Hi Donald!

Following our post about dance injuries and the importance of prevention rather than treatment, it’s safe to say that the blog audience recognizes that dance isn’t for bellyachers, or as former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Donald Drake asserts in the title of his 2012 Philly Fringe submit, Ballroom Dancing Ain’t for Sissies. Donald explains the show, and proselytizes the typewriter, after the jump.

Name: Donald Drake.

Age: I’m the oldest playwright in the Fringe.

Show Title: Ballroom Dancing Ain’t For Sissies.

Explain your performance in 2 sentences. To an 8-year-old. An engaged couple sign up for 20 ballroom dance lessons for their wedding only to discover that ballroom dancing was conceived by an evil experimental psychologist to test the ability of couples to endure the stress of horrendous gender-based conflict.

What was your favorite toy as a kid? Typewriter. That’s a laptop with its own printer attached.

What’s the worst piece of advice you ever received? Did you follow it? Don’t go into journalism. I didn’t follow it. [Audrey: He really didn’t follow it. Read this American Journalism Review article about Donald].

What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen on SEPTA? No empty seats.

A doctor puts a scope inside your ear. What does she see? The dialogue for the scene I will be writing that day.

Do you have relatives more famous than you? Ever heard of Sir Francis Drake?

Ballroom Dancing Ain’t For Sissies runs September 8, 9, and 16 at 8:30 pm at Society Hill Dance Academy, 409 South 2nd Street. $15.

–Audrey McGlinchy