On today's podcast, we met with Stephanie Feldman, Philadelphia writer and coordinator of the Philadelphia chapter of Writers Resist. This movement is designed to engage a community of authors, poets, filmmakers and the like to use their talents and shine a light on the fundamentals of democracy. Writers Resist will host a rally this weekend at the National Museum of American Jewish History with a plethora of local writers slated to speak.

The Writers Resist movement rapidly coalesced after poet Erin Belieu posted on Facebook, "We will not give in to despair. We will come together and actively help make the world we want to live in. We are bowed, but we are not broken."

Belieu's call for writers to organize local events in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day has already resulted in more than 50 events throughout the United States and around the world, including a flagship New York City event co-sponsored by PEN America, and additional events in Boston, Los Angeles, Oakland, Austin, Portland, Omaha, Seattle, London, Zürich, and Hong Kong.

Stephanie Feldman is one of the Philadelphia rally's organizers, with Alicia Askenase and Nathaniel Popkin. She is also a novelist, and a professor of fiction writing at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

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.