Anyone who frequents the celebrated Fergie’s Pub—a vibrant spot run by Philadelphia publican Fergus Carey on Sansom Street—knows to expect the unexpected and be delighted by an offbeat charm.
So, it’s only fitting that Fergie’s is hosting theater director Kathryn “KC” MacMillan’s “Pop-Up Play in a Pub” series, now featuring the U.S. premiere of ‘DRIP’, a new solo musical by writers-composers Tom Wells and Matthew Robins. Grab a Stargazy pie, order a pint, and settle in for Max Gallagher’s magical musical performance about a synchronized swim team whose protagonist (Gallagher’s “Liam”) can’t swim.
“I moved to Philadelphia from New York City for just this sort of wild theatrical experience, your brand of adventurous, experimental theater and Philly’s long history of devised theater,” says DRIP’s director Kyle Metzger. “No theater scene is more risk-taking and form-breaking than Philly’s.”
Along with directing event theater for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Kelly McCaugan’s ‘Catholic Guilt’), ‘The Little Prince’ musical for Quintessence Theatre Group and ‘Fun Home’ at New Light Theatre, Mezger now teaches theater at Temple and Drexel University, and is nestled deep in Mt. Airy with his artist-husband Richie Lopez and their baby pittie, Wynona.
“I’m drawn to highly collaborative actors and like theatrical environments where we can really play,” says Metzger. “In a perfect world, someone else has the best idea in the room and I just take credit for it… To get a performer to be vulnerable — that is our job. As human beings, we don’t allow that often enough in our own lives, which is why we pay others to do that. And the process of making theater should be fun.”
And what could be more fun than staging a theater in a bar?
British writer-composers Tom Wells and Matthew Robins create contagious, earthy story-songs about the loneliness of a young, short distance synchronized swimmer who isn’t exactly sure of themselves. To portray this character in song and script, Metzger needed someone disarmingly charming and immensely talented.
“Max is one of the most charming, generous, compelling performers I have even witnessed,” says the director of Max Gallagher, a young, queer-identifying Philadelphia actor and singer. “They’re up on stage for over an hour by themselves, singing nine songs, accompanying themselves on guitar, all while having to learn a very specific Northern English accent and keeping it consistent. Everyone will be eating and drinking. This is an opportunity and a challenge.”
As for how a “sweetly intimate” British musical theater event works in a loud and crowded pub space on Sansom Street, MacMillan’s “Pop-Up Play in a Pub” series has been at Fergie’s in the past, and Metzger believes that the Sansom Street saloon is the other character in ‘DRIP’.
“The space really dictates how the story will unfold and be told. Using all of the nooks and crannies of the space, the gift of Fergie’s, informs the story in a way that it couldn’t be told in a traditional theater space.”
