Solo play set for Feb. 27-28 at Olde Brick Theatre
She made popcorn, she sold tickets, and she cleaned up those sticky soda spills.
She saw lots of movies, and she grew up.
For Mandy Pennington, it was all part of her first job — as a concession attendant at the Gateway Cinema in Edwardsville.
“I got to experience some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life there,” said Pennington, who is enthusiastic about sharing her story in “Girl Walks Into a Movie Theater,” a solo play she has written and will perform for Diva Productions on Feb. 27-28 at the Olde Brick Theatre in Scranton.
The story deals with such coming-of-age themes as “identity, first relationship, and the pressures of being a young person thinking about their future,” Pennington said.
And when her shift at the Gateway was over, Pennington wasn’t necessarily eager to leave.
“I’ve always loved movies,” she said, remembering, “I would see movies as often as I could, before work or after work. Spending time at the Gateway, I always felt at home there. My mom was an assistant manager there for 16 years, but not at the same time I was there.”
The play is “also a love letter to my relationship with my mother, who was always a source of strength,” the writer said. “It’s about some of our conflicts and some of our areas of understanding.”
The cinema, which had been in operation since 1964, closed its doors in August 2006, and Pennington, who had worked there as a Lake-Lehman High School student, left earlier that summer to prepare for college.
“I knew the theater was in its last days, and it was incredibly sad,” she said. “The Gateway was such a special place. People would tell me they had their first date there, or saw their first movie, or their favorite movie, or that they were there every Friday night.”
“Theaters that are independently run are a dying breed,” she said. “If we can’t preserve the place, we can preserve the story.”
Because her mother and a cousin had also worked at the Gateway, Pennington said, “we felt that movies ran in our blood.”
Active in community theater circles, Pennington works in marketing communications at Wilkes University and will teach an online creative writing course beginning in March.
Describing “Girl Walks Into a Theater” as “a love letter to a weird and wonderful place and time that will never be again,” Pennington said audiences can “expect a story with lots of humor and a lot of heart. If I can make you laugh and cry at the same show, I’ve done my job.”
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27 and Feb. 28 at the Olde Brick Theatre, 126 W. Market St., Scranton. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for seniors, students, and veterans. Reservations are available by calling 570-209-7766.