Mission

11th Hour’s mission is to have an enduring impact on our community by producing musical works of theatre. We use the expertise of industry leaders and up-and-coming artists to create an intimate and lasting experience with our audience.

History

Now in our 11th season, 11th Hour Theatre Company has established itself as the only professional theater company in Philadelphia solely dedicated to producing musical theatre, and has emerged as the top producer of intimate, character-driven musicals under the leadership of founding members Michael Philip O’Brien, Steve Pacek and Megan Nicole O’Brien. In October 2013, 11th Hour was honored to become the first recipients of the June and Steve Wolfson Award for an Evolving Theatre – recognizing our history of high quality work and our dedication to growth and change within our organization.

One of the ways that 11th Hour has made its mark on the Philadelphia theater scene is by producing musicals that would otherwise not be seen in the region. Since its inception, 11th Hour has produced sixteen full-scale musicals, eight of which – I Sing, Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…Boom!, The Bomb-itty of Errors, Reefer Madness, Rooms-A Rock Romance, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Ordinary Days and The Marvelous Wonderettes – were Philadelphia premieres. We have recently adapted our programming to include the Next Step Concert Series, which allows us to produce an even broader scope of new or seldom seen work. To date, Next Step Concerts have included a diverse array of musicals such as Zanna, Don’t!; Passing Strange, Andrew Lippa’s Wild Party and the new musical LIZZIE.

The company has also contributed to the development of several new musicals dating back to Angst, a ten-minute musical premiered in 2005. The following season 11th Hour produced the American premiere of Austentatious at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. That show went on to critical acclaim at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007 and has since been fully produced in London and Calgary, recorded by a Philadelphia cast and published by Playscripts, Inc. In 2011 we produced a reading of Fantasy Football, the musical? with the writer and musical director/arranger in residence for a week to work on the script and score. That show has since had a production in New York and was recently published by Steele Spring Stage Rights. We are currently working with Philadelphia-born writer/composer Michael Ogborn on a new musical called Field Hockey Hot, which he is writing specifically for our company and our artists.

We pride ourselves on attracting some of the finest artists working in Philadelphia and also in cultivating the next generation of local talent. Tony-nominees Forrest McClendon (The Scottsboro Boys) and Rob McClure (Chaplin) have both worked multiple times with 11th Hour. Founding member Steve Pacek was recognized with the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist. Additionally, our company launched the careers of young actors like Alex Keiper and Carl Clemons-Hopkins and musical director Daniel Kazemi, who all now work in Philadelphia and around the country.