February 21, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Play to be performed downtown next week
Once-homeless teen an award-winning playwright
by LEN LEAR

Marquis Herring (left), who won a playwriting award when he was homeless, and Nia Davis, the other playwriting winner, are seen working on a new poem which will be performed as a bridge piece between their two plays. The plays will be performed at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre by professional casts from Feb. 27 to March 1.

It may be a cliché, but in this case it’s definitely true. When life hands lemons to Marquis Herring, you might say he makes award-winning lemonade. When it rains on his parade, he dances in the rain.

Marquis, 18, who grew up in West Oak Lane, is currently a freshman at Lock Haven University in upstate Pennsylvania, but it’s a good bet that he is unique in his freshman class, both for what he has experienced and for what he created out of that experience.

Over the years, Marquis was a student at the John B. Kelly Elementary School, Clarence E. Pickett Middle School and Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice. On the morning of May 4, 2006, his entire family — mom Tanya, 40; brothers Marcellous, 16, and Marqueel, almost 2; and sisters Marissa, 14, and Marrayia, 9 — were awakened by a loud knock on the door.

“When my mom answered the door,” Marquis recalled, “there was someone there saying we had 10 minutes to grab what we could carry and vacate the property. Needless to say, none of us was expecting any of this. All we could do was pack some clothes and sit on the porch as they put a padlock on our front door.” (The landlord, a housing program named Dignity Housing, ordered the eviction after a series of court hearings had attempted to resolve a dispute between the landlord and Marquis’ mother.)

In winner’s circle after taking over reins
General Grant on triumphant march with Blue Horse
by LEN LEAR

Grant previously won a rare four-star rating while the chef at the London Chop House in Detroit, a three-star rating while at the Polo Lounge in New York City and a coveted three-bell rating from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s critic, Craig LaBan. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

Like his namesake, General Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and later U.S. President, Grant Langdon Brown is a dynamic leader. Unlike his namesake, however, Grant Langdon Brown would much rather make love (of a culinary kind), not war.

Hill costume designer a perfect fit for the theater
by R. B. STRAUSS

Chestnut Hill native Susan Smythe is costume designer for The Master and Margarita, the current play produced by Mum Puppet Theatre.

Fellow theater lovers, do your eyes glaze over after perusing a play’s program and you’ve absorbed the info on the cast, playwright and director? If so, you don’t know what you’re missing because even the community theater down the street has a crew of devoted folks working to make what you see seamless when the lights go up.

Such as the costume designer. This person doesn’t entertain a hobby or avocation, but is immersed in a discipline. Beyond the technical know-how of creating a wardrobe from scratch, the costume designer has to come up with a vision that is integral to the play. And of course, there is a touch of altruism here, too, in that a catwalk rather than a stage yields the big bucks.

Take Susan Smythe. She is costume designer for The Master and Margarita, the current play produced by Mum Puppet Theatre that has been adapted for the stage from a sprawling novel by Soviet era writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Now, as the company’s name suggests, puppets are the anchor of their offerings, and there are many onstage. However, human beings also trod the boards, though this time out there are just two, Robert Smythe and Robert DaPonte, with both in multiple roles. And yes, as one can surmise by their identical last name, Robert and Susan are happily married. In fact, this September will be their Silver Anniversary.