The Philadelphia LiveArts and Fringe Festival starts next week and features several great Irish plays.
“The Bros. Flanagan,” a play about an Irish pub in Philadelphia, debuts in, what else—an Irish pub in Philadelphia—on September 5. It’s being staged upstairs at Fergie’s Pub on Sansom Street. Tickets are $20, and there’s a buy-one-get-one-free entrée offer going on through the run of the play.
The Inis Nua Theatre’s popular production of “Trad,” a comic look at culture shock by comedian Mark Doherty, starts on September 3 at the Amaryllis at The Adrienne Theater, also on Sansom Street.
“Go Irish: The Purgatory Diaries of Jason Miller,” starts on September 4 at the Arch Street United Methodist Church.
This Saturday, pay tribute to a great guy. Sean Cullen was a union steamfitter, a member of the AOH Div.88 and athletic director for Our Lady of Calvary School Athletic Association. He died in May in a motorcycle accident, and his friends are holding a memorial at the Quaker City Yacht Club, where Cullen was a member, that will also raise money for a trust fund for Cullen’s 7-year-old son, Ryan.
On Tuesday, head down to McGillins in Center City to meet New York Times bestselling author William Lashner, whose Victor Carl novels have been translated into a dozen languages. He’ll read from his book, “Blood and Bones,” whose main characters have a beer at McGillins. You can have a beer too–for $2! It’s all part of McGillin’s 150th birthday celebration. Starts at 6 PM.
On Thursday, the Pat McGee Band will be playing at the Sellersville Theatre. Though McGee and company don’t do Celtic, he is the nephew of a prominent member of Philadelphia’s Irish community, Kathy McGee Burns, vice president of the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association.
The first and second of four September festivals is coming up the weekend of September 10—the Green Lane Scottish-Irish Festival and the Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival of Irish Music and Dance. Pace yourself, though. Celtic Classic in Bethlehem and the AOH Irish Weekend in N. Wildwood follow close behind.
