Grinder's Grumblings

The 2026 Grinder summer season at the Ennotville Library kicks off with Dirty Deeds at Handlebar Dan's House of Old Wives (or how Sally Simple saved the Sarsaparilla Saloon) July 17th and 18th. Thanks to cast member Nick (aka our hero Joshua Jehosephat) for the poster: I thought for this post we’d have some fun, and give you a quick primer on how to enjoy a Gay 90’s Melodrama. These kinds of plays are perfectly enjoyable just as they are, but they’re a lot more fun if you know a little bit about the conventions that shape the genre. So here we go! First, by the term ‘’Gay 90’s’’ melodrama, we mean the 1890’s, and we mean gay in the sense of the term that it meant at that time: happy, silly, and carefree. No offense to anyone who thought it meant something else. This is the "girl-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks" genre, in that there is almost invariably some reference to a train, a railroad, or a railway company of some sort. Some plays feature trains more than others. Acting...