Love & Vinyl & Loneliness & Memory
By Liv Wilson
A decade ago, Bob Bartlett was living in Annapolis in a run-down apartment, experiencing the “real writer’s life.” It was a tiny place with no washer or dryer, so the local laundromat became his weekly haunt. He would sneak wine in on Sunday nights while he wrote while doing his laundry. Eventually, he told the owner of the laundromat about the play he was writing, set in the very place they spent so much time surrounded by the tumble of machines. A few months later, the play went up after hours and had a sold out five-week run. Turns out the laundromat closing early made it the ideal spot for a new, site-specific play.
There was a charming record store down the street from the laundromat that also closed early, so Bob approached the owner about writing a romcom to be performed in his shop. Thus, the birth of Love and Vinyl.
Sage is a fish out of water, running the record store she just bought. She is a philosophical, vinyl guru who does NOT want to be in another relationship. Two friends, Bogie and Zane, come into the store for their weekly vinyl-buying sojourn. Bogie is ready to fall deeply in love and spends the play working up the courage to ask Sage out. Is he going to do it? Will she say yes? Love and Vinylis about those accidental moments of connection that change our lives. It is about love, loss, loneliness, and people who want more out of this life than clicking and scrolling.
Love and Vinyl has been produced at indie record shops across the country. Cadence’s production will take place at the legendary Plan 9 Music. While site-specific work originally came out of necessity for Bob to utilize nontraditional performance spaces at minimal cost, site-specific work is also an intentional choice that changes the way audiences come into contact with the work. Bob calls it “immediate and primal,” there is no fourth wall, no separation from audience and performance. We are right there on the action. We use the real front door to enter the store. We sit amidst real life, in between rows and rows of records, next to real people here to see a play.
I wanted to ask Bob about his play’s ‘analog moments in the digital age.’ As our world is becoming increasingly online, it feels like we are losing these analog moments in real life. Bob recalls the move from vinyl to cassette to CDs to completely digital music. There has been a loss of the aspect of the physical – the light shining off the record, placing the needle in the teenie, tiny groove to hear, feel, each song. We lose all of that in the digital world. As AI is increasingly forced upon us, some of us will return to analog in the same way hipsters and hip hop brought back vinyl. There may come a time when the ideal is living off the grid in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. The more technology takes over our world, the more we will resist its domination and yearn for a simpler time.
Bob historically does not trust nostalgia. The “good ole days” weren’t always good for everyone. It’s different with music. The music we listen to as we come of age leaves a mark on us, defines us, speaks to us in a different way because we need to hear it just then. Bob brings up a quote from his latest rewatch of Stranger Things: “Music can reach parts of the brain that language can’t.” We encode memories during our first listen of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, and when we hear it again decades later, it might elicit a very specific reaction. Be it nostalgia or neuroscience, we feel something (often a lot of things) while listening to the music of our lives.
Rehearsals for Cadence’s production of Love and Vinyl begin in the new year. I asked Bob how he felt about where the play is right now. Bob asked me how I know when a play is finished. Neither of us knew the answer to that. But, each time Bob sees the play, he goes back into the script to tweak something. That is the beauty of new work, it is never truly finished. There is always room for discovery. There is always more to learn about the story and its characters.
Earlier this year, Bob served as a mentor on Cadence’s writers retreat that I was lucky enough to be a part of. He gave me many, many words of wisdom over those four days. I wanted to ask him about the best piece of writing advice he’s ever received. Bob recalls speaking with mentor Celise Kalke, the Literary Manager at Alliance Theatre, a couple years after graduate school, after winning the Kendeda Playwriting Competition with his play, Swimming with Whales, and being frustrated that no one would produce the play. Her advice? “Go write another play.” If writing is our medium of choice, we don’t ever stop. If someone makes it big, do they just stop writing? They can’t, it’s a vital part of their life every day. Stephen King didn’t just stop writing after his first big novel. He kept going. So, Bob’s advice: “If you’re a writer, write.”
Love and Vinyl runs February 6–22, 2026 at Plan 9 Music. Each performance will kick off with a live micro concert, featuring local musicians. Individual show tickets are available.
