LOVE AND VINYL Will Be Staged at Byrdland Records In Union Market

Maryland-based playwright and long-time professor of theatre at Bowie State University, Bob Bartlett will bring Love and Vinyl to DC's hippest record store, Byrdland Records, just in time for Valentine's Day and featuring some of the city's strongest comedic actors.

The Helen Hayes Award-winning Bartlett says the idea to create site-specific theatre, which he believes has the potential to engage audiences in more immediate ways than theatre staged in traditional spaces, came while he was living in a downtown walk-up on Maryland Avenue in Annapolis over a decade ago. "I've always been drawn to theatre produced in unique locations," he notes. "And more than simply Shakespeare in the park." Always on the lookout for compelling locations where acts of theatre and storytelling can happen, Bartlett often writes with specific spaces in mind. "I'd long dreamed of inviting audiences to walk into a record store to see a play." A one-time owner of a record store in the late eighties, Bartlett has long been a fan of films like High Fidelity and Empire Records, and of smart romantic comedies about the lovelorn who have given up on finding love. He couldn't be more excited to bring Love and Vinyl to Byrdland Records and Union Market, one of the fastest growing entertainment and dining destinations in the city.

Bartlett wrote Love and Vinyl on a dare from colleagues who challenged the avowed bachelor to write a romantic comedy about vinyl lovers, like himself, who had forever sworn off romantic love. "While I was living downtown in Annapolis in the early '10s, I frequented the seriously cool KA-CHUNK!! Records, which is just a couple shops from the location of the laundromat where I staged my first site-specific play, The Accident Bear, and thought I'd write the play for KA-CHUNK!!, a shop and world I know well. "Approaching an owner about staging a play in their business is always an adventure, but the KA-CHUNK!! team - and now Byrdland Records - loved the idea." "Record stores," Bartlett adds, "are numinous, nostalgic spaces where we discover new music, friends and sometimes lovers while browsing for records, a ritual we almost lost to digital music," beliefs and sentiments he mines in his play. "The opportunity to share the play with audiences at Byrdland Records," he adds, "is truly special, and opening the run of the play around Valentine's Day is romantically writ in the stars."

A new play about browsing for records and romance in the digital age! Best friends Bogie and Zane visit their local record store and leave with so much more than a stack of vinyl in this really smart romcom.

Love and Vinyl features regional actors James J. Johnson, Jacob Yeh, and Rachel Manteuffel.

Love and Vinyl will run Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 8:30 PM from February 13 - March 9, 2025 at Byrdland Records, 1264 5th Street NE, Washington, DC 20003.

Love and Vinyl runs 85 minutes with no intermission. Because of the uniqueness of the venue/performance space, the production seats only thirty guests per performance. Audience seating is provided. No late seating.

Advanced online ticket sales only. The play features comedic dirty language. Street and garage parking. Plenty of local bars and restaurants.

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