Firesign Theatre

creators

Firesign Theatre material was conceived, written, and performed by its members Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor. The group’s name stems from astrology, because all four were born under the three “fire signs”: Aries (Austin), Leo (Proctor), and Sagittarius (Bergman and Ossman). Their popularity peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and ebbed in the Reagan Era. They experienced a revival and second wave of popularity in the 1990s during the presidency of Bill Clinton and continued to write, record and perform until Bergman’s death in 2012.

In 1997, Entertainment Weekly ranked the Firesign Theatre among the “Thirty Greatest Comedy Acts of All Time”. The group received Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album for three of their albums: The Three Faces of Al (1984), Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death (1998), and Bride of Firesign (2001). In 2005, the US Library of Congress added one of the group’s most popular early albums, the 1970 Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, to the National Recording Registry and called the group “the Beatles of comedy.”

Sandi Carroll

director

Sandi Carroll is an actor, educator, director, and producer. As an actor, she has appeared on Broadway in Irena’s Vow, and in major motion pictures and independent films. Sandi is co-founder of and performer in the comedy group Logic Limited, LTD., where she has created and performed Famous!, Schaden, Freude, & You, TiVo La Resistance!, Philip & Karen’s Wedding Party, and most recently, Mission: Implausible!  As the Artistic Director of the Mud/Bone Collective she created, performed and produced many productions including Impossible Country, a multi-media exploration of life as a refugee in NYC based on interviews with refugees from Iraq, Rwanda, Pakistan, Egypt and Russia. As an educator she has taught Acting for the Stage and Camera, Improvisation, Audition Techniques, Clown, Movement, Devising, Shakespeare, Playwriting, Storytelling, and Dialects at NYU, American University, Penn State, Emerson College, University of Virginia, Brown University, The Shakespeare Lab at The Public Theater, The Moth, Theatre for A New Audience, Theatre Development Fund, and Theatre Lab in DC. Boston University (BFA), University of Virginia (MFA).

Jillian Blevins

playwright

Jillian Blevins (she/her) is a New England-based playwright whose work engages with literature, myth, and history, exploring how the stories we think we know resonate in our present. 

Select plays include Mere Waters (Winner ‘Best Script’ SheNYC Festival 2024, Golden Prize Winner Clauder Competition 2024, Finalist Seattle Public Theatre Distillery New Works Festival 2024, Honorable Mention American Playwriting Foundation Relentless Award 2024, Semi-finalist O’Neill Playwrights Conference 2024), Romeo & Her Sister (Semi-finalist SheNYC Festival 2022), The Polycule: A Comedy of Manners (Finalist Boston New Works Festival 2024, Semifinalist The Road Summer Playwrights Festival 2024, Frank Moffett Mosier Longlist Prize for Works in Heightened Language from Synecdoche Works 2023), Space Laser, In Space! (Semi-finalist Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway New Play Festival 2023, Jewish Plays Project Festival of New Jewish Plays 2024), The Bed Trick (Valdez Theatre Conference 2023), Izzy at Zoom Therapy (Third Coast Magazine 2025), and Pilloried (Winner, Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway New Play Festival 2024, Concord Theatricals 2025). Learn more at jillianblevinsplaywright.com

Michael Samuel Kaplan

director

Michael’s Off-Broadway and regional credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Night Alive, Red, Miss Julie, Intimate Apparel, Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music, The Government Inspector, Our Town, A Christmas Carol, It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play, Those Learned Ladies; the New York City premiere of A Splintered Soul; First Maria’s Italian and American production of Hamlet at Teatro Circulo in New York City; Kansas Repertory Theatre’s 2016 summer rep of Harvey and Angel Street; as well as the American regional premieres of The History Boys, Oblomov, Ants, and God’s Ear. His television credits include Law & Order, Seinfeld, Saved by the Bell, and Unsolved Mysteries. He received his formal training as an actor at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Yale Drama School, American Conservatory Theatre and UCLA. He holds an MFA in Theatre Voice Pedagogy from the University of Alberta in Canada, and in 2018 was a recipient of a master’s scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.