by VICTOR FIORILLO
Them Bones
Dinosaur mania 135 years
before Jurassic Park
The world’s first dinosaur discovery did not
occur in Egypt or Iran, as you might reasonably
expect, but in Haddonfield, N.J., a quaint suburb of Philadelphia. Philanthropist and fossil
ave
Date
CENTER CI T Y
the
The
Philadelphia
International
Auto Show
Jan. 31–Feb. 8
Find your next ride at
this annual auto show,
which features more
than a half million
square feet of cars from
around the world. philly
autoshow.com
AVENUE OF THE ARTS
Ira Glass
Jan. 24
The quirky host of pub-
lic radio’s enduring This
American Life comes to
the Kimmel Center for
an evening of storytell-
ing. kimmelcenter.org
CITY GUIDE
Philadelphia
collector William Parker Foulke unearthed the
23-foot-long skeleton of the bipedal herbivore
Hadrosaurus foulkii (“Foulke’s bulky lizard”)
in 1858, after a local farmer told him of some
unusual bones he had found on his land. The
Hadrosaurus was mounted and displayed
for public view at the Academy of Natural Sciences, the nation’s oldest museum of its kind,
where tens of thousands of the curious lined up
to witness this milestone of paleontology.
In its new exhibit, “Hadrosaurus foulkii:
The Dinosaur That Changed the World,” the
Academy—which today houses more than
30 specimens, including the massive and
crowd-pleasing T. rex and Gigantosaurus—
pays tribute to the discovery and examines
the dinosaur mania that followed. Through
April 19. 215-299-1000; ansp.org.
The Return of Desire
It was 1947 when
an unknown actor
came to Phila-
delphia’s Walnut
Street Theatre to
try out a new play
on a live audience.
The actor? Marlon
Brando. The play?
Tennessee Wil-
liams’ A Streetcar
Named Desire. The
rest, as they say, is
history. Streetcar,
the tense New
Orleans–set story
of Blanche DuBois
and Stanley and
Stella Kowalski,
became an instant
American classic,
both onstage and
onscreen. And
Brando became
the greatest—and
perhaps the most
complicated—film
actor of all time.
This year, which
marks the 200th
anniversary season
of the country’s
oldest continually
operating theater,
the Walnut brings
Streetcar back with
a similarly unknown
cast. Suffice it to
say, they have a
lot to live up to.
Jan. 13–March 1.
Limited day-of rush
tickets are available for $35. 215-
574-3550; walnut
streettheatre.org.
INDEPENDENCE MALL
America, I AM
Jan. 15–May 3
Tavis Smiley’s traveling exhibit examining
the impact of black
Americans on the
development of the nation makes its first stop.
constitutioncenter.org
UNIVERSI T Y CI TY
Ladysmith Black
Mambazo
Jan. 24
The Grammy-winning
South African a cap-
pella group from Paul
Simon’s Graceland
comes to Philadelphia in
support of their new CD,
Ilembe. pennpresents.org
AVENUE OF THE ARTS
The Vienna
Philharmonic
Feb. 24
Conductor Zubin Mehta
leads the venerable Aus-
trian orchestra through
Chopin and Schubert,
with the Chinese-born
(but Philadelphia-
trained) Lang Lang on
piano. kimmelcenter.org
