Decatur 'Porch Show' Actors To Perform At Dinner Theater

By Julie Bookman

Now, five cast members are going up the street a spell for one night only – July 12 – to perform highlights from the porch shows at Stone Soup Kitchen, near Oakland Cemetery.

Produced by Fredman, Matt Huffman and Donna Rutherford, the Lenox Place porch shows have perhaps best been known as Cold Soup Dinner Theatre. The slogan: “where the soup is cold and the art is hotter than the weather!” For cooling off, there’s even been a wading pool for audience members.

 The July 12 staging marks Stone Soup Kitchen’s first stab at a cabaret-style dinner theater.  Sarah Rick’s café in the Grant Park-Cabbagetown vicinity is regularly open only for breakfast and lunch; Rick hopes a dinner theater night can become a once-a-month event – and grow from there.

The quirky variety show, written by Larry Schulz, is the “ideal form of entertainment for Stone Soup to dip its toe into live theater,” Rick says. “We’ve always wanted to find just the right smaller-scale show because we have such an attractive space.”

She refers to the enclosed patio at the rear of the eight-year-old café, which is also rented for special occasions, such as private parties. 

  Schulz, aka “Clay Spurz,” is a longtime Atlanta writer, musician and thespian. He’s rounded up some of his favorite fellow performance artists for an evening of theatrical hijinks – and he’s calling the troupe Clay Spurz & Co. Besides Schulz, the cast features Fredman (aka “Scooter”); busy Atlanta musician Britt Dean; dancer-choreographer-orator Joe Kelly (former artistic director of Atlanta Contemporary Dance Company); and Marian Sundance.

    The buffet dinner service starts at 7 p.m., with the show underway by 7:30. Your first cocktail is included in the $25 in-advance price. (SSK now has a full bar).

   Patrons will enjoy a “micro theater-in-the-round” experience, says Schulz. The SSK dinner theater show is to feature comedy, music and more. For example, two skits in the show are rooted in well-known literary works.

Imagine a condensed, folksy (or “Dylan-esque,” says Schulz), version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Or how about “MacTango,” in which Kelly and Sundance perform a steamy scene from “Macbeth” – as reimagined by writer Schulz. All five cast members have appeared in the Cold Soup Dinner Theatre shows on Fredman’s Melrose Ave. porch.

    “These actors are like my muses,” Schulz says of his castmates. “I’m inspired to write for them because I know what they’ll be able to do with the material.” SSK Cabaret Night will also include a scene in which Scooter and Spurz play Prohibition-era gangsters Mugsy and Bugsy; a piece about forbidden love on a small Georgia plantation of long ago (with Sundance); and tunes from two of the three musicians who regulary entertain as The Band of Desperate Men (Schulz and Dean).

    “Sarah and I go way back,” says Schulz, who worked for Rick at her “first” Stone Soup, a Virginia-Highland health-conscious grocery store popular in the 1970s and ‘80s. “In some ways, it’s like we’ve been cooking this up for years,” he adds. “And now, it’s in the soup!” So of course the  SSK dinner theater guests can look forward to soup. There will be a cold tomato gazpacho, or choose a hot soup with chicken sausage, white beans and local greens. A salad bar will feature fresh summer fruits and vegetables. Dessert: Stone Soup’s signature peach cobbler with whipped cream.

   While the dinner theater is a one-night event, the players have added an “Insiders Special,” or first performance, at 7 p.m. on July 11. Admission is $5 at the door; there will be a cash bar. (Reservations are not needed for July 11).

Stone Soup Kitchen Cabaret Dinner Theater

Featuring Clay Spurz & Co.

7 p.m. Fri., July 12

584 Woodward Ave., just off Boulevard (Grant Park/Cabbagetown)

$25 in advance, $30 at the door; call 404-228-1763

www.clayspurzandco.weebly.com

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