December 6-17, 2017
Wednesdays-Sundays 6:30pm
plus added dessert show Saturdays 9:30pm
$20 includes the play, a pie, and a pint (beer or soda)
A Play A Pie And A Pint
Season Seven
Upstairs at the Headhouse Cafe, 122 Lombard, Philadelphia
with
Lee Minora and Daniel Ison
The Art of Swimming
By
Lynda Radley
Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to my performance. In order for it to work, I will need you to sometimes imagine that I am Mercedes Gleitze: the first British woman to swim the English Channel.
And with the playful spirit of its start, a single actor takes us on an imaginative adventure to rediscover the story of Mercedes Gleitze, one of the great athlete-celebrities of her time. In 1927, after 26-year-old Gleitze successfully swims the twenty-mile crossing of the frigid English Channel, an even greater challenge emerges. Detractors—skeptical of women’s athleticism—claim her achievement is a hoax, setting Gleitze on a course that would forever change both her life and the perceptions of women in sports. But then…she is largely forgotten, until a young writer’s discovery of her picture, tucked in an old book, brings her story back to life. Told with inventive props, enchanting surprises, and accompanied by live music, The Art of Swimming will inspire anyone who has ever tested the motto, “Nothing great is easy.”
Links to press reports on the original production