Record Store Drama

(From left) Andrew Firda, Juliana Caycedo and Otto Conrad star in Cadence’s “Love and Vinyl,” which will run Feb. 6-22 at Plan 9 Records, 3017 West Cary Street. Photos by Scott Elmquist

Originally published by Style Weekly
by David Timberline
February 3, 2026

Plan 9 Music is hosting Cadence’s site-specific play, “Love and Vinyl,” with pre-show micro-concerts.

Late last year, the owner of Plan 9 Records in Carytown, Jim Bland, told his management team that a theater company was interested in staging a play in their store. Shelby Guest says she was blunt when Bland asked if it was possible.

“I was like, ‘I’m not going to lie, no, I don’t think it’s possible,” Guest says. As the store’s head of marketing and events, she’s managed plenty of disruptions to normal operations. But this one was a lot. “It’s a lot of logistics, it’s a lot for our staff, it’s a lot of everything.”

A team from Cadence including artistic director Anna Johnson and director Rusty Wilson came and spoke to the staff. “We started looking into it and it was so cool,” says Guest. “We decided we were going to make it work no matter what.”

The show Plan 9 agreed to host is “Love and Vinyl,” a site-specific story that playwright Bob Bartlett has staged in a couple record stores in the Washington DC area. “The first production of the play [in Annapolis], we were only able to seat about 12 people per performance,” says Bartlett. “We sold out the run before we even opened.”

Konrad checks his vinyl for imperfections behind the Plan 9 counter.

The Plan 9 production will handle approximately 40 patrons per performance. “I like the immediacy of a small audience,” says Bartlett. “I like the idea of an audience watching a real-time interaction. It’s a ‘fly on the wall’ experience.”

Bartlett has been exploring site-specific theater since his 2018 production of “The Accident Bear,” a play that takes place in a laundromat. He’s since developed a werewolf story, “Lýkos Ánthrōpos,” that’s designed to be staged in a clearing in the woods and, last fall, he premiered “Mary Shelley’s Monsters” in a cemetery.

Though he is partial to the horror genre, Bartlett says “Love and Vinyl” is a straightforward love story. “It’s about a guy who wants to ask out a girl and doesn’t have the courage to do it,” says Bartlett. “It’s not a complicated story. But it’s filled, of course, with record store lore.”

Andrew Firda catches some z’s beneath the stacks.

Wilson was asked to direct “Love and Vinyl,” in part, because he was at the helm of two other site-specific shows for Cadence: 2015’s “The Flick” that was staged at the Byrd Theatre and 2023’s “Native Gardens,” which took place on the lawn outside Wilton House Museum. But the show’s spotlight on the resurgent popularity of record stores sealed the deal.

“I’m a vinyl fanatic,” says Wilson. “I’ve been carrying my hundreds of albums around with me since I left home when I was a teenager. I literally just got myself a new turntable this past Christmas.”

Juliana Caycedo looks authoritative in her perch as record store clerk.

For Wilson, the story of two friends who are regulars at a record store and their afterhours encounter with the record store owner is more than a simple love story. “I love the idea that music, and particularly vinyl, can be the catalyst for these three people to find some sort of human connection,” he says.

“For me, it’s not so much whether two of them end up going on a date because, at the end of the show, the three of them leave together to go get a beer. I feel like it’s a play where we can highlight the possibilities of kindness.”

Before each performance, a different musician will play a short set to warm up the crowd. Many local favorites, including Deau Eyes and Erin Lunsford, have signed up.

Deau Eyes

“The idea came up when we were planning and we were like, yeah, we can make that work,” says Guest. “It ties in so well with the whole ethos of independent record stores. And it’s great for the audience: you’re getting a little show while you’re getting comfortable.”

The pre-show micro-concerts are another component of the production that Wilson says will make for a delightful experience.“It should be a lot of fun,” he says. “If it’s not fun, I’ve really done something wrong.”

Cadence’s “Love and Vinyl” will run Feb. 6-22 at Plan 9 Records, 3017 West Cary St. Tickets and more information, including a listing of which musicians will be playing before each performance, are available at https://www.cadencetheatre.org/love-and-vinyl. 

Juliana Caycedo, Otto Conrad and Andrew Firda.