Local Philly News

Mamma Mia at Philly’s Academy of Music Aug 6-11

Mamma Mia at Philly’s Academy of Music Aug 6-11

A mother. A daughter. 3 possible dads. And a trip down the aisle you’ll never forget! Set on a Greek island paradise where the sun always shines, a tale of love, friendship, and identity is beautifully told through the timeless hits of ABBA. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited decades ago. For nearly 25 years, people all around the world have fallen in love with the characters, the story, and the music that make MAMMA MIA! the ultimate feel-good show.

For tix and more info about Mamma Mia at Philly’s Academy of Music, click here.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE at Philly’s Miller Theater May 14-19 

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE at Philly’s Miller Theater May 14-19

The peaceful village of Bebko is alive with joyous celebrations. Suddenly, under attack, everything changes forever. Three siblings, Leto, Mati and Tana, must embark on perilous journeys in order to survive.

Message In A Bottle is a spectacular new dance-theatre show from five-time Olivier Award nominee, Kate Prince, inspired by and set to the iconic hits of 17-time Grammy Award-winning artist Sting, including “Every Breath You Take”, “Roxanne”, “Walking On The Moon” and more. With a mix of exhilarating dance styles, high-energy footwork and breath-taking athleticism, Message In A Bottle tells a unifying and uplifting story of humanity and hope.

Message In A Bottle is the latest masterpiece from the ground-breaking creator behind West End hits “Some Like it Hip Hop”, “Into the Hoods”, “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” (choreography), and “SYLVIA” (Old Vic), and features the astonishing talents of dance storytelling powerhouse, ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company.

A Sadler’s Wells & Universal Music UK production co-produced with Birmingham Hippodrome and The Lowry, Salford. Research and development supported by The MOVEment.

Message In A Bottle contains some scenes of an adult nature.
More information: there are some scenes in Message In A Bottle which contain moments of adult content. These are all told through dance and are appropriate to the storyline and setting of the show. There is a short moment representing sexual violence against a female character in Act 1. After the interval, at the beginning of the second half there is some depictions of drug use.

For tix and info about Message In A Bottle, click here

RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES At Philly’s Miller Theater May 9-11

RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES At Philly’s Miller Theater May 9-11

A Tribute to the Beatles is an electrifying concert experience celebrating the timeless music of the legendary fab four. With note-for-note precision, this mind-blowing performance transports you back to the iconic eras of Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, along with all your favorite hits. From energetic classics to reflective favorites, the band delivers and unforgettable performance that appeals to fans old and new. With vibrant costumes and psychedelic visuals, RAIN creates a stunning concert full of nostalgia and good vibes. RAIN – A Tribute to the Beatles promises an extraordinary journey through the eras that captivates the heart and inspires all generations.

This adoring tribute will take you back to a time when all you needed was love, and a little help from your friends!

Tix and info for Rain here.

Tony-Winning Broadway Show “Girl From The North Country” Comes to Philly’s Forrest Theatre Feb 27 – March 10 2024

Tony-Winning Broadway Show “GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY” Comes to Philly’s Forrest Theatre Feb 27 – March 10 2024

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY is the Tony Award-winning new musical that the Chicago Tribune declares is “a Broadway revelation!”

Written and directed by celebrated playwright Conor McPherson and featuring Tony Award-winning orchestrations by Simon HaleGIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan as they’ve never been heard before, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”

It’s 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota. We meet a group of wayward travelers whose lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life and hope. Experience this ‘profoundly beautiful’ production (The New York Times) brought to vivid life by an extraordinary company of actors and musicians.

Recommended for ages 12 and older.
The listed age is a recommendation, but please use your own discretion when making a decision for your young theatergoers.

Ultimately, the recommended ages are guidelines. Only you will know how your child will respond to the live theater experience. Please consider the following factors when making your decision: the content in the show, age recommendations, the age and personal development of your child, and previous experiences. All guests regardless of age require a ticket, including babes in arms.

Tix and more info for Girl From North Country at Forrester Theatre

“Aint Too Proud” at Philly’s Academy Of Music Jan 3 – Jan 21 2024

“Aint Too Proud” at Philly’s Academy of Music Jan 3 – Jan 21 2024

AIN’T TOO PROUD – The Life and Times of The Temptations is the electrifying, new smash-hit Broadway musical that follows The Temptations’ extraordinary journey from the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. With their signature dance moves and silky-smooth harmonies, they rose to the top of the charts creating an amazing 42 Top Ten Hits with 14 reaching number one.

Nominated for 12 Tony® Awards and the winner of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Choreography, AIN’T TOO PROUD tells the thrilling story of brotherhood, family, loyalty, and betrayal, as the group’s personal and political conflicts threatened to tear them apart during a decade of civil unrest in America.

Written by three-time Obie Award winner Dominique Morisseau, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Des McAnuff (Jersey Boys), and featuring the Tony-winning choreography of Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys, On Your Feet!), the unforgettable story of this legendary quintet is set to the beat of the group’s treasured hits, including “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” “Get Ready,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” and so many more.

Recommended for ages 13 and older.
The listed age is a recommendation, but please use your own discretion when making a decision for your young theatergoers.

Ultimately, the recommended ages are guidelines. Only you will know how your child will respond to the live theater experience. Please consider the following factors when making your decision: the content in the show, age recommendations, the age and personal development of your child, and previous experiences. All patrons regardless of age require a ticket, including babes in arms.

For tix and info: https://www.ensembleartsphilly.org/events-and-tickets/2023-24/broadway/aint-too-proud/

Legendary Pittsburgh Restauranteur Joseph Costanzo Jr. Reveals all in Memoir with “On The Rocks”

Legendary Pittsburgh Restauranteur Joseph Costanzo Jr. Reveals all in his Tasty Memoir with “On The Rocks”

On the Rocks chronicles the real-life journey of restaurateur Joseph Costanzo Jr., from his rise to success in the 1990s as a owner of the highly acclaimed Primadonna Restaurant, radio host, columnist, and aspiring politician to his sharp fall in the early 2000s, ending in an investigation and a stint in federal prison.

Costanzo is a complex character, whom readers will admire for his confidence and rebuke for his arrogance, will love for his generosity and despise for his egotism, and will learn from in both his attention to detail and lack thereof.

This driven, not-your-average-Joe is an unforgettable character who achieves the seemingly impossible but can’t help getting in his own way. Come along with Joe for a bumpy ride on the rocks

On the Rocks: The Primadonna Story, co-written by Maria C. Palmer and Ruthie Robbins is available now on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, Walmart, Target.  Signed copies at the Heinz History Center. Also follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Today, we’re having a conversation with all three: Joseph Costanzo Jr., co-writers Maria C. Palmer and Ruthie Robbins.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.  Find the un-edited conversation on our FlavRReport YouTube channel.

Something that I find amazing, this book has been 17 years in the process. Is that an accurate piece of trivia?

Maria C. Palmer: 100%. Yes, that is a very accurate piece of trivia.

So way back 17 years ago, what sparked this for you?

Maria C. Palmer: A couple of things. I think that because the restaurant was such a significant part of our lives, and it was always the highlight of my father’s life. Once it went away, the spark kind of went away, too. And I wanted to bring that back in my Dad. So I started asking him lots of questions about his life. Specifically for a family history. At the time, being a writer myself, in addition to grant writing, I’m also a writer and I can really spot a good story that has commercial value.

On The Rocks co-author Maria C. Palmer

On The Rocks co-author Maria C. Palmer

There were just so many wonderful elements to his story. So I started recording some vignettes of different things that had happened throughout his life. But not really knowing and or intending at the time that it would be a book. 

But as we went on, I saw that the potential was there and I was lucky enough to still be in contact with my former teacher, Ruthie Dines Robbins and brought the project to her and asked her if she would be willing to work on it with me.

It was really from there that we decided it would become a book and that we would work together diligently for probably 10 years together.

Ruthie Robbins: I’m only 7 years.

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: They had it in Maria’s voice originally. Ruthie was in a book club and they said, “Put it in Joe’s voice and they had to go back and change the whole book.”  I watched 11, 000 emails back and forth. 

Ruthie Robbins: We were not primarily emailing. We were mostly talking and texting, and that year was the pandemic year. So I was off teaching that winter and the following fall.

 

Before we get into the restaurant itself, what was the writing process like?

Maria C. Palmer: I can speak to the family history and just the overall process of it. It was really challenging. Because whenever you’re writing a memoir or a biography, You’re not writing a Wikipedia page. So it’s not from the time somebody is born until the time that they pass away.

You’re picking the most poignant time in their lives. Not only cherry picking all the good things that happened during that time period, but you’re picking some of the challenges too, because that’s what makes a good story. 

It was challenging to figure out what the storyline was going to be and sometimes to tell those hard parts of the story.

What was even more challenging, was just the nebulous nature of the publishing industry.  I just thought you wrote a book, it’s on Amazon and then people buy it. And that could not be further from the truth. Query letters.  Polished one page, a 90,000 word manuscript.  A whole book proposal.  An entire business plan of why we’re writing the book and why it’s going to sell into the market. Requiring that much to not even get a thanks,, but just no response whatsoever.

Ruthie Robbins: Totally agree. The writing was not arduous part because Maria and I get along so well.. We’re real partners, but this publishing thing.  We really didn’t understand the process, so it is difficult, and especially in this genre, [competing with] the celebrities and athletes and reality stars who wrote memoirs.  They want a name on the shelf that someone will pick up in a bookstore. 

 

Mr. Costanzo, one of my favorite parts of this book is the wine mentions.  Tell us your “Pin on the wall” story.

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: Yeah we’re in a tough neighborhood, but we brought in a lot of people outside the area and upscale people,  limos, what have you. 

I had a bus boy and he was a really good worker. He became a server and he came to me after he got the drink order and said, ”what’s a pin on the wall?”

I never heard of a “Pin on the Wall”. So we went to the bartender. He didn’t know either.  We looked it up, nothing. 

So I went out there to ask the customers, so we could make it for them  – and one of the most mortal sins at the Primadonna was making Joe Costanzo look bad – I said, excuse me what’s in a Pin on a Wall and they all started laughing. The guy said, “Pinot Noir.”

They’re laughing at me.  That’s bad. So I went in and I really did a job on this kid.  My wife grabbed me by my tie and pushed me downstairs to my office.

I was in this kid’s face because he really wasn’t real serious about the situation.  If you’re going to be the best at what you’re doing, you can’t be messing up like that.

He ended up being great.  Chris, who was the server, became a maitre’d and a great employee of mine.  He was very loyal. I really went overboard with him and I did feel bad about it. 

 

Reviews are incredibly important.  The amount of work and effort you put in to get your Four Forks Review. Tell us a little bit about what happened.

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: Because the area was an old steel town which had a reputation of a lot of fighting, a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, nobody would come into that area to eat.

I knew I needed credibility, and the only way I would get credibility was through the Pittsburgh Post, because the dining critic, Mike Kalina,  who was a syndicated columnist, had tremendous credibility. KDKA TV, Post Gazette, New York Daily News.

For two and a half years, I kept reaching out to him.  This is in a time before cell phones and emails.

But I knew if he comes down and gives us a good review, people from outside the area, from the upscale areas of the city are going to come in.  That’s what happened. 

But he did say to me, “You deserve four, but I’ll only give you three because you’ll never handle the business.” 

That Friday night, June 3rd 1988, he was 100 percent right. People were lined up at the door. I was used to doing 10-15 dinners a night. We did over 200 dinners that night and it was a total joke. People waited two and a half hours. When food came out of the kitchen, people actually applauded. People were begging me to get him a bottle of vodka because they couldn’t get a drink at the bar. 

We were short of service. We were short of bartenders. I made it all work in the next couple of weeks and I hired people.

 

I don’t want to ruin the upcoming movie or TV series, but when you trimmed it down, how much heartbreak was there in cutting out so many stories?

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: It was very tough. We had a book signing in August. I kept telling people they were in the book, and they were in the draft I read.  But there were final touches that I didn’t see and we lost a lot of names and alot of stories.  So I really felt bad. I found the actual early draft and sent copies to those people.  This should be in a book, but it will be in the movie, I guarantee you.

Ruthie Robbins:  It was so hard. We did a lot of fact checking when we wrote, because memories are so unreliable. We talked to people who were in the original book [draft] and they expected to be more.  And on top of that, you try to end the chapter on a cliffhanger.  When you take out a story that changes the number of pages in the chapter, it changes the pace of the book.  That was a terrible editing challenge.

Maria, what was that like for you as the author and the daughter?

Maria C. Palmer: Originally the book was written partially in my voice and partially in my Dad’s voice. It started chronologically for me in my twenties and [had] flashbacks because the story starts in 1986 and I was very young at that time.  It was confusing and it didn’t work.  Everything that I wrote and all that I put my heart and soul into  was all cut from the book. So now I have another book project that I’m working on.

But I will echo what my father and Ruthie said. It was hard because everybody did have a significant piece to the Primadonna story.  

 

Mr. Costanza, it would be an easy assumption to say you’ve lived a big life. Are there one or two things you would have done differently in the stories of the book now looking back on them?

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: Sure. When you are hitting all home runs, you tend to believe that everything that you do is gonna be a home run.  I had the most popular restaurant in Western Pennsylvania. Maybe I’m going to do something else, maybe I’ll go into politics.

I spent about $300,000 of my own money to put my name out there. Most people loved Joe Costanzo, but now when you get into politics it’s not that way. So that was probably my biggest regret.

My wife begged me not to do it. She said, Joe, we have a miracle here and you’re going to try for another miracle. And she was right. You may or may not like Joe Costanzo when you read the book, but you will love Donna Costanzo.

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: And that’s bottom line. Everybody says the same thing. Joe, it was great. What he did is impossible, but his wife was a saint for putting up with all this stuff that a restaurateur has to go through. 

The theme of hospitality comes out in the book, but you so clearly love people.  What has it been like getting all these people’s responses to this story?

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: This has been unbelievable for me. People are very happy that this all happened this way.  I treated people really well and people wanted to reciprocate.  So exhilarating to me. My life has been very boring, but now it’s really gotten to the point where it’s been great thanks to Maria and Ruthie.

Ruthie Robbins: It’s heartwarming. Especially from former students, the outpouring has brought me to tears sometimes.  It’s reconnecting with people over the book. That has really been so wonderful

Maria C. Palmer: This has been such a 17 year journey. I always believed that there was something special about this story.  Seeing that exactly what I felt in my gut for 17 years is actually playing out in real life.

Whenever we’re in Pittsburgh, it is almost surreal because people are talking about “On The Rocks and it’s really cool and crazy to know that something that you created means so much for people.

Joseph Costanzo Jr.: The big thing which is amazing to me is that the book came out August 8th, 2023. For two weeks, the book was the number one bestselling ebook on Amazon for culinary memoirs. Ahead of Anthony Bourdain’s, Kitchen Confidential and Stanley Tucci’s Taste “On the Rocks” for over two weeks was the number one overall best-selling ebook. Now that’s hard to believe because this was just a Western Pennsylvania thing and Bourdain and Tucci are worldwide known authors and entertainers.

Tell us where we can find the book and all the ways we can keep in touch with this story.

Maria C. Palmer: So the book is really wherever books are sold.  We’re on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, Walmart, Target. We’re also at most bookstores.   Also on Facebook and Instagram.

Ruthie Robbins: There’s also signed copies at the Heinz History Center

A Tribute to Jerry Blavat, A One-Night Only Event, at The Kimmel Cultural Campus October 21

The Kimmel Cultural Campus is excited to present A Tribute to Jerry Blavat, a one-night-only event in the Academy of Music celebrating Philadelphia’s iconic radio DJ.

Concert lineup includes Darlene Love, The Intruders, The Happenings, Bobby Wilson, and The Chantels.

The Kimmel Cultural Campus presents A Tribute to Jerry Blavat, a one-night-only event in the Academy of Music on Saturday, October 21 celebrating Philadelphia’s iconic radio DJ, the late Jerry Blavat.

Jerry Blavat AKA the Geator with the Heater AKA the Boss with the Hot Sauce was a fixture on the Campus and an even greater presence in the city of Philadelphia and music world for decades. Lineup includes: Darlene Love, The Intruders, The Happenings, Bobby Wilson, and The Chantels.

“The entertainer of a generation, Jerry Blavat

was a beloved friend & fixture on our Campus for years,”

said Frances Egler

 

Vice President, Theatrical Programming & Presentations on the Kimmel Cultural Campus.

“He found joy doing what he loved for a lifetime – bringing music to the masses – so what better way to honor his legacy than to assemble a series of special guests to continue keeping the magic of his shows alive.”

Starting in 2002, Jerry Blavat began bringing high-energy performances to the Kimmel Cultural Campus.

Voted “Best Philly Icon” in a recent poll conducted by Philadelphia Magazine, Blavat  spent decades filling Philadelphia’s radio waves with golden oldies. He gained local fame hosting live dances in the area and led his own independent radio station, helping to break many acts in the 1960s, including the Four Seasons and the Isley Brothers.

With over 60 years in the business, at the time of his passing, Blavat was still a DJ for multiple radio stations, including WVLT, WXPN, WTKU, WOND, and WBCB. In 1972, he opened his nightclub, “Memories”, in Margate, NJ, where he put on shows throughout the summer. He was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia’s Hall of Fame, Philadelphia Music Alliance Walk of Fame, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Tickets

Tickets go on presale to members on Tuesday, June 27, with a public onsale Friday, June 30.

Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999 or online at www.kimmelculturalcampus.org.

In-person ticket sales can be conducted daily from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at the Academy of Music Box Office, located at 240 S. Broad Street.

See www.kimmelculturalcampus.org for more information.

Philly Fans: Better Flavor, Healthier Ingredients, – KLYR Rum Poured throughout Pennsylvania, Exclusive interview with Adam Lehrhaupt

Local Spirit KLYR Rum gets poured throughout Pennsylvania with better flavor, healthier Ingredients.

Adam Lehrhaupt, Amish Patel, and Neil Kahrim started a Pennsylvania-based spirits company with the simple goal of creating a better-tasting American rum.

As they started adjusting their recipe for flavor, they soon found health benefits and great cocktail and food pairings.  The result? A purer, cleaner rum, with a flavor they claim creates its own genre. 

One thing’s for sure, Pennsylvania cocktail lovers are ordering more and more.

The following is a conversation (via zoom) with Adam Lehrhaupt.  The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.  Find the full, un-edited talk at our Youtube channel.

 

Let’s start by saying you’re in a car right now and can you tell us why you’re in a car right now?

 

Adam: Yeah, so I’m in a car right now because today’s a big day for any sports people, but especially in the Philadelphia area. 

KLYR Rum being poured at a Phillies game

We’ve got a 1 o’clock Phillies game. And as a rum company, we like to go down to those games when we can and just hang out at the ballpark and buy rum for people. Introduce them [to our KLYR Rum brand]. Either something they’ve never had before or if they are already a fan, getting them another one. So I’m heading down to the ballpark today to catch a ballgame and hang out with some Phillies fans. And then tonight, we’ve got the draft, so the ballgame will roll over into some fun at Xfinity Live. So we’ve got our products in Xfinity Live now.

So we’ll pop over there and roll into a little bit of draft night. See who everybody’s favorite football teams draft. 

I love your guerrilla marketing style.  You’re out there meeting the people.

 

Adam: [Points to his shirt] This is my Phillies KLYR shirt.  It’s our KLYR K, but it’s in the Phillies pin stripes. I don’t know if you can see it’s got the Philly pin stripes on it. 

Tell us about the KLYR brand itself and what you’re trying to accomplish.

 

Adam: Basically the idea for creating KLYR rum and I’ll start back at the beginning. One of my two main business partners, his name’s Amish Patel. He is a dentist. He grew up as a dentist. His dad is a dentist. His brother’s a dentist. Thirteen cousins are dentists. There’s nine more in dental school. He has another group of cousins who all work in dental laboratories.

So they make dentures and things like that. So he comes from a dental family in Pennsylvania. I think they’re around 93 offices now in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the mid-Atlantic region.

He came to me over Covid and said he was done being a dentist and he wanted to do something different. And he had a friend who had been in the spirits industry, somebody he went to high school with, who created Whistle Pig and he said, I wanna create spirits. 

And I said, first of all I’m in for anything spirits related,  I’m a big fan and I went back and did a little bit of research to see what the market needed. So everything that we do is market driven, so we do research and figure out not what we think it needs.

What the market did have was a big kind of opening a gap in the Silver Rum area for something that was just very well made, but had flexibility. So a really good clean tasting silver rum didn’t really exist. So we set about trying to create it and that’s where KLYR Rum came from.

 

Now tell me a little bit about your background and the team itself. How the three of you got together.

 

Adam: So my current day job, when I’m not helping run this run business, is I write children’s books. So I’m a children’s book author.

Before that I was a senior art director for a company called Siemens Healthcare. Before that I was a roadie, but currently I’m a children’s book author and in my spare time I play hockey. That’s my little outlet for my extra energy. It’s my cardio when I’m working out.

And that’s where I met Amish. We all played against each other for years. And then finally a couple years ago, we ended up getting him onto my hockey team and we became pretty good friends. And when he presented this idea, I came back to him with rum as an idea.

He said, I have this guy I went to high school with. His name is Neil Kareem who’s from Trinidad. Let me get him on the phone. So we’re at lunch and he calls Neil and gets Neil on the phone and he goes, Neil, what do you think about, rum?

And Neil goes yeah, I like rum. Rum’s great. He goes, what about making rum? And Neil’s okay let’s figure it out. So really Neil and I were the ones who kinda went away for about five or six months and figured out how the whole distilling process worked, figured out how to build a distillery, put together all the numbers, and then Neil went out to try to find us a master distiller.

KLYR Rum Distiller Lexi Close

KLYR Rum Distiller Lexi Close

And he found somebody that we both really liked. And she agreed to meet us and we did this meeting and we just clicked right away. As it turned out, she was working for her family’s distillery, so we couldn’t hire her away at that time. But we did start working with her –  her name’s Lexi Close and Lexi took my ideas and the flavor profiles I was talking about and the way that I described it to her, because it didn’t exist.

So I described it through other spirits.  I wanted something with the clean taste of vodka or tequila, right? So I needed to keep that body that you get, but with the sugar of rum. You needed to have the mouthfeel of rum. What I wanted to lose was that harshness. There’s a harshness to rum that most people hide behind sugar.

It used to happen a lot with tequila as well.  Luckily, Lexi’s a big tequila person, so she saw the change in tequila [from years ago, it’s much better now]. 

But she understood when I was talking about harsh tequila and she went about trying to [fix it]. She and I worked together. My work was just tasting it and making suggestions. She worked really hard.

She managed to create this whole new category of product that we are calling American Rum. To differentiate it from Caribbean style rum.  We wanted to really delineate that this was something unique and different and it wasn’t like something you’d had before.

 

So let’s talk a little bit about flavors and the cans themselves, the process of making them?

 

Adam: Let’s start with how we got there first. Because when I started thinking of what drinks I would make with this great rum I was thinking summertime. A little sugar-free lemonade.

Then I came up with this idea for a drink at the ballpark.  I called it “Clear sky”, so it had a little blue curacao in the lemonade, it was like a light blue kind of color. 

We had that all last summer (2022) at Citizens Bank Park. Then we’re also up at the Iron Pigs Coca-Cola park where the Iron Pigs play in Bethlehem. 

It was really light for a lemonade. It didn’t have a lot of sugar in it. I wanted to create that as one of our first cans. Then we were gonna do the traditional Orange Crush.  Orange Crush is the big flavor down at the Jersey Shore towards the middle of last summer.

I expect it to be even bigger this year with all the peach crushes and everything that is happening. There’s a whole crush bar live now that’s how popular these are. 

So we go in and we’ve got our flavor guy, Mike.  He was concocting the mixes for us, and I wanted to keep them below 99 calories. That was very important to me, to go after the seltzer market, ready to drink’s or the White Claws. They’re basically made with cheap alcohol, hidden behind bubbles.

So we sat down and we started trying these lemonades, [testing for the] right amount of flavor. I tried the low flavor lemonade and I went, hold on, can you do this, but  20% less flavor?

I’m thinking we can get it to taste like water and it will be KLYR water. With the partnership with the Phillies, we’ve got Clearwater in Clearwater, right? Because that’s where they hold spring training. 

He really took a lot of the flavoring out and basically something that tastes like ice cold water with a twist of lemon in it.  So that was how we came up with that first flavor. 

Then we had to create Crush. We did; and I thought it was good, but it was 99 calories. It had a lot of flavor to it, like an orange crush.  As we’re going through and I’m drinking them, I’m [always] throwing in another shot of KLYR. 

So when we decided to expand the water line to four flavors: the original OG water that has light, lemon flavor.

We have a tangerine water, which is really subtle, but it’s got sweeter, tangerine flavor to it. Still less than 99 calories. 

Passion fruit which has got a little bit of that sour pop that passion fruit has.

Then the last one I really wanted to do a spa water, so we did cucumber mint.  Which  is my new go-to. I drink it all the time. 

I knew that we wanted the flavors to be unique and different. 

I didn’t want it to be sweet. When you get more full flavored, it ends up being more than 99 calories.

So the crush line became 6.5% [alcohol]. Because as I said, I kept adding an extra shot of KLYR to it. We could lower the sugar that we put in to give the flavor body so that we would get that kind of Crush body when you’re drinking it.

So they’re 6.5 %, they’re only 190 calories. We’ve got Orange Crush, Pineapple Smash Berry Lemonade Blast and Fruit Punch, which is like a tropical fruit punch. This is the juice bag of my youth. So I created those for people who like a little more pop, a little more flavor, and for anybody who goes into a bar and orders that double or triple IPA.

 

Is that why you didn’t want it sweet,  for the calories?

 

Adam: No, I didn’t want it sweet because I don’t wanna hide the rum.  I want you to be able to taste the rum. The flavorings might be great, but the rum is what we’re showcasing. So whatever we made, I wanted you to be able to still get those hints of the rum and enjoy that flavor as you’re drinking it.

 

For foodies, food pairing wise, what have been some great food combinations?

 

Adam: Let me go through the flavors of the crush line, because it splits, I think about them as like red wine and white wine. 

So the water line is like a white wine. So you can have the waters with pizza, pasta, fish.

The Orange Crush and even the Pineapple Smash with Indian food or Mexican food where you have that spice but a little of that sweetness cuts through it and you have the body of the rum on the finish. Those things come out really well together.

[Now Adam has parked and is walking through their KLYR Rum office]

How much of your office is Pennsylvania based? Where’s your distiller?

Adam: Our distillery is in Lewisberry, so that’s in Pennsylvania out by Harrisburg.

Our headquarters is in Westchester.  I am here in Bluebell. Keith is based in Quakertown.

 

Where can we find you? Where can we buy, where can we shop? Where can we follow?

 

Adam: In Pennsylvania we’re available through the PLCB (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board).

We’re in 30 different stores right now, but we’re in the distribution centers, so anybody who doesn’t have it in their PLCB store order it to have it delivered to them. 

If you are in the greater Philadelphia, Eastern PA area, as far as Bethlehem and out towards Harrisburg we do home delivery.

We have a whole thing on our website everywhere that you can find it. So you can put in your zip code and it’ll tell you where you can get it near you.

In Eastern and Central Pennsylvania use the code: Adam2023 at checkout and get up to 35% off you order.

Tell us which social media channels you’re on and how to find you on there?

 

Adam: It’s KLYRRum on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and find us at KLYRRum.com

We support local first. So we’re a Pennsylvania company. That includes South Jersey.

Tina and Amy are coming to Philly! Tina Fey And Amy Poehler Announce New ‘Restless Leg’ Tour Dates

Tina and Amy are coming to Philly! Tina Fey And Amy Poehler Announce New ‘Restless Leg’ Tour Dates

After the incredible success of their first live sold out tour this Spring, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey announced their Restless Leg Tour will continue. The comedy icons, writers, producers, actresses and Saturday Night Live alumni will first stop in Cleveland, OH followed by Denver, CO, Austin, TX, Las Vegas, NV, Philadelphia, PA and Portland, OR.

TICKETS:  Presales begin Wednesday, June 21 at 10 AM local time, including an artist presale with code RESTLESS. General on-sale begins Friday, June 23 at 10 AM local time on tinaamytour.com.

Limited VIP merchandise bundled tickets will be available at each show.

For more information, fans can head to tinaamytour.com and follow @tinaamytour on Instagram.

AMY POEHLER & TINA FEY: RESTLESS LEG TOUR DATES: 

Thur Sept 21 – Cleveland, OH – State Theatre at Playhouse Square

Sun Oct. 1 – Denver, CO – Bellco Theatre

Thur Oct 12 – Austin, TX – Bass Concert Hall

Fri Nov 10 – Las Vegas, NV – Resorts World Theatre*

Sat Nov 11 – Las Vegas, NV – Resorts World Theatre*

Thur Dec 14 – Philadelphia, PA  – The Met

Sat Jan 13 – Portland, OR – Alaska Airlines’ Theater of the Clouds

*not a Live Nation tour date

About Tina Fey:

TINA FEY  is an award-winning writer, actress, author and producer, known for creating and starring as ‘Liz Lemon’ in 30 Rock.  30 Rock holds the record for the most Emmy nominations in one season for any comedy series (22), and received a total of 103 Emmy nominations and 16 wins over 7 seasons. Prior to creating 30 Rock, Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member, and co- anchor of “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live.  While at SNL, Fey also wrote the screenplay for the hit comedy film, Mean Girls, which Fey subsequently adapted for Broadway(12 Tony Award nominations) and again as a new musical feature film, now in pre-production for Paramount.

On film, Fey starred with Amy Poehler in Baby Mama and Sisters, with Steve Carell in Date Night, as lead voice in Pixar’s Oscar winning animated feature film Soul, and co-stars in Kenneth Branagh’s “A Haunting in Venice.”  Fey also co-created, with Robert Carlock, the Emmy nominated hit Netflix original comedy, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Mr. Mayor starring Ted Danson.  Fey Executive Produced the Netflix animated series, Mulligan, as well as Girls5eva from creator Meredith Scardino, which wrapped production on Season 3 for Netflix. Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, topped the New York Times best seller list and remained for 39 consecutive weeks, and went on to sell over 5 million copies in the US thus far.

About Amy Poehler:

AMY POEHLER is one of Hollywood’s most versatile and sought-after talents, with credits including actress, writer, executive producer, and bestselling author. Poehler, perhaps best known for her starring role on the Emmy-nominated NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation, can currently be seen as co-host alongside Maya Rudolph in the second season of Peacock’s Baking It, where she also serves as executive producer. Other recent projects include serving as executive producer and narrator of Peacock’s unscripted series The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, co-creator, executive producer, and the lead voice of FOX’s animated series Duncanville, executive producer of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated series Russian Doll, Amazon’s Harlem and Adult Swim’s Three Busy Debras. On March 4, 2022, Poehler made her documentary directorial debut with Amazon’s Emmy-winning documentary Lucy & Desi, where she also executive produced alongside Imagine Documentaries & White Horse Pictures. She recently starred and directed in Netflix’s Moxie and appeared as co-host (alongside Nick Offerman) and executive producer of the hit crafting competition series Making It. She has several additional projects in development as part of her successful production company Paper Kite Productions, including the upcoming First Time Female Director, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, thriller-drama The Mother-In-Law, and the Netflix animated feature Steps.

Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement, at Philly’s Miller Theater on July 22, 2023

Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement, at the Philly’s Miller Theater on July 22, 2023

The Kimmel Cultural Campus presents, in association with Emporium Presents, podcaster, author, and retired SEAL officer, Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement, at the Miller Theater on July 22, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

In this special event, Willink will speak about human nature, leadership, war, atrocities, good and evil, and a myriad of other subjects, then conduct an extended Q&A session with the audience.

Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement, at the Philly's Miller Theater on July 22, 2023

Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement, at the Philly’s Miller Theater on July 22, 2023

Jocko Willink is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer; co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win as well as Dichotomy of Leadership; host of the top-rated Jocko Podcast; and co-founder of Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Executive Officer, leadership instructor, speaker, and strategic advisor.

Willink spent 20 years in the SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become a SEAL officer. As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War.

“Jocko Willink invites audiences into his world,

giving a unique voice to his experiences and sharing stories on our Campus for the first time,”

said Frances Egler

Senior Director of Programming and Presentations on the Kimmel Cultural Campus.

 

“With decades of knowledge and insight, we hope audiences leave informed and inspired, motivated to give their best in whatever they choose to pursue.”

Willink returned from Iraq to serve as Officer-in-Charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams. There he spearheaded the development of leadership training and personally instructed and mentored the next generation of SEAL leaders who have continued to perform with great success on the battlefield.

Willink is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards. After retiring from the Navy, Willink co-founded the leadership consulting firm Echelon Front with Leif Babin where he teaches the leadership principles he learned on the battlefield to help others lead and win. In addition to his work in consulting, Willink is a jiu-jitsu instructor at Victory MMA & Fitness in San Diego and co-owns Origin USA, a company based in Maine, which produces lifestyle apps.

Willink also authored New York Times bestseller Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual and the best-selling Way of the Warrior Kid children’s book series.

Other featured upcoming performances on the Kimmel Cultural Campus include John Mellencamp: Live and In Person (June 3, 2023, Miller Theater), Kevin James: The Irregardless Tour (June 16, 2023, Academy of Music) and WXPN Welcomes Rufus Wainwright: Folkocracy Tour (June 23, 2023, Miller Theater).

 

Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999 or online at www.kimmelculturalcampus.org

In-person ticket sales can be conducted daily from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at the Academy of Music Box Office, located at 240 S. Broad Street.

See www.kimmelculturalcampus.org for more information.

Jocko Willink: A Decisive Engagement Miller Theater on the Kimmel Cultural Campus Saturday, July 22, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

EMPORIUM PRESENTS Emporium Presents is a full-fledged national event promotion company. With offices in Auburn, WA and Nashville, TN. Emporium creates, produces, books, and markets world-class live experiences including concerts, comedians, and specialty events.

Emporium Presents produces hundreds of events annually in the United States and Canada ranging from clubs to arenas.

To date, Emporium Presents has promoted thousands of shows for renowned acts like Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Dolly Parton, Jason Mraz, The Scorpions, and The Trailer Park Boys. Upcoming shows from Emporium Presents include Billy Strings, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Tommy Emmanuel, The Avett Brothers, Straight No Chaser, Parker McCollum, Home Free, Wardruna, Bruce Dickinson, Kaleo, Dream Theater and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Live. As you can see, Emporium Presents specializes in a variety of genres; whether you’re a fan of rock, hip-hop, soul, country, jam-bands, and even comedy, Emporium Presents continues to produce all of your favorite events from coast to coast! K

IMMEL CULTURAL CAMPUS Located in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia, our mission is to engage the region’s diverse communities with art through performance and education. Our Cultural Campus serves more than 1-million guests per year and includes Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, and SEI Innovation Studio), the Academy of Music, and the Miller Theater (formerly the Merriam Theater) – representing more than 160 years of rich history for the performing arts along Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts.

We are home to The Philadelphia Orchestra and six esteemed Resident Companies: Opera Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ballet, PHILADANCO, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Curtis Institute of Music. With nearly 9,000 seats per night, we are the region’s most impactful performing arts center, and the second largest in the country.

Our Cultural Campus serves as a preeminent and inclusive place to enjoy exceptional experiences that reflect the spirit of our region by cultivating a creative and socially responsible environment where our community shares experiences that are delivered with pride, integrity, and respect. As a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization, we collaborate on, present, and produce a broad range of relevant and meaningful events, we serve as an active gathering space for social and community events, we educate the region’s young people through access to quality arts experiences, and we provide support to artists in the creation of new work. Read Kimmel Cultural Campus’ vision statement, world view, and mission statement here.

Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and how it encompasses our mission, coworkers, and programs here.

Scroll to top