Ever since its founding in 2008, Tiny Dynamite — composed of Producing Artistic Director KC MacMillan, Associate Artistic Director Meghan Winch and company — has operated as a small, intelligent mobile unit dedicated to offering local audiences fresh ways to experience theater, as well as giving artists new ways to create it.
Along with Tiny Dynamite’s evergreen greatest hit, The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged (returning to Philly stages in June, co-written by MacMillan, Winch Charlotte Northeast and Jessica Bedford), the company’s principal project is A Play, a Pie and a Pint, an event of bite-sized and inventive plays and theatrical reading escapades executed in pleasantly unexpected spaces with food and booze.
Tiny Dynamite likes to call what they do as A Play, a Pie and a Pint “brilliantly casual,” which works for its intended vibe of welcoming, empathetic, and community-based stories done with audiences at communal tables, and at lower-than-usual prices than you’d expect for such a rich theatrical experience.
For the Valentine’s Day weekend — Feb. 12-14, at 6:30 p.m. each evening — the A Play, a Pie and a Pint crew will pop-up at the historic Powel House gardens in Society Hill. There, inside a heated, open-air tent, guests can look forward to a hot cocoa bar, as well as alcohol, snacks, and a Valentine- themed production of curated stories, poetry, and tweets about modern love — “the good, the bad, and the hilarious.”
For those who can’t or won’t get out of the house, Tiny Dynamite is offering a digital valentine viewable until Feb. 19, “minus the hot chocolate and snacks,” says McMillan. (Find out about such options and more at tinydynamite.org)
Metro and A.D. Amorosi spoke with KC MacMillan about what it means to be back in action… even though they never truly went away.
Amorosi: Tiny Dynamite’s principal longtime mission is bringing theater to locals in new, intimate ways with nice priced tickets and an air of the convivial. So, what’s shifted with Covid? How was intimacy splintered with all this distance?
MacMillan: Our small company became one of the busiest theaters in Philadelphia through the pandemic. We used the time to experiment with new forms — digital, yes, like many other companies, ours was a live, interactive zoom play — but we also created a play-by-phone, a choose-your-own adventure through a series of audio recordings. Our biggest experiment was our biggest success: we created what we call “plays-by-mail,” which were a series of six to ten packages sent to each audience member in the mail. The mailings felt like care packages—a letter from a loved one, but also small gifts, surprises, and handmade crafts. These were created by partnerships of designers and playwrights. Intimacy was splintered by distance, but what we did successfully was to create a new kind of intimacy—a story you could experience on your own time and revisit, things made just for you that you could hold in your hand. Audiences liked it so much we are going to keep doing it. We have a return engagement of one of these projects next week, ‘Georgiana Recovered in Time,’ a ten-package series set in the world of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice.’
Amorosi: Considering any fissure, how do you bring it all together again for 2022, and the newest Pie and Pint, etc.?
MacMillan: We want to be a resource, a balm for our audiences as we start to feel released from the trauma of the last 22 months: generating conversation, inspiring joy, boosting our connectedness to one another with a return to in-person programming. We recognize the significant opportunity we have right now to reach new audiences for theater —the pandemic has shaken up people’s behavior patterns, and there are many who may not consider themselves theatergoers looking for new ways to enjoy our city. Tiny Dynamite is well positioned to reach new audiences, with our history of demystifying the theatergoing experience. Audiences said they were comforting and rejuvenating… well, our staffers felt that same way putting them together. We couldn’t always gather to assemble packages—there was a lot of hand-offs on people’s porches.
Amorosi: What is the language of the newest Pie and Pint and why, especially since it is a Valentine’s event?
MacMillan: It’s designed to have a ‘festival’ feel – you arrive, there’s music piped into the garden – there’s a DIY hot chocolate bar you can do up your own. Maybe spiked! There’s a station where you can make a valentine for your sweetheart if you want. Think old-school—doilies and red construction paper. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. Then the performance begins: five great actors (Lee Minora, Andrew Criss, Ang Bey, Cassie Alexander, and Gabe Moses) at music stands. The event is script-in-hand. They’ll share a wide array of heartfelt and cheeky content about love—poems, and short stories, but also the best and funniest tweets we could find about dating, marriage, breakups…and our other great loves, like…food!
Amorosi: What is great about Powell House’s gardens?
MacMillan: Oh, it’s so gorgeous! The garden is a little gem of the city, even in winter weather. The word I’d use for it is enchanting. Yes, it’s enchanting.
Amorosi: What’s next for 2022, and how does it suit your personal, professional, and aesthetic goals?
MacMillan: Personally, I love to host. I’m a thrower of epic parties in my personal life. And it’s a part of my identity that I have really, really missed in the last two years. So I channel that energy into Tiny Dynamite. We want to continue to reach people in new ways. Innovation has been a silver lining for us—I want to keep that going.
