Tonight there are two performances of a play called Did You Hear the One About the Carp Who Hailed a Taxi by Anne Phelan at 440 Gallery in Park Slope.

Phelan’s boyfriend, Tom Bovo, is a photographer and for two years she has been staring at a photograph he took of carp and trying figure it out (it’s the one pictured on the right).

Bovo is having his first solo photography show, which opened on Thursday at the 440 Gallery. The work looks wonderful and it should be a great show. I’ll find out tonight when I go to see the play (and the photo show).

Bovo commissioned Phelan, a playwright, to write play about a photograph in the show. “I actually did have a difficult time deciding. I was all set to write about mannequins in a window (440 Gallery has some lovely bowed windows to put actors in), but I decided on the fish. The photograph is untitled, which kind of makes me crazy- playwrights don’t do that).” Phelan writes on her blog, Glamorous LIfe of the Theater.

Phelan started started writing in October and the play run for tonight only, Saturday, January 22, at 7:30 and 8:30. Melanie Sutherland directed and Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum plays Karl Carp and the lovely Cotton Wright is Mo Avakian the taxi driver.

I hope to be at the 7:30 show. See you there.