Philly Chit Chat

“The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning,” produced by Inis Nua theater company at the Drake Theater in Philadelphia, opened on Friday night to rave reviews, it runs through May 15.

Johnny Smith, Campbell O’Hare (foreground), David Glover, David Pica, and Trevor Fayle (background) in Inis Nua’s THE RADICALISATION OF BRADLEY MANNING (Photo credit: Katie Reing)

I reluctantly went to see it, cause he’s not a hero of mine, but the show was really good. The actors were amazing, the set was clever, the story was interesting; his actions for releasing secrets of war atrocities are still flawed as far as I’m concerned, but it was interesting to see how everything played out and learn a little bit more about his story; did I mention the staging was amazing. I really did enjoy the play, and the set was really clever.  I recommend for you to go see it, especially if you’re a fan of Bradley Manning’s; he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize so there’s that.

Leonard Kelly,  Inis Nua Board Member, Janice K. Marini, Inis Nua Board Member,Tom Reing, Artistic Director of Inis Nua Theatre Company , Michael Athay,  Inis Nua Board Member and Anne Vogelmann, Inis Nua  Board Member

Dan McGovern and Janelle Kauffman

Oliver Frank, Bryant Gilot, Karen Beckman and Stefan Johnson

Paul Cheeseman, Darnelle Radford, Brett Mapp and Morgan Hugo all really enjoyed the play.

Ernest Owens, GPhilly, Barry Johnson and actor David Glover, who played a version of Bradley Manning. (That’s not a spoiler alert is it?)

Alex Rosenfeld and Paul Deichmann

David Fox, Philly Mag Theater Review and Toby Zinman, Philly Inquirer Theater Review

David Fox says: Director Tom Reing gives us an accomplished, exhilaratingly theatrical show, but the core story and its protagonist remain elusive. Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2016/04/30/theater-review-politics-and-identity-in-inis-nuas-the-radicalisation-of-bradley-manning/#zhZSHbI341pUiuHq.99

Ray Costello and Deb Miller, Phindie theater review

Finally life is coming back to the film industry in Philly, I hear that Cheri Oteri has signed on to play the lead in a film being shot in Philly. The project is the dream of three South Philly gals, Krystal Tini, Jennifer Tini, and Monique Impagliazzo (who used to work for Barwood Production) who currently live in LA but are bringing it back home to Philly to film.

You’ll recall Cheri was on SNL 1995 – 2000 playing iconic roles like Barbara Walters and Ariana Huffington as well as other great characters.

Turkey’s literally fly when an impatient housewife waits for her cheating husband to come home for a Thanksgiving dinner he will never forget.

Turkey’s Done is a short comedic film revolving around Peaches Brocco, a South Philly housewife, who is impatiently waiting for her cheating husband to come home for a Thanksgiving he’ll never forget! With support from her neighbors (some of them begrudgingly) Peaches finally has the chance to walk away from the man who has strayed one too many times after remaining by his side for years during his incarceration…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/turkey-s-done-a-short-film#/

The only thing standing in the way of this film getting made is the funding, help the girls out.

There’s a couple fun incentives on the indiegogo page to go along with your contribution

$100 USD + Shipping

Don’t be a Turkey help the ladies out, then enjoy a Thanksgiving no one’s going to forget

Also check out their Facebook Page here

Happy Day After #Hilladelphia where Hillary Clinton won in Philadelphia, winning 63 percent of the vote, and 59 of the city’s 66 wards. (Philly.com) Before being PhillyChitChat I worked on lots of political campaigns and knew where all the players were during election day. Now not so much. I did head to the 4th Street Deli, which in its heyday was the spot. In the past couple years it’s been waning a bit, and yesterday it was downright dead. So bummed, but a few characters did show up.

I knew when I read the mayor schedule and he was not scheduled to go here that the turnout for fun political characters would be low, especially at the 4th Street Deli. It seems that folks now go to the West Mt Airy spot – Relish. I did catch a few political peeps. On the right is Clark DeLeon ( For 20 years Clark DeLeon wrote a daily column for The Inquirer, a slice-of-life called The Scene – you can imagine I was a big fan, I tried not to fan out too much but I did get a selfie)  to the left is former 4th Street owner David Auspitz. In the back is George Norcross (white hair), former owner of Philadelphia Newspapers Media – ie Philly Inky & Daily News. – Under his reign his team hired me to work at Philly.com. Before I arrived Lynn Abraham had been eating with them.

Larry Platt, who hired me at Philly Mag, then went on to run the Philly Media Network, and is now running The Philadelphia Citizen, with him is Harriet Lessy, , former gossip columnist at Philly Daily News, now running her political PR agency –  BUZZCommunications and guest. Also spotted in crowd former 6ABC Marc Howard, so maybe the 4th Street Deli is where former newsies hang out or as it seems Hughe’s former bosses.

Senatorial candidate Katie McGinty arrived in her bright green lime outfit, greeted the politicos that had been hanging out, then spoke to reporters at the 4th Street Deli. I did notice on her election day schedule, that she added Relish to it on the day of the election (as the day befores schedule didn’t have it) and pushed back her visit to the Deli to 130PM. Last November the Deli was packed with politico’s, but come November I’ll probably head out to Relish for an early lunch, and catch a late lunch at the 4th Street Deli.

Across the street from the 4th Street Deli. I heard Bernie Sanders spent his lunch hour shaking hands at Reading Terminal.

Between 5 and 8 PM I was photographing the Bank & Bourbon  2nd Anniversary. I was pleasently surprised that it was packed. I’ll have photos from the event in Philly Mag tomorrow, and a few additional ones here on PhillyChitChat on Friday, the food edition. Have you ever eaten there, it’s so good. They really do have the best steak in the City, I think better than my last pick which was Little Pete’s in Fairmount.

I didn’t want to leave the party, but knowing that Hillary was going to give an election night speech in Philly I had to be there for this historic event. I hadn’t credentialed myself so I got in the general admission line with my friend. When we got to the door I saw the media door was next door and no one was in that line. I thought let me give it a try. I showed him my press pass, and my biz card. He googled my name and then he let Mike and I go in.  PS what sucks about having events at the Pa Convention Center is their proper address takes you to 11th and Arch. So many people were confused trying to find where it was really located, including me. This happens a lot with events. The two entrances are not exactly next to each other.

Oh I love these t-shirts that a vendor was selling on the street outside the convention center doors. Not original, but cute.

I hope people got their umbrellas back

Hi Kristen Welker, my former neighbor and friend, really we’re FB friends. Maybe she’ll be at the Fairmount Conservancy party tomorrow night with her mom like she was last year.

It can be hairy up on the media riser, but still with this crazy position I was in, back row, I was able to get the following photos

The Grateful Photo

The Warrior Photo

The I have a full set of teeth photo

The let’s get to work photo

The Proud Husband Photo

The supporter photo, omg let me tweet this photo out photo

The yes we stuck together all these years photo and we’re going to make history again

Teamwork makes the dream work

The Mayor Kenney is standing next to the next President of the United States Photo

As seen on South Street by Danya Henninger – PhillyDesign. Now how did I miss that?

The results from The Philadelphian voting district of the major races

Have a good day, keep warm.

Good Tuesday morning. Happy Primary Day, Feel the Bern! Go Vote. Everyone knows I’m voting for  Hillary Clinton, someone called into question me being a reporter and being so open about who I’m voting for. As I always tell people I am not a reporter, I do work in the press, the media takes my photos and they take my stories. If Hillary had had a meltdown I would have written about it, I’ve written about people I like who have meltdowns, or do things that might not be popular, like tweeting about my friend Councilwomen Cindy Bass wearing a Vote for Chaka Fattah button to the Hillary rally yesterday. It’s good to have solid friends like that, ones that aren’t afraid of being associated with someone who might be indicted, but definitely hasn’t used common sense. Anywho, here’s my story about yesterday.

MSNBC was super nice inviting me and three other photographers to photograph back-to-back MSNBC town halls with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton at the Constitution Center yesterday. The whole thing was embargoed, meaning I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone til a certain time.  It was fascinating because they were pre taping the shows at 5:30PM for Hillary, and 6:30PM for Bernie; and both of them had scheduled events afterwards. Hillary was doing a City Hall Rally in the courtyard at 7:15PM. There was a line at 330PM when I went by and captured these two charmers. Seriously where can I get that outfit on the left?

Then it was on to the Constitution Center where there was a healthy line waiting to get into the Kirby Auditorium. About 200 people can fit in the auditorium, each campaign offered seats to their supporters who had  to fill out a questionnaire and then were chosen to attend. From the questionnaires a few people were chosen to ask the candidate questions that they had noted on their entry.

I sat with the reporters, mostly the “Pool Reporters” who follow each of their assigned candidates to report on and feed their news agencies stories at each candidates stop. Sometimes Pool Reports can be very funny, as I am subscribed to the White House one, and I usually tweet about them as they happen if they’re funny. So if POTUS, FLOTUS, VPotus or Mrs VPotus is in our area I hear all about their trip, what they’re wearing, who they waved at and if they trip. It’s fun to be a fly on the wallk, which is the kind of reporting I like to do too. So here they are, the folks behind the scenes who you read everyday. They’re all dressed so nice, glad I didn’t wear shorts.

And we get to watch the close circuit feed of the events going on inside the Kirby Auditorium. The MSNBC folks would bring the photographers in, there were only three of us – Inquirer, AP and moi, towards the end of the hours so we could get pixs without interrupting the goin ons. Nothing more annoying to me too, then the clicking of a camera when a performance is going on.  I was super excited to photograph and see Bernie Sanders in person (and Rachel Maddow – PS I have a bucket list) That is why I chose to cover the MSNBC Town Hall over Hillary’s Rally at City Hall or Chelsea Clinton’s Meet and Greet at Coda.

One of my friends said “During the commercial breaks they couldn’t stop Hillary from talking to us and she stood at the end and asked for our votes.”

Some of Hillary’s highlights that delighted the audience: Legalization of marijuana; Hillary on feminism – women deserve all the rights men have, equally; and restoring voting rights to felons. On whether she would offer Sanders a spot in her White House, she said her cabinet is going to represent the United States, 50% of it will be women. That’s an answer without an answer.

More on Hillary Clinton’s Town Hall at MSNBC

Here’s more on the Bernie Sanders interview at MSNBC

When I left I snapped this photo. So go #FindYourPark and take a photo

The Black Men for Bernie head towards Drexel University I thought, but later learned they went to City Hall to blow their horns as Hillary was rallying her supporters. I was a little surprised. I don’t know how to insert videos into my blog yet, so click the link to see the video if you want.

The Rally at City Hall for Hillary Clinton (TY to one of my friends for this pix)