After a few months of planning, scheduling and getting approval from the school district, 1812 Education entered the virtual classrooms with students from Widener Memorial in November. For the past 8 weeks we have found new ways to connect with our students. I asked our teaching team to reflect on what have been the most surprising and delightful discoveries from teaching in this new format.

The 2020 production of This Is The Week That Is, affectionately dubbed TW20, is the second production in 1812 Productions' 2020-2021 digital season. TW20 welcomes new and veteran ensemble members and brings an exciting change, as long-time ensemble member Justin Jain moves into the director’s chair. Following such a turbulent and traumatic year, Jain says, “We're anchoring This Is The Week That Is this year in two things: unapologetic joy and community. I think this is a radically political act given the year we're all experiencing. The big question we’ll be asking when we start making the show is ‘How can we face this trauma head on and defiantly carry the banner of hope?’”

So…we just finished our first week of Patsy’s Block Party, our first virtual production of the season. Each night I get changed into my Patsy outfit in my bathroom then head into what used to be our spare bedroom but is now decorated like a South Philly crafting room. Each night I step over the cords snaking through the stairwells in our house that connect the lighting, sound and video equipment so that my cameraman (also known as my husband Scott Greer) and I can do a pre-show tech check with the team: my fellow performer, Brian Anthony Wilson, broadcasting from Cherry Hill, NJ; stage manager, Tom Shotkin, broadcasting from Ardmore; and 1812 Production Manager and Video Designer/Producer, Ben Levan who is running it all from his home in Southwest Philly. It is surreal.

1812 Productions is pleased to announce its 2020-2021 theatre season. The 2020-2021 season features four original comedic works that are being designed for virtual performance, with live performances tentatively scheduled for spring, 2021. Each production will feature a mixture of live performance and pre-recorded material and will be streamed through 1812 Productions’ website. Jennifer Childs, Co-Founder and Producing Artistic Director says of this new horizon, “This season we are leaning into our comedy mission like never before— into our need for laughter, joy, release, and the importance of community. We are also leaning into the ‘Productions’ side of our name, creating work in digital formats, live formats, and a mix of both. It has been an exciting challenge to figure out how we keep our digital work theatrical and find ways of connecting with audiences to maintain the feeling that we are live in the room, sharing a laugh together.”

Eric has deep roots in Philadelphia’s arts community and joins us to talk about the emotional, intellectual, and creative work that goes into making comedy in an often harsh and unfunny world.

We hope you’re well and finding creative ways to pass your time in quarantine (which is a sentence we never thought we’d write!). As we look to the coming weeks, we want to update you on our conversations, plans, and some new goings-on at 1812.

Nobody makes theater or comedy out of fear (unless it’s a fear of being too wealthy).  They do it—or at least I do it, and will continue to do it—because I love what happens when we are in the room together laughing with abandon. In that moment, even if it is brief, the world is a lot less scary.

Listening to the rhythms of legendary comics and writers is like going to school for me and studying their comedy is incredibly informative as I create original material.

This show has been a holiday tradition for me for the last decade—first as an audience member, then working under Jennifer Childs on the show, and now as the director. There’s something wonderful about coming back to the same room year after year and spending time laughing about politics with familiar faces—sometimes it’s comforting, sometimes it’s very difficult, but we’re all processing it together and finding the joy in whatever’s going on in the world.

During rehearsals I kept being reminded of Robin as I began to get to know my character Robyn. They shared a lot of characteristics including a love of smoking, chic fashion, and an aura of mystery…

The Roommate is the story of Sharon and Robyn, two women who meet as strangers, with all the awkwardness and fears and glimmers of possibility that pepper the getting-acquainted process (especially in middle age!). Instantly, these women understand they are utterly unlike each other – the one sheltered, hesitant, self-deprecating; the other, a woman of the world, a woman with a past, with secrets.

Jen Silverman, a bold new voice in American theatre says of writing The Roommate, "When I go to the theatre, I rarely see any roles for women of that age range that are not supporting roles. When I do see older women onstage, or women in their 50s or 60s onstage, those women are generally just there; the play’s actually about younger people but those women are there to, you know, have a couple of jokes or have a couple of jokes made about them. So I really wanted to write a play for badass women in their 50s... there is a kind of energy, a kind of concentration that happens when they are the two players on that stage and they have all that agency and all that power."

In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, a special documentary commissioned by American Theatre Wing to document the creative process behind 1812 Productions’ hit political satire This Is The Week That Is has been nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special. Filmed over the course of three months in 2018, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is followed the cast and creative team of This Is The Week That Is from their initial roundtable conversations through a fully realized production, exploring the show’s history and  the role of theatre and comedy in American politics.

1812 Productions is pleased to announce the residents of the 2019 Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program. The summer residencies provide essential time and space for artists to continue development of original solo works. This year, 1812 Productions and the Advisory Board of the Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program are pleased to award residencies to Brett Robinson, Jessica Johnson, TS Hawkins, and Gwendolyn Rice. The summer residencies will take place from Saturday, July 6th through Sunday, July 14th at 1812 Productions' rehearsal studio in South Philadelphia.

(Philadelphia, PA) 1812 Productions is pleased to announce its 2019-2020 theatre season. The 2019-2020 season features a Philadelphia premiere from playwright Jen Silverman and three 1812 original works, including the audience favorite This Is The Week That Is and a world premiere musical Tyndale Place.

 Those big stores with the long shelves filled with flat-packed boxes and alluring displays of furniture prompt two opposing feelings in me: my life will now be neatly put together AND I’ll never be able to figure this all out. I can envision new space, new order. Then I picture allen wrenches and particle board and missing pegs and wordless instructions. And I get afraid.

Broads is a comedy cabaret celebrating bold female comedians from the 1920s through the 1960s. The show is directed by Jennifer Childs and stars Jess Conda, Joilet Harris, and MB Scallen and features material from more than a dozen comedians including Sophie Tucker, Moms Mabley, Mae West, and many more.

The history of women in comedy has long been a favorite subject at 1812 Productions and has inspired several projects over the past 15 years. Before rehearsals began for Broads, we asked each of the performers five questions about what makes a broad a Broad. We loved their responses so much, we’re sharing them here.

Broads is a comedy cabaret celebrating bold female comedians from the 1920s through the 1960s. The show is directed by Jennifer Childs and stars Jess Conda, Joilet Harris, and MB Scallen and features material from more than a dozen comedians including Sophie Tucker, Moms Mabley, Mae West, and many more.

The history of women in comedy has long been a favorite subject at 1812 Productions and has inspired several projects over the past 15 years. Before rehearsals began for Broads, we asked each of the performers five questions about what makes a broad a Broad. We loved their responses so much, we’re sharing them here.

Broads is a comedy cabaret celebrating bold female comedians from the 1920s through the 1960s. The show is directed by Jennifer Childs and stars Jess Conda, Joilet Harris, and MB Scallen and features material from more than a dozen comedians including Sophie Tucker, Moms Mabley, Mae West, and many more.

The history of women in comedy has long been a favorite subject at 1812 Productions and has inspired several projects over the past 15 years. Before rehearsals began for Broads, we asked each of the performers five questions about what makes a broad a Broad. We loved their responses so much, we’re sharing them here.

For the 2013 production of 1812’s The Big Time, Scott, Jen and I took two months of dance lessons to learn the opening act of the show, a cross-dressed, three-person tango. I’ve had to learn how to play klezmer clarinet for a production with EgoPo, upright bass for a show at the Walnut, do a Pakistani accent for a show at InterAct, to sing in Russian for a show at the Lantern, and to play the duduk, an ancient, Armenian double-reed wind instrument at the Arden. All, for the most part, are now listed in my Special Skills.