(photo courtesy Peter Nash)

Everyone knows what to do in a restaurant, says theater professional Kathryn “KC” MacMillan.

First the menu, she said. Choose and order what you want — from cocktails and appetizers to main dishes. When your order arrives, enjoy. Or send it back if it doesn’t suit.

That’s the same idea behind what will be a completely new taste for Philadelphia theatergoers.

“It’s theater as restaurant,” said MacMillan, artistic director of Tiny Dynamite, explaining the concept behind “The Worst Café in the World,” set  in a make-believe restaurant created at Posh Brewery’s quasi-industrial space in Brewerytown April 24-May 5.

“Every single night will be different, depending on what you order,” she said. “There’s a long list of cocktails and appetizers. You can’t be sure what your experience is going to be.”

On the menu are skits, specials, sight gags, monologues, and short scenes with names that sometimes give a clue to what will be served. The menu is so long that it would be impossible for the audience to order every item at any given performance.

(photo courtesy Peter Nash)

But, as an example, let’s start with drinks – maybe the rum and ginger classic, a Dark and Stormy. The waiter, one of three actors in the show, will yell out the order. Suddenly, the entire theater goes dark, and a big fan blows through the space – who knows what storm is stirred up? Depending on how many theatergoers order the Dark and Stormy, it could be an off-on light switcheroo all night.

Prefer something a bit more tame? Choose the Earl Grey tea. Your waiter will bring a teapot, lift the lid, and you’ll hear commentary poshly delivered in a British accent.

MacMillan only reluctantly provided a few examples, but the list goes on and on — there’s even a Philly Special. And yes, you can send back what you don’t like.

It won’t take long, MacMillan said, before theatergoers realize that what they order will affect the overall experience. “You can send cocktails and appetizers to another table in a flirty way,” MacMillan said. Or, to start a fight, order “The Confrontation” for the jerk across the room.

“That’s a very fun thing to send to another table,” she laughed.

In Philadelphia theater circles, MacMillan plays two roles. She is artistic director at Tiny Dynamite, a small theater company dedicated to presenting theater in unusual places and in unusual ways, always accompanied by beer and pizza. Their slogan? “A play, a pie, and a pint,” served joyfully.

She also leads Inis Nua Theatre Co., a Philadelphia theater group focused on presenting plays from the British Isles.

Last year, in that role, she attended the annual meeting of NICCoNA, the Network of Irish Cultural Centers of North America, in New York. There, she met Zoe Seaton, artistic director of Ireland’s Big Telly Theatre Company and the two decided to collaborate on a project here.

Big Telly first set up its “Worst Café” as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival in October 2019. It was so successful that pop-up Worst Cafés popped up all over Northern Ireland towns in March 2021. The Belfast Times described “Worst Café” as “a fun, bonkers, emotional, joyous unique show.”

In its United States premiere, “The Worst Café in the World” combines Big Telly’s expertise with the concept and Tiny Dynamite’s cadre of Philadelphia actors. Co-chefs in chief? Seaton and MacMillan.

“It is an all Philly-cast,” MacMillan said, “and it’s [Big Telly’s] concept, from across the pond, to lead us through the process.

“It’s really neat,” she said. “We’re having a ton of fun.”

Before opening in Philadelphia, the show ran for four days earlier this month in an Irish pub on New York’s Upper East Side.

In both cities, actors Anna Lieberman, Gabe Moses, and David Pica play the wait-staff – and Tiny Dynamite stage manager Olivia Hershey acts as the expeditor, managing the flow of “orders,” around the room.

“They are very gifted, brave, and have an affinity for working in different kinds of places,” MacMillan says. “It takes a very confident performer to work in a different performance every night and where the audience is going to influence what happens.”

Prizewinning journalist Jane M. Von Bergen started her reporting career in elementary school and has been at it ever since. For many years, her byline has been a constant in the Philadelphia Inquirer,...