Welcome to This Is The Week That Is!

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.

And boy, has 2019 has brought us a lot of news to process. Even more than in previous years, it feels like the political climate shifts hugely from week to week. As I write this note, we just voted to re-elect Jim Kenney as mayor, and the House is about to start public hearings in the impeachment inquiry. I don’t know what the news will be by the time you read this or see our show in November, December, or January, and whether it will make us want to laugh or cry. But I’ve seen this group of writers and performers in action before, and I know whatever the news brings us, we’ll find a way to laugh about it.

My favorite moments in This Is The Week That Is are always the most “theatrical”—when we can take a headline, an idea, or a political figure and make a big splashy musical number around it. To me, there’s something that feels very true and also totally fantastical about these pieces of the show and I think that opens us up as audience members and allows us to think and laugh about the harder news in a different way. The big familiar song and dance sequences allow us to hear and feel political satire in a different way, and you end up sitting in a theatre laughing and thinking, “I can’t believe they’re actually doing this!” with 200 other people thinking the same thing. That, to me, is a beautiful moment of connection in a world that makes it really hard to connect. That’s what Jen Childs and 1812 have been doing so well for so long, and what I’m striving to do.

So here’s to laughing together, crying together, thinking together, and getting a little bit closer to a room full of strangers. Enjoy the show!