Studio

Grace Gonglewski, the tall, velvet-voiced actor Philadelphia theatergoers have been seeing on professional stages for two decades, was standing in front of a microphone the other day. At this moment, she was not being Hedda Gabler, or Shakespeare's shrewish Kate, or a crackhead or a lesbian schoolteacher or George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara. A few hours later in rehearsal, she would become Claire, her current role in the 1812 Productions version of David Mamet's comedy Boston Marriage.

  Former American Bandstand dancer Tommy "Crazy Legs" Davis leaned in to examine the enlarged pictures on the walls in Studio B, looking for himself in the photos that captured the Philadelphia heyday of the rock-and-roll dance party hosted by Dick Clark. Back then, Davis was a thin, 129-pound teenager from Roxborough with curly blond hair. On Saturday, he was an older version of himself with less hair and a few more pounds but the same love for the TV show and Clark, who died Wednesday in Los Angeles at 82. "My biggest thrill was dancing with Patti Page," said Davis, 70, of Jenkintown, who was a regular on the show from 1955 to 1957.

For seven years, it was a hot spot of teenage American pop culture. From 1957 until 1964, Dick Clark hosted American Bandstand at the West Philadelphia studios of WFIL-TV, where thousands of teens dreamed of appearing on the hit show. But few actually got the chance to dance inside the nondescript building in the shadow of the Market-Frankford El at 46th and Market Streets. If you were one of those teens who yearned for your Bandstand moment, here's your chance.

It's hard to imagine that the graceful, understated jewelry that Anna Bario and Page Neal fabricate was once produced in a tiny, grimy studio at Ninth and Spring Garden. "When we see customers who knew us then, it's like seeing your family?…," says Bario. "?‘I was 25 and working in a dirty studio across from a pistol range, and somehow you believed in us.'?" Now, the duo craft their wares in a sunny Queen Village shop with gray-painted hardwood floors and a pressed-tin ceiling — more apropos of their personal and professional aesthetic.

In a small, soundproof room in Point Breeze, Knatosh Walker sings a lament about love gone wrong. " I say the right things but she take it the wrong way ," he croons over an R&B track. " I know I'm wrong, but ain't nothing scarier than to come home and see her lipstick on my mirror. " As Walker half-sings, half-talks over the prerecorded music, Tyler Pratt watches as engineer Ron Meersand fiddles with knobs on a digital-recording console to get Walker's sound just right.

The arts in South Philadelphia just got a mobile ambassador in the form of a sprightly hued van known as ColorWheels. The 2011 Ford Transit Utility van awash in vivid primary colors will soon snake its way through the narrow streets of Bella Vista and its surrounding neighborhoods, spreading a message that touts the joys of making art. "We imagine ColorWheels to be this kind of Swiss Army knife of the arts that rolls up to the corner, opens the...

Nearly a year after work started, lawyer-developer Jeff Rotwitt's Sun Center Studios, built in Chester Township with $50 million from banks, investors and taxpayer financing, is frantic with Haddad's Inc. movie setup trailers, Sony studio executives, L.A. and New York grips, model-makers, costumers, makeup artists, caterers and other movie-industry workers and paraphernalia supporting Philadelphia native Will Smith, wife and costar Jada Pinkett-Smith, director...

Above all else, Villanova's Jay Wright took one thing away from last week's 3-day experience working in Atlanta as a studio analyst for the NCAA Tournament coverage on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. "As much as I enjoyed it, I learned how much I love coaching," he said. "And they said that to me when I left. They said they thought I did a great job, but we hope we don't have to use you again [next year]. And I said, 'Well I hope I don't see you either.' " This was the first time Wright's Wildcats (13-18)

LOS ANGELES - Soon after Peter Berg signed on to direct a big-screen version of the board game Battleship, he was summoned to meet with the new heads of Universal Pictures. The filmmaker best known for his work on Friday Night Lights and Hancock had reason to be nervous. Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley were inheriting a risky, expensive project green-lighted by their predecessors during rampant cost-cutting in Hollywood. But the executives had a surprising message: They wanted to increase the budget for Battleship and add a multimillion-dollar sequence set in Hong Kong.