spark theatre, peter pan & going to the dogs

july 30th 9am peter pan bus to philly - nothing like traveling in the height of style...sitting next to me was a stunning black woman named Camille - originally from Memphis, now living on the upper west. We talked all about john lee hooker, robert johnson & other blues greats...this while watching a horrible movie with Nicholas Cage. the trip was relatively painless & after a brief misstep which involved meeting some charming men at the philly bus station (one who offered to drive me "anywhere in the world" in his taxi "for a special price"), I met up with my friend & host for the weekend. We stopped off to drop off my "luggage" & then on to lunch at the world famous Penrose Diner featuring South Philly's own version of the Baltimore Hon waitress. 2 screaming children and 2 diet cokes later, we were off to the Mum Puppettheatre for his 1pm call and for me to pick up my ticket to the matinee. While he was doing whatever it is actors do between call & on stage time, I walked up the very hot street to the local Starbuck's & had their version of an iced tea. Read through Philadelphia Tattoo Convention where I once had far too good a time...After tea & a few quick phone calls, I decided to (briefly) see the sites...unfortunately, Philadelphia is glutted with tourists - most of them riding around on these horrifying trucks/boats called "ducks". After waiting about ten minutes, I was finally able to shoot a few photos of the Betsy Ross house and then walked up to the Friends Meeting House. Show time came soon enough... My friend was one of two actors in the first show, Philadelphia Dramatists Center production of "American Silver" by Robert Kangas. Description from the playbill, "In a neighborhood bar, a drunk down to his last coins meets a college kid bartender who's obsessed by pinball. the two men bond over gamling, whiskey, real money, and who's telling the truth." Stanton Davis (friend in question) played the drunk & did a stellar job, as did Keith Connalen as the college kid bartender. Each performance was only ten minutes - giving great (however brief) exposure to several different groups active in the philly theater scene. Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not a huge fan of live theater - mainly because I find most of what passes for theater in NYC to be overblown, pretentious & quite often, poorly acted. It's also really f**king expensive. Other than a brief spate of going to performances at The Flea (thanks to a guy I was seeing at the time), I generally limit myself to the "big" shows (Ralph Fiennes in Hamlet, Dianna Rigg in Media) and the rare show at the Public. Next up was "Heavy Metal Dance Fag" conceived by Terry Brennan, created by Tribe of Fools. With Terry Brennan and Jay Wojnarowski & described as "a comic exploration of sexual repression and confusion." It was in fact, a very well done, very funny ten minutes of a Jersey Boy trying to come to terms with his overwhelming desire to DANCE (Fred Astaire style) to Heavy Metal (Lita Ford's "Kiss Me Deadly" among others). Hilarious & poignant (for lack of a better word). Next was "What I Learned from Hitler: the Quiet Fury of the Fuhrer" written by Gin Hobbs, directed by Carolina Roca Smith and played brilliantly by Richard Blanck and Deborah Jane Governor. Presented by Theater Catalyst's Eternal Spiral Project, the piece is described as "Marriage is never what we expect it to be, but it doesn't get worse than this. Watch as two concentration camp survivors show us what they unfortunately learned from Hitler in this quirky comedy." I never thought anyone but Mel Brooks could write a comedy involving Hitler but Gil Hobbs did a great job with this vignette about marriage, aging, dominance in relationships & of course, Nazis. Next up was 10 minutes of improv from Tapestry Theatre's Karen Getz & Kelly Jennings. Given only the number 7 and the word "Lafayette" as starting points, they presented an episode from an ongoing piece, "Killer Pussy: an improvised, all girl, action flick. Think KILL BILL meets CHARLIE'S ANGELS as improv...". They started off with a piece on an actress trying to get into a theatre school which morphed into a scene with George Washington, Martha & co. at Valley Forge, and back into our aspiring actress - now being helped by Killer Pussy herself. The first half of the show ended with 11th Hour Theatre Company performing a musical piece entitled "angst". Music & Lyrics by John Baxindine & performed by Baxindine, Colleen Hazlett, Michael Philip O'Brien, Joshua Sauerman, Ben Sheaffer & Lauren Shealy. Angst is "a new music comedy illustrating that gloomy, often neurotic feeling of generalized anxiety & depression that we call our twenties...". Though well sung & performed, I found this the least appealing and least entertaining of the first half of the show's performances.