The Psi Upsilon fraternity house — better known as Castle — will be teeming with talent tonight for the 10th Annual Friarside Coffee House, hosted by Friars Senior Society.
Organized by College seniors Nina Wolpow, 34th Street Magazine Editor-in-Chief, and Tamara Shakarchi, the event will feature 10 performances and begin at 8 p.m. Ticket sales will benefit Habitat for Humanity.
Groups performing will include Arts House Dance Company, Bloomers, Dhamaka, The Excelano Project, Mask and Wig, Off the Beat, Pennchants, Strictly Funk, The Vagina Monologues and Without a Net.
The DP sat down with three of the night’s acts to talk about their performances before tonight’s event.
Related: Backstage with Mask & Wig
Without A Net
Penn’s resident improvisational comedy troupe will be performing mostly “short form” — a technique featuring comedic games — at tonight’s Coffee House. One such game is “Party Quirks,” in which troupe members pretend to attend a party, each with his or her own quirk, and a party “host” must guess each guest’s quirk.
Wharton senior and Without a Net co-producer Natalie Riemer also noted how performing in a fraternity house could lend itself especially well to the group’s style.
“Castle will be a really fun space, a very intimate space,” she said. “In such close proximity, the audience typically gives great suggestions and it always gets a little rowdy.”
Arts House Dance Company
AHDC will be performing three shorter pieces choreographed earlier this semester. The performance will highlight freshmen dancers, who practiced the performance dances for their auditions, along with the choreographer of each piece.
Tonight’s performance will be a precursor to their upcoming collaboration with Penn Masala, Flappers and Falsettos, which will be performed Nov. 22 and 23 at the Iron Gate Theater.
College senior and Arts House Dance Company Chair Samantha Lawyer is eager to launch a busy performance season.
“We have a show coming up in two weeks, so we wanted to keep those dances hidden away until show time,” Lawyer said.
Related: The Vagina Monologues celebrates women’s bodies
Wes Spiro
As a charity event run by Friars, Friarside Coffee House would be incomplete without a solo performance by one of the society’s own. College senior Wes Spiro is a Friar who enjoys making music, despite the fact that he is currently not a member of any Penn-affiliated performing arts groups.
Though he has a self-proclaimed tendency to choose a performance cover minutes before taking the stage, Spiro is considering performing a recently learned jazz standard called “In the Wee Small Hours of Morning.” He also plans to perform an Amy Winehouse song.
“I’m proud to represent my fellow Friars on Wednesday night for a good cause,” he said.
