Get Your Freak On!

Image by Ashley Gates for Dawson Street Dramatic Society

Quick Facts: Winter Freak One Act Showcase

THE DSDS present
The Winter Freak One Act Showcase
featuring new works by the DSDS players and NYC-based sketch group Jamie Wright and the Machine. Bluegrass dance party reception to follow with music by West Philly stompers Sour Mash.

March 5th, 8 pm @
Community Education Center at the Meetinghouse Theatre
Tickets $10 presale, $12 at the door (student, senior discounts)
Very limited amount of seating, one night only and can be purchased here
Hope to see you there!

Press Release for Winter Showcase

“The un-dead?  Sketch machine? Bluegrass?

Brains, Twang and Jang a Jang”

"Mindless, drooling shambling zombies..."--Philadelphia City Paper "The zombie apocalypse, shown a la Orson Welles War of the Worlds. A brilliant idea.":-Geekadelphia.Com

 

                                                                                      February 7^th, 2011

For Instant Relief:

To the south the un-dead zombies rise from the grave in the city of New Orleans, but lurk in every office, every cubicle.  New York City is the land full of funny, and a sketch comedy machine is oiled, ready and coming down here.  When the two meet there will be chills, thrills and belly laughs.  Afterwards, there will be wine and live bluegrass music to dance to.  This, friends, is the Dawson Street Dramatic Society Winter Freaky One Act Showcase! March 5^th at the Meetinghouse Theatre (CEC) at 35^th and Lancaster, Philadelphia PA

The Dawson Street Dramatic Society began in 2008 as the Zombies Aint Shit Co, a collection of Saint Joe’s alumni, hippie dead heads, painters, musicians and classical thespians to present very low-tech, brand spanking new original one act plays and radio performances in the comforts of corner bars in Philadelphia. Founded and directed by Gregory Day, a playwright from Houston, Texas and Antonia Cruz Arias, a flamenco singer from South Philadelphia. Together, the Dawson Dramatic Society presents fringe theatre concerning the horrors from beyond: previous works included Dead Air, Trickster spirits, rigor mortis enthusiasts and of course, lots and lots of home made blood spattered zombies

Our latest showcase features BRAND NEW WORKS from authors and directors Greg Day and Rena Dayton More, modern masters of horror designed to shock, crawl and shake you in your skin!  We aim to explore what happens when the dead return to life. They live; answering the phones in the pits and basements of our modern global economy.  Travel back in time to the cradle of jazz and voodoo in that damned place on the banks of the Pontchatrain when the fear of mortality meets your lust for life.  Come see what the Philadelphia City Paper calls “mindless, shambling zombies” live and in the flesh!

The DSDS is also very proud to present the Philly debut of NYC based

Jamie Wright and the Machine

From Jamie,

The machine builds the show in a writer’s forum.  They are interested in pushing the limits of what sketch comedy is by breaking away from traditional forms, and exploring the genre’s  limits- incorporating absurdism, vaudeville, and indie rock aesthetics. 

 The group’s experimental nature is inherent in their exploratory process and collaborative writing.

The company, comprised of young twenty-somethings on the brink of real adulthood, will use this evening to reflect back on the moments that impacted them, as individual people, and as a generation during the formative years (for them) of 2000-2009.  What made them laugh?  What made them cry?  How did growing up in this time period define their generation, support their generation, or really, ruin their generation?  What cultural icons will leave lasting impressions, and who are those cultural icons beyond a Hollywood or Washington, DC persona?  How does a world so filled with communication still leave people so utterly confused, and almost empty?  What does it really mean to grow up in the suburbs?  Who (I really mean who) are the suburbs?  All these questions will be stabbed, poked and prodded at with puns, musical numbers, routines, vaudeville, and a little bit of emotional babble as the company moves chronologically through the decade.

Following the performances, there will be a reception dance party featuring the music of West Philly’s acoustic bluegrass jam group Sour Mash and the DSDS’s own Stephen Rockwell.  Join us for a glass of icy cold beverages and lets celebrate the dreg and silent beauty of our winter season!  Also, please feel free to assist us in our donation drive to help us raise funds for the 2011 Philly Fringe Fest, where the DSDS has continued to bring you new works by emerging artists,  collaborations with talented folks from across the spectrum and engaged in acts of fake blood spattered cannibalism all for your viewing enjoyment

There is a very limited amount of tickets and you won’t want to miss this

Pre Sale Tickets are $10/Day of the Show $12, discounts for students and seniors

Ticket Sales provided by Event’s Bot and can be purchased in this “hyperlink”

Hope to see you there!

Love,

The DSDS

Jamie Wright and the Machine

Sour Mash

Check out our blog for audio podcasts, info on past shows and cast and crew info!

The Dawson Street Dramatic Society Blog

    

What is One Book, One Philadelphia?

This is the ninth year that One Book, One Philadelphia has been happening in Philadelphia. Basically it is a time for Philadelphia to read one book, and there are programs related to that book all year long. This year the book is War Dances and The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Spokane Indian author Sherman Alexie.  For information on Alexie, check out his website at
http://www.fallsapart.com/

 There is sure to be good conversation and interesting programs and Dawson St Dramatic is lucky to be a part of it all!

For more information on the War Dances, and One Book, One Philadelphia check out Free Library of Philadelphia or click here.

Trickster and Red Cloud Screams

March 1st, 7pm
One Book/One City
Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, Room 108, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-7710

Local playwright Greg Day from the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin presents staged
readings of two of his most recent works: Trickster, where an intern is confronted with
a mysterious presence upon discovering an ancient mask in the basement of a museum;
and Red Cloud Screams, featuring a protagonist who goes to confession in order to work
through his experiences in Native American boarding schools.

Hope to See you there!

NY Dance Exchange Performance!

We will be performing a short piece in the NY Dance Exchange event taking place at the CEC  located at 35th and Lancaster in beautiful West Philly! This is going to be an excellent event featuring dance, theater and musical performances. 

The event page!

Come out to the CEC on November 6th at 8pm
$12 for all ($10 for students/seniors)

DEAD AIR Live 9-18-2010 PODCAST

Click on the link below to download our END OF THE FRINGE podcast

Thank you to everyone who came out and saw DEAD AIR--making this year's Fringe the most successful year yet!

Please enjoy scenes from our closing night of DEAD AIR: Live at the Dawson Street Pub 9-18-2010

DEAD AIR LIVE PODCAST

Scenes from Dead Air PODCAST

Please enjoy


SCENES FROM DEAD AIR: The Podcast


Final Performance of DEAD AIR is Saturday, Sept 18th at the Dawson Street Pub, 8 pm Tickets $10 dollars available at the door or at the Philly Box Office

Reviews, Press & CLOSING NIGHT

This week is the final week for the 2010 Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival!  The Friday, September 17th show at Connie's Ric Rac has been canceled!--Final show Saturday September 18th at Dawson Street Pub

DEAD AIR will have the closing night party at the Dawson Street Pub at 8 pm, Tickets are $10 dollars and can be purchased at the door or in advance at the Fringe Box Office

Don't miss your last chance to see DEAD AIR: The Final Broadcast of the Zombie Apocalypse

"Mindless, drooling shambling zombies..."--Philadelphia City Paper

"The zombie apocalypse, shown a la Orson Welles War of the Worlds. A brilliant idea.":-Geekadelphia.Com

Check back later this week for the mid-show run PODCAST
We'll see your brains Friday Night! 

BLOOD AND BRAINS

Today's Special: Blood and Brains

by Molly Eichel

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Published: Sep 1, 2010

(1)

Tribe of Fools wants to scare the bejeezus out of you so badly with their version ofDracula, they're making you sign a waiver. Not kidding. Instead of some clichéd Béla Lugosi knockoff, they're digging deeper, focusing on the brain fever suffered by hapless solicitor Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker's OG novel. "The stuff that we're playing with comes from us doing about a year of research about fear — both the psychological and biological mechanisms," says Tribe artistic director/Draculadirector Jay Wojnarowski. The idea is to work your amygdala over pretty good.
Sept. 2-6 and 8-11, $20, St. Stephen's Theater, 923 Ludlow St.                                                                 

(2)

There are a ton of meaningless musical genres that make sense only to bloggers and nerds, but Rainbow Destroyer's self-proclaimed "zombie-pop" could not be more apt. Rainbeaux Bite and Brian Reignbow make dancefloor-ready New Wave tunes that would fit right in at Making Time — if Making Time were for dead people. And if their YouTube channel has anything to say about it, the duo is straight-up hilarious and dead sexy (rim shot!). Zombies Are Forever is your turn to audition for the band — zombie affects optional — in a karaoke rumpus. I call The Hooters' "All You Zombies."

Sept. 9-11, 11:45 p.m., $10, RUBA Club, 414 Green St.

(3)

The Dawson Street Dramatic Society (DSDS) is hardly a bunch of undead posers; they originally called themselves Zombies Ain't Shit Co. (and, perhaps unrelated, they're huge Grateful Dead fans). For Dead Air: The Final Broadcast of the Zombie Apocalypse, the company takes cues from Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater Co. Just as that famous 1938 broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worldsfreaked out unsuspecting listeners, DSDS will broadcast humanity's last gasps during a world-ruining zombie takeover.
Sept. 3-4, 10 and 17-18, $10, Connie's Ric Rac, 1132 S. Ninth St.                                                              

(4)

Call it a counterpoint to Dead Air's prediction of the zomb-pocalypse: Little Bunny Voodoo — a puppetry company that seeks to bring its kid-friendly medium to adult audiences — imagines a world in which the whole undead-revolution kerfuffle has been avoided. In A Tale of Two Brains, all that's left are two toothless zombies roaming the Earth, seeking out the meaning of life — and maybe a good dentist. 

Sept. 9-11, $10, RUBA Club, 414 Green St.