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.


Wed
Thr Fri Sat Sun
No Show 4/22*
8:00 pm
 4/23**
8:00 pm
4/24
8:00 pm
4/25
6:00 pm
No Show 4/29
8:00 pm
4/30
8:00 pm
5/1
8:00 pm
5/2
6:00 pm
5/5
8:00 pm
5/6
8:00 pm
5/7
8:00 pm
5/8
8:00 pm
5/9
6:00 pm

* 4/22 - Preview
** 4/23 - Opening Night; Post-show Reception

funded in part by the
Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program
as administered by 1812 Productions

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.