HughE Dillon One-Shot: Bastille Day

Saturday’s 18th annual Bastille Day celebration in Fairmount wasn’t the usual “Let Them Eat Cake” French Revolution party you’ve seen in the past outside the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary. This year’s reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille included the very funny, Monty Pythonesque cabaret troupe, the Bearded Ladies. Artistic director John Jarboe, left, helped rewrite the script to include a better understanding of what the day was about with song, dance and comedy. This year, a stage was built, and tickets were sold for people who wanted to sit close to the stage on one side, but there was still plenty of room on the other side for people to catch all the action. In the end, 3,000 Tastykakes rained down from the prison’s towers, after Marie Antoinette (played by Terry Berch McNally, co-owner of London Grill, right) decreed of the “citizens of France,” “Let them eat cake.” You must see the Bearded Ladies; this week they’re at the Wilma Theater. For more photos of the day check out my blog PhillyChitChat.com.