Springside girls work so African kids can eat
by ELISABETH TORG
One hot Saturday not too long ago, Maddie Megargee walked three long, slow miles along Forbidden Drive. It took her three and a half hours. Mind you now, Maddie is a seven-year-old who really doesn’t like to walk. Not to mention that this was more than a mere stroll through the Wissahickon. This was a one-girl walkathon with a purpose.
Maddie Megargee walked … and walked … and walked … to raise money for a goat.
A goat, you see, could be a source of income for another family living half way around the globe in Africa.
A goat could make a difference in another child’s life.
A goat like Mugisa, who helped a girl named Beatrice.
Chestnut Hill Outdoor Market to open June 25
by GAIL COHEN
An outdoor market, with real farmers, is coming to Chestnut Hill,” announced Bob Pierson, program director of Farm to City, on Monday of this week in a conversation with the Local. The market will open Saturday, June 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and every Saturday through November. The market will be located on Winston Road at its intersection with Germantown Avenue, just a few yards from the Mermaid Inn.
Hiller directs entertaining and sly screwball comedy
by HUGH HUNTER
The Old Academy Players is completing its current season with the running of Return Engagements. Directed by Chestnut Hill resident Helga Krauss, the play is an entertaining screwball comedy that gives new meaning to the concept of “family values.”
Veteran Canadian playwright Bernard Slade has a long career of creating frolicsome sitcoms for American television. (Bewitched, Bridget loves Bernie, The Flying Nun). Wacky as these may be, they are all innocent enough. But in writing for theater, Slade gives vent to a more naughty side and plays around with the issues of love and marriage. It is clearly not the sort of family values that our sermonizing, radio talk-show gurus have in mind.
Written in vignette form, the first act consists of three scenes, each beginning with ill-matched lovers arising from bed in the same Stratford hotel room. Daisy is a driven actress. In her self-absorbed way she wonders aloud about her amorous behavior, as though her lover Ray (Matt Chicchi) were not even present. Indeed, why did she go to bed with Ray, the hotel bellboy, just hours before her upcoming wedding to Dave?
Germantown Music Studio Still Melodic After 25 Years
by BETH A. BROOKS
Twenty-five years is a long time to be in one place. But that’s how long Rich Rudin and the Maplewood Music Studio in Germantown have been together. Rudin is the founder, owner and artistic director of the studio.
Rudin, a graduate of Central High (228th graduating class) grew up in East Mt. Airy/West Oak Lane. “While I was going to Temple University, I moved to Germantown and stayed there for 17 years,” he said. “I’ve always loved the northwestern section of Philadelphia with its feeling of community and with its great diversity of races, religions and economic backgrounds.”
Rudin didn’t start out to be a teacher. After receiving his master’s degree in 1978, he spent some time performing before beginning the studio in 1980. In the late 1970s, he taught at Lighthouse Arts and Music Camp. During the last two years he was there, he was head of the piano department. There he “fell in love with teaching.”
