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Pictured Above: Joe Torsella in rehearsals for Declaration. Photo Credit: DLW Photography NYC.
Joe Torsella Makes a New Declaration on the Philadelphia Stage
By: Keith Loria
Joe Torsella Makes a New Declaration on the Philadelphia Stage
The former Pennsylvania treasurer and founding president of the National Constitution Center returns to his first ambition with a deeply personal one-man show.
Asked when he knew his combination of public history and personal experience could work as a one-man play, Joe Torsella does not pretend to be certain.
“The moment that I realized that hasn’t happened yet,” he says. “That will be Sept. 10, when the audience tells me if I’m right.”
That is opening night for DECLARATION, a semi-autobiographical play written, produced and performed by the former Pennsylvania treasurer and U.S. ambassador. The world premiere runs Sept. 10-20 at the Arden Theatre during the 2026 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
The play follows a former public official confronting a deceptively simple question after his career ends: “Who is he without the position that once defined him?” His search leads him back to the Declaration of Independence, which becomes a means of examining his own choices as well as the country’s commitment to its founding promises.
Pictured Above: Joe Torsella in rehearsals for Declaration. Photo Credit: DLW Photography NYC.
The timing is deliberate. Philadelphia will stand at the center of America’s 250th anniversary as national divisions test the ideals proclaimed there in 1776.
The project began taking shape as Torsella considered the health of American democracy and his own life after politics. Several possible forms followed before the Declaration supplied the work with what he calls its “spine” about a year ago.
“Different threads have sort of come together to make something, to kind of make that rope,” Torsella says. “It’s gotten a lot better with each successive iteration, and it’s gotten a lot clearer.”
The character is named Joe and reflects Torsella’s experiences, though the play is not a literal autobiography. Separating himself from his theatrical counterpart gave him greater freedom as writer and performer.
“He’s become his own character,” Torsella says. “In his moments of maximum vulnerability, I think of him as a little less close than he might be.”
That vulnerability is significant for someone whose career demanded a carefully controlled public persona. Before his 2017-2021 term as state treasurer, Torsella was a U.S. ambassador and Philadelphia deputy mayor. He guided the National Constitution Center from planning through its opening and later returned as CEO.
His work there repeatedly brought him into contact with the nation’s founding documents. Yet writing DECLARATION prompted him to hear its language differently, particularly the list of grievances against King George III that occupies much of the text but receives far less attention than its famous opening.
“The power of the words kind of calls us back even when we fail them,” Torsella says. “I’ve become disconnected from the idea of its life and its aliveness in maybe even a provocative and dangerous way for right now.”
He has also come to hear the Declaration as a statement about community, not only individual rights. Torsella points to its conception of Americans as “one people” and its concluding pledge among the signers as reminders that democracy depends upon a shared sense of responsibility.
Pictured Above: Joe Torsella in rehearsals for Declaration. Photo Credit: DLW Photography NYC.
“The idea of community, which I hope a lot of my political and public life has been about, is being faithful to that idea and trying to build it,” he says. “That idea to me seems radical and very much under threat right now.”
Theater offers Torsella a new channel for those civic concerns, but it is not a new interest. Growing up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, he became a youth apprentice with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble and decided at 13 or 14 to become an actor, a goal he held until his second year of college.
“My first ambition in life was to be an actor,” Torsella says. “Politics and theater were both always of great interest to me.”
Torsella long told his four children that he would return to theater when he had time. Eventually, the promise sounded like an excuse.
“At some point, ‘when I have the time’ is like, ‘Better get started, dude,’” he says. “When my life changed a couple years ago, the thing that felt like it was calling the most was to go back to this.”
The return has been “exhilarating and humbling,” he says, satisfying a part of his soul that public life did not. It has also shown him how theater can reach people in ways political rhetoric rarely does.
Politics and acting share certain qualities, but Torsella sees an important distinction. A politician presents a narrowed version of himself suited to the job. Playing a character can be more liberating, though that becomes complicated when the character bears his name and history.
Developed with Whit MacLaughlin and New Paradise Laboratories, the production is co-produced by Torsella and longtime friend Nick Stuccio. Torsella hopes it begins a new creative chapter.
His aim is not a campaign speech or conventional account of his accomplishments. Torsella calls the work “civic theater,” using a private reckoning to open larger questions about national life.
“This play is very much of this moment, but it’s not a political speech,” Torsella says. “The questions of this moment are actually questions that recur in individual lives and in national lives.”
DECLARATION will be performed Sept. 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 20 at the Arden Theatre as part of the 2026 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Ticket information is available at phillyfringe.org.
