Shows
2025-2026 Season
Twelfth Night
by William Shakespeare
Coming Winter 2026
London, January 5, 1941. The twelfth night of Christmas. Last night, a bomb dropped on the Swan Hill theater, reducing the building to rubble. But the Chiswick House Players are determined that their show must go on, and the local pub seemed as good a place as any.
The parallels between Twelfth Night and wartime London are striking: both are worlds marked by displacement and the search for joy in the midst of destruction. Viola washes ashore in a strange land; these actors find themselves shipwrecked in their own city. Each character, and each performer, reaches for love, laughter, and music as a way to survive the dark.
Audience members are invited into the world not as distant observers, but as guests of the pub itself. The “preshow” is a moment to share food and drink and enjoy the live music while the actors are getting the space prepared.
Once the makeshift stage is set up, the actors pass out the twelfth night cake. In keeping with centuries-old tradition, whoever finds the hidden bean in their slice is crowned “king” or “queen” for the night.
The performance unfolds with that same spirit of spontaneity and joy: a loving ritual to banish the cold and remind us of our shared humanity.
At its heart, this production asks: What does it mean to choose joy when the world is burning? For the actors, and for us perhaps the answer lies in gathering together, telling stories, and choosing to believe that love and laughter still matter.
Peep by Jodi Gray (staged reading)
CAST: Ellyn Heald; Laura Carswell
PEEP is a darkly funny, unsettling play about the female gaze and the contradictions of modern sisterhood.
What begins as playful banter spirals into something sharper, as the women expose not only how patriarchy objectifies them, but how they have learned to objectify each other. With biting humor and uncomfortable honesty, PEEP confronts the toxicity of “girls for girls” feminism and the uneasy pleasures of being watched—and of watching back.
Format: Staged Reading
Duration: 60 Minutes
Gloaming
A reading of a screenplay based on a book* that was based on another book about teenage vampire romance
*written by someone who hadn’t read the book
(an unauthorized parody)
by Su Thomas Hendrickson
In the delirium of the 2020 lockdown, one woman succumbed to a delayed onset Twilight obsession, resulting in a feverishly idiosyncratic screenplay that sought to answer these questions. Cut for time to just 60 minutes, this is a staged reading of that screenplay: equal parts fan fiction, parody, and a commemoration of what being stir crazy can do to a person.
Directed by: Su Hendrickson
Cast:
David Morton - Edward
Drew Springer Miller - Bella
Ellyn Heald - Jessica, Angela
Kaileela Hobby - Alice, Laurent
Katie Sexton - Rosalie, Renee
Lake Wilburn - Emmett, Charlie
Laura Carswell - Esme, Victoria
Lucy Shelby - Carlisle, Miss Cope
Ryan Castalia - Jasper
Sam Crabtree - Mike Newton, Greg, James
GEORGIA MERTCHING IS DEAD by Catya McMullen
Three longtime friends take a road trip to spread the ashes of their childhood companion, Georgia. As they navigate grief, adulthood, and the complexities of their past, their journey becomes a raw, darkly funny exploration of love, loss, and the bonds that refuse to break, even in death.
March 28, 29 30 | Brooklyn Art Haus
Directed by: Laura Carswell
Cast:
Lucy Shelby - Gretchen
Lauren James - Emma
Taylor Alden - Whitney
Matthew Nikitow - Harlan
Jacob Saxton - Jeremy
