Coming Soon...
American Mud
-- a political fable
about the world’s
first cloned
woman to run for president --
written and performed by Jackie Ruggiero Jacobson
with Gerre Garrett as Susan B. Anthony • directed by Neill Hartley
April 22 - May 9 • The Red Room at Society Hill Playhouse
Bred
in a Petri dish…Raised in a walk in closet by the ghost of
Susan B. Anthony…Genetically engineered to
possess
intelligence, ambition, lethal sex appeal and the skin of a rhino,
Adamaris, the world’s first cloned woman is making history.
She’s running for president in the year 2012. Charlotte, a
young law student from Illinois, trails her campaign.
Longing to be a part of Adamaris’ historic victory she puts
her own life on hold and launches a bohemian bus tour in support of her
candidate. She’s sure that Adamaris, a crossbreed of pant
suit power and Victoria Secret’s feminine mystique, is just
the recipe for an implosion of the land’s highest glass
ceiling. But when Charlotte takes her case to the bus stops of America,
she finds herself neck deep in centuries’ old mud. Change is
sinking, along with her heroine’s celebrity status.
It’ll take superhuman strength to save them both for
posterity.
* 4/22 - Preview |
funded in part by the |
Jackie Ruggiero Jacobson (Playwright, Adamaris, Charlotte)
Jackie
Ruggiero
Jacobson is an actor, playwright and teaching
artist. Plays include Who Turned Off The Lights?,
Ice Breakers, Natural Flavors, The
Domestication of
Women: A Housewares Party in Two Acts, and American Mud.
Collaborative writing includes, The
Orphan Tree, a
multi-disciplinary play that incorporates text, puppetry and song,
written by Hannah Tsapatoris, Jackie Ruggiero Jacobson, Vivian Appler
and Makaria Tsapatoris. Jackie has worked with Green Light Productions,
Naked Feet Productions, New City Stage Company, The Brick Playhouse,
Vagabond Acting Troupe, Big House Plays & Spectacles and the
former Magnet Theatre Company in Trenton, NJ where she was a resident
member. Favorite roles include Olga Lengyal in Angel: A Nightmare in
Two Acts, Frieda in Statements
After an Arrest Under the Immorality
Act, Janice in Italian
American Reconciliation and Natalia in I Am A
Camera. Jackie has directed for the Southern New Jersey
School of
Performing Arts in Sewell, NJ, the Brick Playhouse and B. Someday
Productions where she directed Australian playwright, Suzie
Miller’s Confused Sea Conditions for the Fresh Fish Festival.
Jackie is a teaching artist for Philadelphia Young Playwrights. She is
a graduate of the University of the Arts and a member
of the Dramatist Guild.
Gerre Garrett (The Ghost of Susan B. Anthony)
Gerre Garrett writes and performs
for
Philadelphia's premier sketch comedy troupe, The
Waitstaff. In addition to her work as a Teaching Artist for
Philadelphia Young Playwrights, she is an adjunct instructor of acting
and sketch comedy at Drexel University. Gerre's voice is heard locally
in industrial films and commercials, and nationally on two television
series for the Discovery Network. Other acting credits include Mrs. Bob
Cratchet's Wild Christmas Binge, Misery, Dancing at Lughnasa,
and One
Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
Neill Hartley (Director)
Neill Hartley is
involved in several aspects
of professional theater. As an actor, he has appeared in many regional
productions including Working, Sweeney
Todd and Company at the Arden Theatre, God's
Country and Aunt Dan and Lemon with
InterAct Theatre, Measure for Measure, Twelfth
Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream for
the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival and Batboy, The Musical
for 1812 Productions, which won a Philadelphia Barrymore award for best
ensemble. He has four one-man shows that he regularly presents: The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Spirit of Lindbergh,
Sherlock Holmes and The Speckled Band, and P.T.
Barnum: The Master Showman. His work can also be seen in
commercials and films, and he is a spokesperson for Spray-N-Grow, a
national gardening company.
Two years ago, Neill had the pleasure of directing Ice Breakers for Straw Flower Productions. He has also directed for Philadelphia Young Playwright's, the University of the Arts, Ursinus College, Arcadia University, New City Stage Company and Luna Theater. Neill is the Artistic Director for Acting Without Boundaries, a theater company for physically disabled teens and young adults. Most recently he has directed The Sound of Music for AWB and Prisoner of Second Avenue for Isis Productions. He is an assistant professor of voice and speech at the University of the Arts and has acted as a speech/dialect coach for several professional theater productions.