For today’s podcast, I made my way to South Philly to hang out with 11th Hour Theatre Company. We talked about the upcoming production of LIZZIE, with music by Steven Cheslik-Demeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, lyrics by Steven Cheslik-Demeyer and Tim Maner, and book by Tim Maner. The show's director, Kate Galvin, and its Lizzie, Alex Keiper, take us back to 11th Hour's Next Steps Concert Series, when they first presented the musical, and we return to the present as they prepare to present the full production with some uniquely 11th Hour touches.

Perhaps you recall the dark rhyme, "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks/When she saw what she had done she gave her father 41." LIZZIE takes a new look at the multiple controversies surrounding the 1892 murder of Borden's stepmother and father. We also talk about the company's trip to Borden's home in Fall River, Massachusetts, the power (or lack of power) of women past and present, an artistic focus for 2017, and what 11th Hour is looking forward to in the new year.

Stay tuned.

On this podcast, we interview White Pines Productions artistic director Benjamin Lloyd. Lloyd, a B.A. and M.F.A. Yale drama grad, has been a fixture as a Philadelphia actor for decades. He founded White Pines in 2009. The company operated out of the Elkins Park Gilded Age mansion Elkins Estate until 2012.

Since then, the company has moved to a storefront in Elkins Park's bustling business district, where they offer classes to adults, children, and people with special needs; produce original work; host a long- and short-form improv-based dinner theater with a three-course meal; host the Bright Invention improv ensemble; and offer off-site training programs. Here, Lloyd discusses his new model for arts organizations, the role companies like his serve in their neighborhoods, and the guiding philosophy behind White Pines's "community-based performing arts studio."

On this podcast, we are joined by Two Walkens: Susanne Collins and Kevin Meehan. We talk about the origins of the devised theater performance duo's mashup, explore some iconic standouts from Christopher Walken's expansive body of work, and we even get a sample of the show.

Two Walkens, a world premiere, takes a few of Walken’s best-known big- and small-screen appearances, and combines them with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic children's book The Little Prince to see if this town really is big enough for the both of them. The show asks the timely question "How do we cope when the world outside gets to be too tough to handle?" Pick your weapon of choice.

Collins and Meehan are Philly theater veterans, but this is their first creation together.

On this podcast, I chat with Steve Pacek, featured in Theatre Horizon’s production of William Finn and James Lapine's musical A New Brain. It’s been four years since Pacek won the 2012 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theater Artist and the same amount of time has passed since he last chatted with us. Let’s play catch up!

About A New Brain

Tony Award-winners Finn (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and Lapine (Into the Woods) based this musical comedy on Finn's life threatening battle with a deadly diagnosis of arteriovenous malformation. The show, similarly, explores one man’s quest for a second chance at life. After a children’s television songwriter receives a life-changing diagnosis, he struggles to come to terms with his creative ambitions and family relationships. In an unforgettable performance, Pacek leads a cast of Philadelphia’s top vocalists through this gorgeous musical about how we spend the time we are given.