Kitchen Dog Theatre didn't have to build a set for the next show. Love and VinylSince the romantic comedy is set in a record store, the company will be screening it inside an actual store, with audience members seated in the aisles among the shelves of LPs inside Good Records in East Dallas.
“We're literally flipping through the book as we do the play,” says cast member Max Hartman, who plays Zane, a middle-aged social studies teacher.
Jamal Sterling, who plays Zayn's accountant friend Bogie, adds: “It's really amazing to have inspiration right in front of you.”
We've been friends since 9th grade. The characters visit the record store every week.
“It's a love letter to records,” says Karen Parrish, who plays Sage, the store's new owner.
And to the past. Nostalgia for LP albums serves as a metaphor for all that has been lost. Hartman calls the characters “analog people lamenting that fact in the digital age.”
It's also a love letter to love: Zayn has just split from his longtime girlfriend, Bogey has little experience with women, and Sage has recently moved from another city and uprooted her whole life. Romantic sparks fly.
Maryland playwright Bob Bartlett Love and Vinyl The piece was written as a location-specific play intended to be performed in a record store, but he has also written plays to be performed in non-traditional locations, including laundromats, people's backyards, and forests.
Kitchen Dog co-artistic director Tina Parker knew Bartlett and his work, says Christopher Carlos, the theater company's other co-artistic director and current conductor. Love and Vinyl.
Parker thought of The Bartlett while looking for a play to close Kitchen Dog's unconventional season. The traveling company is raising money to build a new theater, and previous performances have taken place in a minor league baseball park in Frisco and a CrossFit gym in the Dallas Design District.
Parker and Hartman were also acquainted with Good Records' manager, Christopher Penn, who readily agreed to host the show. Good Records features a mirror ball and a second floor, both of which are the show's centerpieces. Hartman lives so close that he can see the front door of the store from the second floor.
“If I had to build a set, I'd be lucky if it looked like this,” Carlos said during an interview at the shop, where Kitchen Dog troupe members Hartman, Sterling and Parish rehearse every night.
While Carlos and all the other cast members own vinyl records, Hartman, who is a musician, doesn't currently have a proper record player.
“I wouldn't say I'm super hardcore, but I've had a record collection since I was a teenager,” says Carlos. “When the mood strikes, there's nothing more fun than putting on a record. There's something about records that I love.”
Sterling, whose wife gave him a turntable as a gift a few years ago, recalls how as a kid he would rile up his mother by tapping rhythms onto records. He lives near another popular North Texas record store, Josey's Records in Farmers Branch.
Parish said her 22-year-old son brought the vinyl record back into her life. “It's special to have it back in that form. You can hold it in your hand and it sounds different. There are a lot of cool quotes in the film about the importance of the vinyl record.”
Records have a warmer sound and more bass than digital music, Hartman said. “For some reason, when I listen to records, I feel like I'm in the room. I don't know what the magic is.”
The cast reminisces about the first alternative formats to vinyl records, particularly cassette tapes, and Hartman talks about the arrival of the Walkman and how it made music portable.
“I didn't just have a record collection in my bedroom,” he says. “I was riding my bike around the neighborhood listening to Motley Crue. Shout out to the devilIf that didn't make me feel like a wow man… it was incredible, a taste of analog freedom in headphones.”
Parrish recalls rewinding Bruce Springsteen cassette tapes over and over again. Nebraska To revisit some of her favorite songs from the album. “We all lost something when these things were taken from us,” she says. “So it's fun to relive those memories with these characters.”
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June 7-23 at Good Records, 9026 Garland Road, Dallas. $25-30. Preview June 6, $10. kitchendogtheater.org.
