Inqlings: Temple play picked for D.C.

Big honor for Temple University's theater program:

The original drama SHOT! is one of three productions chosen to be performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

SHOT! - by Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Douglas C. Wager, and Eugene Martin - is a fact-based drama about the decline of North Philly, based on oral histories of North Philadelphia residents. It was chosen from 53 plays and musicals performed in colleges around the country, and judged in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

The Kennedy Center performance will be April 14.

Also on the Kennedy Center list are Los Angeles City College's Anton's Uncles (a modern look at Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya) and Boston University's diventare (about a woman who retreats to an imaginary underwater kingdom).

Three dozen chefs catered Saturday's Red Ball fund-raiser at the Please Touch Museum, and the 1,200 attendees were asked to vote for their favorite dish by depositing a wooden token in a box on each table. The evening's winner was not some fancy joint, but chef instructor Chalie Schmidt and his students at the North Philly vocational school OIC, who prepared scallops bellini with truffle cream. Among the crowd were actors Tony Danza, Kevin Navayne, and Bucks County-raised soap-star siblings Eddie Alderson and Kristen Alderson. Heather Graham, who'd been on the VIP list, was a no-show. The organizer, the Red Cross, relayed word that she was "feeling under the weather as she was suffering from a stomach ailment, which she assumes was food poisoning. She thought she could troop it out but was unable to." The ball raised $216,900.

Last year's inaugural Badges of Honor Run, which Fox29's John Bolaris organized to benefit the city police and firefighters survivors funds, raised $25,000. Tomorrow, Mayor Nutter will give a $5,000 check to Billy Gault of the Philadelphia Fire Union and $20,000 to John McNesby of the Fraternal Order of Police. This year's run will be in Fairmount Park on June 5.

Real Simple magazine ranked Philly 12th among 21 cities in terms of "time-saving" - analyzing such categories as average commute, walkability, traffic congestion, airport on-time performance, physicians per capita, response times of emergency medical services, broadband and wireless availability, and such. The mag praised the city as "very walkable and notably uncongested."

CBS3 and the CW Philly are doing a Ronald McDonald House charities phone bank today from 3 to 8 p.m. Among items to be sold: a meet-and-greet with Roy Halladay; a chance to sit in the 76ers broadcast booth with Tom McGinnis; courtside tickets to a Sixers game; a signed Andre Iguodala jersey; a ride on the Zamboni; and signed baseballs from Jimmy Rollins and Jayson Werth.

Denzel Washington took son Malcolm, a Penn freshman and guard on the basketball team, to dinner Friday at Barclay Prime on Rittenhouse Square after the Quakers' 67-66 loss to Harvard. The two shared oyster cocktails, kobe sliders, filet mignon, and lobster.