Try tuning the radio
“The theater’s a pile of rubble, our stage manager’s in prison, half the orchestra is missing. Why not just for tonight, we let Fate run its course?”
Living Room Productions presents
– a new play by Ellyn Heald, December 9–19, 2026 at the Episcopal Actors' Guild, New York CityLondon. January 5th, 1941. The twelfth day of Christmas. A troupe of actors mount a performance of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy during the Blitz.
Written & directed by Ellyn Heald (and William Shakespeare)
Music by Will Healy & Ellyn Heald
December 9–19, 2026
Episcopal Actors' Guild, New York
Ticket information coming soon.
Industry reading
October 16, 2026
A.R.T. New York
January 5, 1941
On one of the coldest nights of the century, a troupe of actors gather at the local church hall to mount Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’.
In the morning, James, one of their leading men, ships out to war. No one says it, but everyone knows this is the last night they’ll all be together. Old tensions surface fast, and a scheme is hatched to give him a send-off worth remembering.
Grief and gallows humor bleed into Shakespeare’s comedy of mistaken identities, and what emerges is a singular theatrical experience that embraces the chaos, joy, and beauty of the reality around them – that can’t seem to escape the horrors of the war happening right outside the door.
For one night, four hundred years of mirth and melancholy find new life, held together by music, nerve, and a dash of holiday magic.
Sponsor a character
Katherine
plays Viola
A trained nurse and volunteer Air Raid Warden, Katherine also has very useful friends in the black market ration trade.
Meet Katherine →
James
plays Sebastian
A sensitive soul, James started out as a stagehand but showed an aptitude for performance, and is now a rising star within the company.
Meet James →
Ronald
plays Malvolio
Our troupe’s founder and leader, Ronald briefly served in the Home Forces at the outbreak of the war.
Meet Ronald →
Betty
plays Olivia
Betty is the indomitable engine of the company.
Meet Betty →
Nigel
plays Duke Orsino
A newer face in the troupe, Nigel washed up after Dunkirk and quietly walked away from the war, though “Nigel” may or may not be the name he started with.
Meet Nigel →
Ann
plays Maria
An American who crossed the Atlantic before the war, Ann has earned every step of her rise through the ranks.
Meet Ann →
George
plays Sir Andrew
Newer to the company and full of enthusiasm, George shares a crowded flat in East London with relatives who lost their homes in the early days of the Blitz.
Meet George →
Charlie
plays Sir Toby Belch
The troupe’s longest-serving member, Charlie aspires to be a playwright but can’t seem to get Ronald to read his work.
Meet Charlie →
John
plays Feste
A northern lad and gifted composer, John primarily serves as the company’s music supervisor but occasionally takes on supporting acting roles.
Meet John →
Backstory
In the early 1940s…
…actor-manager Donald Wolfit led his Advance Players Association, a troupe that performed Shakespeare plays across England to war-weary audiences.
He paid for the productions out of his own pocket, and laid out black market ham sandwiches and coffee for his grateful, thronging patrons. The British Government soon deemed his work as essential for morale, while newspapers of the day said there was “no better national service” one could perform in wartime.
Performances continued during the Blitz, even as air raid sirens wailed. Audiences were told they could “depart quickly and without excitement.”
Most stayed.
Our production explores our insatiable need to hear and tell stories that can both reflect our collective experience and dissolve the tension of a world on fire.
January 5th, 1941. The twelfth day of Christmas.
Just as Viola washes ashore in a strange land, and Olivia suffers the loss of her family, our actors find themselves shipwrecked in their own city, with so many of their homes and streets reduced to rubble.
For all of them, and perhaps for us, the path through the darkest days is the same: choosing joy in the face of mortality. Gather together, tell stories, laugh, play music – and live fully, in defiance of the dark.
Latest
The staged reading for industry guests will be presented Friday, October 16th at 2:00 PM at ART NY's Leynse Studio. NEW YORK, NY — Living Room Productions, in partnership with the AFLAMDA Studio Reading Room Series, will present an industry staged reading of…
If you’re interested in supporting this show and helping it become a reality, please do consider giving to our project.
Living Room Productions · 1941
Twelfth Night: 1941
Production Fund
$27,516 raised · 61% of our $45,000 goal
$17,484 still needed. Donations help us fill up the book until we reach our goal.
Nearly half of our budget goes directly to the artists.
This is rare in independent theater. We believe it’s the only ethical way to work. Your contribution funds people, not overhead.
Stipends for 9 actors, 3 musicians, creative and production team
3.5 weeks of rehearsal space and 2.5 weeks of performances
Immersive set, period costumes for 13 people, props
Press, design, and audience development
Administration, insurance, and contingency
Total goal$45,000
KatherineViola
JamesSebastian
RonaldMalvolio
BettyOlivia
NigelDuke Orsino
AnnMaria
GeorgeSir Andrew
CharlieSir Toby Belch
JohnFeste
Creative team
Ellyn Heald is an actor, director, and producer based in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley. She made her Broadway debut in 2024 in Jez Butterworth's The Hills of California. A graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Ellyn is the Founder and Artistic Director of Living Room Productions and is the writer and director of Twelfth Night: 1941, an adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy reimagined as a play within a play.
Will Healy is a composer, pianist, and improviser whose work engages with many of the musical worlds in New York City, from classical concert halls to jazz clubs and hip-hop shows. A recipient of the 2023 Leonard Bernstein Prize from the ASCAP Foundation, he is passionate about both tradition and innovation. He has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and National Sawdust, with his compositions played by ensembles such as the Alarm Will Sound, The Minnesota Orchestra, Contemporaneous, and Friction Quartet. His arranging credits include the New York Philharmonic, Donda, the Albany Symphony, and others.
Healy is the artistic director and founder of ShoutHouse, a collective of hip-hop, jazz, and classical musicians. Described by US poet-laureate Billy Collins as “sweetly and smartly off the rails”, ShoutHouse has premiered over 50 new works, and their debut full-length album, Cityscapes, came out on New Amsterdam Records, featuring “a lavishly orchestrated, absolutely unique blend of postrock, art-rock and indie classical.” (New York Music Daily).
Recent compositions include “Permafrost Ghosts”, which is a concerto for piano and chamber orchestra premiered in July 2025 with Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra and Will Healy, soloist. Another major work is “Passages”, a 30-minute work for wind ensemble and multi-genre soloists, which was premiered at the CBDNA conference in Athens, Georgia in February 2023. With sung lyrics written by poet/emcee spiritchild, “Passages” reflects on stories about language and communication, across three movements, including texts written by the featured rappers on the piece. In 2024, it received The Beeler Prize, selected from a pool of 270 compositions. The judges called it “a completely unique and massive contribution to the repertoire” and “a fresh new outlook on what band music can be”.
As a pianist, Healy has performed solo recitals in the United States and abroad, including programs of original music, world premieres of pieces by other composers, and a wide variety of works from the classical repertoire. Healy has performed the works of J.S. Bach extensively, including the complete Goldberg Variations and Well-Tempered Clavier. Healy plays piano and synthesizers in Pathos Trio, an award-winning metal-influenced chamber group that has premiered dozens of new works. Healy is also a founding member of Upstream, a duo with violinist and composer George Meyer. He is the composer-in-residence for Midsummer’s Music, Wisconsin’s longest-running chamber music series.
Healy’s composition awards include The American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Charles Ives Scholarship, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, Vassar College’s W.K. Rose Fellowship, a J-Fund commission, and residencies at the Bogliasco, Willapa Bay AiR, and Brush Creek Foundations. Healy has written chamber and orchestral pieces for the New York Philharmonic’s Bandwagon and YPC Concert series performances, including an original work for rapper and orchestra performed by the New York Philharmonic. Healy received his M.M. in Composition from The Juilliard School where his mentors included Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, and Steven Stucky. He is a PhD candidate in Composition at Princeton University, a Yamaha Artist, and a member of ASCAP.
More about Laura Carswell is coming soon.
Martin Kemp is a writer, photographer and producer and Product Manager with a deep and lingering passion for theatre that has stubbornly refused to fully relent to the demands of his career in technology. Martin briefly trained at RADA as a lighting designer, spent a few years hanging about London as a lighting cameraman, before his facility with a keyboard and mouse led him away from creative pursuits and towards the featureless landscape of corporate indifference in exchange for a more stable income. More recently, he has begun to exercise his latent creative, if not his corporeal, muscle both as a writer and photographer but doesn’t wish to expose readers to either on this occasion.
Kaileela joined the Living Room Productions team in fall of 2025, and is thrilled to be working with this wonderful group of artists. She is an actor, singer and teaching artist based in New York City. She has performed in New York and regionally with many companies, including The Pearl Theater off Broadway, Apocalyptic Artists/Red Bull, Shakespeare & Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New Jersey Repertory Company, and Adirondack Shakespeare Company. Kaileela’s film collaborations have been screened at festivals across the country, including the Tribeca Film Festival. As both an actor and educator, Kaileela has toured Shakespeare productions to high schools up and down the Northeast and Northwest coasts. She has also directed for the Fall Festival of Shakespeare with Shakespeare & Company. She is currently a teaching artist with Apocalyptic Artists, and volunteers at the 52nd Street Project in New York City, where she has the joy of acting in and directing student-written plays, helping bring young artists’ beautiful work to life. Kaileela holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Acting Program.
Founded by professional actors and graduates of the world-famous London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Living Room Productions started in 2023 in Ellyn’s Brooklyn living room, where a group of friends would regularly get together to read plays and share new works in progress.
These ‘artist potlucks,’ as they were lovingly nicknamed, grew into a beloved community event and eventually led to LRP’s first fully mounted productions in 2025. Following the success of its inaugural season, LRP became a Fellow of the Satellite Collective (opens in a new tab), a prestigious arts incubator and 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor.
LRP is a fiscally sponsored, 501(c)(3) theatre company dedicated to reviving classics, empowering new and underproduced voices, and the radical idea that art is best made in community. We produce theatre that is intimate by design and ambitious by nature.
Inspired by incredible true events, in the midst of the relentless raids on London in early 1941, a troupe of actors must relocate their production of Twelfth Night to a church hall after their theatre was bombed out the night before. Against the odds, and with half their orchestra and stage manager missing, they piece together a show, but the reality of life outside the theatre is never far away.
December 9–19, 2026 at the Episcopal Actors' Guild, 1 East 29th Street, New York, NY 10016 (opens in a new tab). Ticket information will be announced here.
October 16, 2026 at A.R.T. New York (520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10018 (opens in a new tab)). To ask about attending, use the contact form on this page.
The show runs 90 minutes with 9 actors, 3 musicians, and original live music throughout.
Written and directed by Ellyn Heald (and William Shakespeare), with music by Will Healy and Ellyn Heald. It is produced by Living Room Productions.
It is inspired by incredible true events. In the early 1940s, actor-manager Donald Wolfit led his Advance Players Association, a troupe that performed Shakespeare plays across England to war-weary audiences, and performances continued during the Blitz even as air raid sirens wailed.
Give online through GiveLively, through Benevity for corporate matching, or by check to Satellite Collective c/o Living Room Productions. You can also sponsor a character’s costume and supplies. Living Room Productions is fiscally sponsored by Satellite Collective, a 501(c)(3).
Living Room Productions · Personnel
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For industry reading details, press, or anything else, write to us and we’ll get back to you.