Brendan Kennedy’s “Guilty Pleasures” show at the Shubin Theatre (presented by PHIT) is a celebration of bad screenplays that should never, ever be performed. Each month, Brendan collects these horrible works of art and invites a few of his comedian friends to read them on stage for the audiences’ amusement. This time on the stage was (from left to right in the photos) Monroe Martin, Kent Haines, Roger C. Snair, Doogie Horner and Danny Ozark. Roger is a regular and almost co-host to the show that plays a role in each of the scripts. With a unique sense of delivery and timing and the ability to do ridiculous voices, he’s a crowd favorite that can make any terrible line of dialogue funny in some way.

But first, Meg Favreau, a self-proclaimed collector of old books, read some poetry from The Complete Book of Showers and Engagement Parties, which was as weird and awkward as it sounds. The main poem was a multi-page list of things that one friend wished upon her other friend. Basically, it included every place, person and thing that may bring joy to that person’s life. To close it out, Meg wondered what it must have been like for the person to listen to someone else read the poem to them. Yikes.

Next were the dramatic readings of crappy screenplays. First, “Trinity Rises” by D. M. Bocaz-Larson. Brendan said you can learn more about Mr. Bocaz-Larson by googling “free drama” (sure enough, it works) where, Brendan says, “you will see him in a viking hat and won’t feel sorry for him.” The story revolves around a dying old man and his granddaughter Trinity, a recent college student that doesn’t know what to do with her life. As the old man dies (spoiler alert), Trinity realizes that she needs to use his land for biofuel after receiving a brochure from her father (it’s one of the two scenes where a brochure is handed to someone). Roger played the part of Trinity, naturally, in a high pitched voice that was not believable, but yet funny.

The last piece of the night was written by Roger C. Snair himself. Although the show is about celebrating and laughing at horrible works of fiction, Roger wrote his play, “Fructose” exclusively for the night. And it did not disappoint. The play from start to finish was an extremely graphic homosexual romance including over 20 characters with names such as Guy Touchman, Long John Dongan, Dick Woodcock and Gaston Proctor. There was stage direction like “this scene is performed passionately, emotionally, longingly, yearingly” and there were at least three monologues written in rhyme. I don’t want to give away more because, due to a small attendance, Brendan said he would be putting on the reading again at next month’s show. Don’t miss it.

You can check out more Philadelphia comedy photos at our Flickr page, which now has a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. Basically you can use the photos as long as you credit Comicvsaudience.com and don’t make any money off of them.

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