Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
16th Annual Play Festival
Presents

A Screened Reading
of

EAST SIDE STORIES: UNMASKED
Part One: Welcome to the Neighborhood
(Part Two: Stick Around will air on June 19, 2021)

www.metropolitanplayhose.org/virtualplayhouse
Metropolitan Playhouse at YouTube.com
www.MetropolitanPlayhouse.org/ESS2021

June 12, 2021 8 p.m.
(Plays through June 16, 2021)

TALL BLONDE WITH A TOY GIRAFFE written by ARMAND RUHLMAN
Directed by RACHAEL LANGTON
Featuring AMANDA JONES, MICHAEL A. JONES, & JED PETERSON

POPPYSEED written by MICHAEL D. DINWIDDIE
Directed by LINDA KURILOFF
Featuring ADRIAN BAIDOO & ROSINA FERNHOFFS

The reading will be followed by a discussion with the playwrights.

These two plays tell the tale of the “old” East Village. “Old” being the downtrodden, crumbling, crime-ridden version that defined the area in the 1970s and 1980s.

It’s 1981. The young man who has just driven in from New Orleans encounters a tall blonde with a toy giraffe. But not right away. He is clueless, wet-behind-the-ears, and quite nervous. Rats are running past him. Old Smitty cries out from his street shanty somewhere near Tompkins Park and Avenue B. Raving on that he is a refugee, run out of his Times Square shack by the city’s clean-up campaign. He misses his life there. Prostitutes, winos, xxx-rated peep shows. Our young man scurries away to find the habitation he has rented. It’s worse in there than in the street! His dream of a glamorous life in New York is actually a nightmare! That’s when he meets the blonde. She’s weird but nice. She warns him about the insane residents and dicey goings-on. Good luck, baby boy.

POPPYSEED revisits the E. 9th Street Bakery, 1976. The place has been there forever. The little bell rings when you open the door. The baker’s wife greets you. She’s a, shall we say, mature lady. Do not mess with her. She is old-school New York. Jerry, a college student, wants a poppyseed strudel. They’re out. Would he like something else? No thanks, he says, and tries to leave. Jerry should have just said “yes”, then selected something, anything. But nooooo. Jerry is naïve to the ways of the New York grandmother. Resistance is futile. How about this? How about that? Here, taste this. Jerry has to laugh. He realizes he’s not getting out alive unless he buys something. Lemon cake it is, with a cupcake thrown in. She has schmoozed him into submission. Welcome to life in the city.

These plays are so true-to-life, which is the point. Showing how the area has changed from established to random, prosperous to rundown, then back again. Poignant, enjoyable reality from two excellent writers.

-Karen D’Onofrio-