From the Jan. 23, 2007 edition of Folio Weekly:
Stranger than Fiction
Reinventing dinner theater for the salivating masses
By CATHERINE RUNYAN
Entrepreneurs Stephen Dare and John Allen once shared a bold dreaml, one in which the coupling of the words dinner and theater wouldn't immediately conjure up thought of bad interpretations of Annie Get Your Gun and spoiled potato salad. Hence, Boomtown Subterranea Theatre and Supperclub was born. Located across from Hemming Plaza in the heart of downtown Jacksonville, Boomtown is a cozy, bohemian nook full of comfy old sofa, weird books, and post-modern art.
As Boomtown, which originated on Main Street in Springfield several years ago, Dare and Allen sought to create a refuge for up-and-coming local playwrights and actors while offering the city’s residents the opportunity to support independent theater. Included on its lengthy menu of entertainment and art offerings, Boomtown produces a Thursday night series of short pieces collectively known as Pulp Fiction Theatre.
In case you don’t remember -- or are too young to recall -- pulp novels of yore were little paperback treasures popular from the '20s to the '50s that were jam-packed with all things lurid: murder, mystery, drama, and steamy romance. As Dare explains with great enthusiasm before each show, pulps were printed on the cheap pulp paper that gives them their name and were filled with seedy characters, femmes fatale, and lots and lots of scandal. His love for the genre propelled him to adapt some of these stories for the modern stage.
Enter Steve Bailey, whose popular parody of Ed Wood's craptastic camp classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space (which was performed at Boomtown in late 2005), inspired Dare and Allen to bring him in to continue directing the Pulp series. The cast, a tight-knit crew of twenty-somethings, most of whom have known each other since high school, switch personas and accents faster than Paris Hilton switches boyfriends. Moving between fat and stupid crooks, oddly oversexed convenience store clerks, slight seductresses, and talking corpses, Pulp Fiction Theatre's cast keeps the action moving with wit and style.
In the coming months, Pulp Fiction Theatre will stage four original pieces -- two adaptations written by cast members Justin Reynolds and Neil Campbell, and two original plays written by Bailey. Among the colorful titles is "Snatching the Snatch," a storyh that involves the kidnapping of a rich girl with questionable morals, two bumbling creeps, and a drug-addled old friend plagued by commercial jingles and the possible uses of Kotex.
Before Pulp Fiction Theatre premiered on Jan. 18, the cast rehearsed every Thursday from 8 p.m. to midnight right in front of the dinner crowd. At Boomtown, Dare says, the creation of theater is theater. Guests could sit and enjoy a drink and the full menu while watching actors and director hash it out on stage. Bailey and Dare would take turns directing, molding and shaping, offering guidance in their own inimitable ways. A stage direction Dare once offered sums up the ethic of Pulp: "With more boob this time."
***
From the annual "Bite by Bite by Restaurant" edition of Folio Weekly, March 20, 2007:
This (literally) underground restaurant is also an exhibit space for local artists, a performance space for local bands and theater groups, and a spoken-word venue for local and national poets. Boomtown serves contemporary fusion cuisine with international influences. Specialties include lime pollo cilantro, low country boil for yuppies, and coconut curry cream alfredo. Beer and wine are served. As a participant in the New Theatre movement, Boomtown stages sing-alongs and theatrical and musical performances.
***
Click on the appropriate link below to:
Return to the opening "press" page
Return to the main page
