Philadelphia is known for having a great underground theater scene, and one of the driving forces is Philly’s Primary Stages. PPS is a “down and dirty script-in-hand staged reading series of new 10 minute plays,” where audience members are encouraged to give feedback to the playwrights, actors, and directors. Audience members are even bribed with beer, wine, soda pop, bottled water, assorted chips, dips, vienna sausages and puddin’ packs. Once in a while a bottle of something and a shot glass, or 2, show up as well.
Being a House Band for a night of 10-minute plays means that we play for 30-ish minutes before the show and for about 10-15 minutes during intermission, too… but we also perform hand-picked segue music between plays. Matt and I come from a pretty strong theater background ourselves, so we love getting to split our time between being on stage and back-stage.
In June 2011, Hot Breakfast! filled in for their usual house band who had a conflict of some kind. The folks at Philly’s Primary Stages liked what we did so much that they’ve asked us to be their permanent house band, which means that we’ll be playing at the Shubin Theater 6 times in 2012… assuming the world doesn’t end first, of course. And who knows, our EXTREMELY INTENSE ROCKING might just hasten that.
We’ve updated our calendar with the dates, but I’ll toss ’em here too just so you have them in one spot:
November 22nd and 23rd, 2011
February 21-22, 2012
June 19-20, 2012
November 20-21, 2012
We’re playing 30-40 minute set beginning at 7:30pm, and then 15-ish minute set at intermission.
For $5, you get a night of terrific theater, food, beverages, and music. What better way to spend a mid-week night?
See you then!
Your pal,
Jill