Rob Dunbar is Oscar-ready (so to speak)
Chestnut Hiller is novelist/playwright/TV writer

by BETH LEARY

He hasn't won an Oscar, Emmy or Tony, but for Rob Dunbar, Chestnut Hill's  resident poet laureate, it's only a matter of time.

Dunbar has not only written and produced for TV, theater and off-Broadway, but he is also a novelist, performer and screenplay author.

His most famous play to date is BATS!, a one-woman tour-de-force that traces the career of a 'B' movie star — from ingénue to golden years where the character ends up as hostess of old horror movies, wearing a turban and smoking with a cigarette holder a la Norma Desmond. Karen Scioli, famous for her Stella vampire character on KYW's Saturday Night Dead in the 1980s, was the star of the show. BATS! played at the Society Hill Playhouse in 1998 to SRO audiences. This play truly has a life of its own and has now been published by Moose Enterprises Theatre Publishers in book form. Dunbar's most successful novel, published in 1992, was i>The Pines>, a murder mystery set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens with the infamous Jersey Devil. The Philadelphia Inquirer called it 'dark, foreboding, menacing, eerie Š a charming saga about death, mutilation and evil (and bittersweet love) among the pine trees'. Ditto said Delaware Valley and Atlantic City Magazines and the Wilmington News Journal, among others. This book sold quite well and was such a hit that a sequel, The Shore, will be released in the near future. The story is a continuation of The Pines, except that the devil moves from the Pine Barrens to a small town during winter at the Jersey shore.

Not content to be just a novelist and playwright, Dunbar ventured into television writing and directing through his friendship with Scioli, which came about because Dunbar, a 1969 graduate of Central High School, wrote Scioli an outrageous fan letter in 1984. It was so good that Scioli contacted Dunbar, and now 20 years later, the two are still best friends — like coffee and cream.

Dunbar was asked first to be a guest of 'Stella' and started to write a line or two; the lines grew into a script. When the show ended in 1990, Dunbar had learned the ropes and rigors of television, and loved it. 'He brings out the gargoyle in me. He's a brilliant, dedicated and driven writer,' says Scioli. Their friendship is comparable to that of onscreen best friends, NBC TV darlings, Will and Grace. For instance, she called him one day and said, 'I know you are thinking about me Š my cleavage is tingling.'

This Chestnut Hiller's other television accomplishments include writing for Home Matters on the Discovery Channel, with ex-Miss America Susan Powell as the host.

Presently, he is the content producer for the PBS show called Christina Cooks, featuring a red-haired vegetarian named Christina Pirello, produced by Christina Enterprises. Dunbar likes to include different scenes and themes, i.e., holiday, tropical, etc., even celebrity guests and health specialists. Dunbar enjoys putting Pirello in interesting situations. For instance, he's had her sitting barefoot on the floor, wearing a headband, opening a show about sushi with the words, 'Do you roll your own?' He's also had her sitting on a camel for a show about dry skin. The list continues: he's had her dancing with a skeleton for a show about bone health. And finally, he had her literally walking on a tightrope for a show about achieving balance in your life.

Christina Pirello has some words about Dunbar: 'Rob has worked as the writer and content producer on my PBS show for the last three seasons (we have been on the air for six), and we are beginning pre-production meetings for season seven. I can't imagine what I would do without Rob's brilliantly quick wit and way with words.'

Dunbar has also worked with Ray Murray, former Evening Magazine host, now president of Banyan Productions, the TV company responsible for such hits as Trading Spaces on TLC.

'Rob is one of those rare people who's able to write for both print and television,' said Murray. 'He knows how to turn a phrase, whether someone is reading it or hearing it. He is clever, witty and smart, and all of those traits show up in his work and through his personality. I've known Rob for two decades now, and every time I see him, I leave that encounter feeling better. When he worked for Banyan on Home Matters for the Discovery Channel, the show was going through a particularly grueling and demanding period, and his work ethic and writing skills helped to make that time so much easier. He really is one of the most accomplished and appreciated artists I've ever met.'

Dunbar is currently working on a dark comedy screenplay about a young writer who goes to Hollywood and writes horror. He also wants to do a TV parody of reality TV shows, and is in discussion with major networks.

Locally, he wants to do another horror TV show with a working title of Local Haunts: The Spirits of Philadelphia, which will feature his major bud, Karen Scioli, as host and will showcase Chestnut Hill, Germantown and Mt. Airy locales with buildings that are full of ghost stories, including Cresheim Cottage, Grumblethorpe, Cliveden, Baleroy and Loudoun Mansion.

He also had stories recently published in two new anthologies called 'Speculative Literature' (Descant Publishing) and 'Reckless Abandon' (Catalyst Press), and has written for many magazines and has over 100 articles on theater and dance, as well as interviews with political candidates.

After graduating Central High School and Goddard College, a cutting-edge, avant-garde academic institution, he wrote his first play, Revolver, about post-adolescent 1977 ego and angst, which was performed at the Painted Bride Theater on South Street.

Rob says the theaters he first performed in were so far off Broadway they were touching Nova Scotia. 'When my childhood friends were playing cops and robbers, I was writing the dialogue,' he said.

His move from Center City to Chestnut Hill five years ago also has a theater connection. 'Five years ago, Stagecrafters [the Chestnut Hill theater group] was thinking of putting on a play I wrote. I had never been to Chestnut Hill. The minute I drove onto Germantown Avenue, there was something so incredibly special about this place. It reminded me of an artists' haven. I loved it so much, I said goodbye to Center City and hello to Chestnut Hill. And I haven't regretted it since.'

When Rob and Karen Scioli were rehearsing the first production of BATS! 'Karen had some slight difficulty finding the main character. The problem was that the character, an old time movie star, needed a deep, husky voice, very sort of Marlene Dietrich/Tallulah Bankhead, and Karen's voice is naturally very light and sunny. Moving on, I remember reading that John Huston had lowered Lauren Bacall's voice for her first film by having her shout poetry into a high wind, which resulted in that glorious husky purr of hers. Why, I thought to myself, not?

'At about that time, Karen and I had the opportunity to spend a week at Greta Garbo's old summer house on Fire Island. It's deep in the woods and totally isolated. Nothing around but sand dunes and pine trees, and I swear Garbo haunts the cottage. You could feel her in the air. By the second day, Karen was walking around in a turban, smoking out of a long cigarette holder and croaking ŒHullo darling' with a distinct Swedish accent. We did a lot of rehearsing on the beach, with Karen doing monologues over the surf. By the end of the week, she had nailed the character and was absolutely brilliant in the part.'

Even as a kid, Dunbar always enjoyed reading macabre, Gothic tales. He says: 'Most of the horror films I love — The Uninvited, The Haunting, The Innocents, The Cat People (the original, not the execrable remake) do not have a drop of blood onscreen. Instead, they all are steeped in an atmosphere of romanticism and mystery, a thrill of the unknown. No severed heads, just a voice whispering in the shadows Š a flickering candle. These are the qualities I try to evoke in my serious writing always. The comedy writing is something else again. Humor is a survival skill.

'On some level, I am always writing. This drives me, and everyone around me, totally, nuts.' Dunbar thinks some of today's writers (who shall remain nameless) 'are not really writers Š they are just typing on the computer.' However, Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Rosamund Pilcher and Maeve Binchy are number one (two, three and four) in his book. (So far that book has not been sold to the movies.)