{"id":282148,"date":"2026-09-09T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282148\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T11:10:09","slug":"joe-torsella-goes-from-pa-treasurer-to-the-philly-fringe-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282148\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Torsella goes from Pa. treasurer to the Philly Fringe Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Joseph Torsella was elected Pennsylvania treasurer in 2016. The longtime Democratic fixture lasted one term, losing his reelection bid.\n<\/p>\n

Now six years on from that unsuccessful run, he is reentering public life, this time on stage.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDeclaration,\u201d<\/a> a one-man show written by Torsella, 62, features a former elected official named \u201cJoe,\u201d who is not-so-loosely based on Torsella. It has a two-week run at the Arden Theater as part of the Philly Fringe Festival<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

Like Torsella, \u201cJoe\u201d suffers a political loss and must rediscover his footing. His bedrock is the Declaration of Independence, with which \u201cJoe,\u201d like Torsella, has had a changing relationship through different stages of his life.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe understood it, probably badly as a kid, as a public figure, as a father, but ultimately as a citizen,\u201d Torsella said in an interview during rehearsal. \u201cWhat the play is about is finding one\u2019s civic voice after losing the things that you thought entitled you to one, like office.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The play also marks the return of Nick Stuccio, the founding director of the Fringe Festival who stepped down two years ago. Stuccio is executive producer of \u201cDeclaration.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Torsella and Stuccio have known each other since they were teenagers at the Wyoming Seminary, a Jesuit prep school near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Stuccio says Torsella gave him his first taste of theater when he cast him in a high school production of Neil Simon\u2019s \u201cThe Good Doctor.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe at 15 had a lot of initiative and we went to this very stodgy high school,\u201d Stuccio said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Wow, look at this guy, this student that\u2019s going to do this in our school. That is so cool. I\u2019m going to audition for this.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a terrible actor,\u201d he said. \u201cJoe, do you remember how bad you thought I was?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was great,\u201d Torsella said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was bad,\u201d Stuccio said. \u201cBut I also watched you be a producer. You were a fantastic producer because we had no money.\u201d
\n\"JoeFormer Pennsylvania treasurer Joe Torsella (right) teams up with an old friend, Nick Stuccio, to produce his one-man show. Stuccio, a cofounder of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and a high school classmate of Torsella, is executive producer of \u201dDeclaration.\u201d (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

From theater to politics, and back again<\/p>\n

After high school, Stuccio studied dance and joined the Pennsylvania Ballet for eight years before founding the Philly Fringe.\n<\/p>\n

Torsella\u2019s life took a different route.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI applied to a school that I won\u2019t mention that rejected me for theater. I ended up going to [The University of Pennsylvania], which I loved,\u201d he said. \u201cMy first year there I did theater but ended up majoring in history and economics and turned away from theater.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

After college, Torsella proved a political whiz kid, serving under former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell as a deputy mayor when he was 29. He later became the founding director of the National Constitution Center at 34. Torsella unsuccessfully pursued seats in the U.S. House and Senate, before being elected Pennsylvania\u2019s treasurer.\n<\/p>\n

Through all of that, acting never left his thoughts.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI always said that when I had time and opportunity I really wanted to get back to it. I used to say it to my kids,\u201d Torsella said. \u201cI remember our youngest daughter elbowing me when we were watching something, and she essentially said, \u2018When is one day going to be day one?\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Torsella dipped his toe back into theater earlier this year with a role in William Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cMacbeth\u201d with ActorsNET of Bucks County. \u201cDeclaration\u201d is his first original script.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really personal play,\u201d he said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t a history lesson. It isn\u2019t a memoir, but it\u2019s very much inspired by things that I\u2019ve lived through.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[108803,69,30779,71,70,1483],"class_list":["post-282148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-joe-torsella","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-fringe-festival","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}