 12 historic indictments with contemporary parallels in 2017, later expanding that project to cover all 27 charges against George III by 2019.
Fringe Details for Would-Be Theatergoers
Declaration was developed alongside director Whit MacLaughlin, an Obie and Barrymore Award winner, working with the Philadelphia-based physical theater ensemble New Paradise Laboratories, according to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The 75-minute show runs at the Bob & Selma Horan Studio inside the Arden Theatre in Old City, with $30 general admission tickets across eight performances scheduled from September 10 through September 20.
The production is part of the 30th annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which runs from September 8 through September 27 this year and features more than 300 individual productions and 1,200 performances across over 100 venues citywide, per the US Association of Fringe Festivals. Torsella isn't the only elected-official-turned-artist getting attention this Fringe season; Hoodline has also covered another play opening the festival and a comedic production running concurrently at the same Arden Theatre space this month.
The timing places Declaration within Philadelphia's broader role as the hub of America's 250th anniversary commemorations this year, which included the July 4 burial of America's Time Capsule at Independence National Historical Park, according to America250. For Torsella, whose civic career included over five years on the board of the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System before he resigned in April 2023, the Fringe stage marks a new chapter built on old training and a fresh reckoning with the country's founding text.
