A red hot lover who may or may not be red hot

In Walnut Street Theatre’s production of Neil Simon’s comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers, longtime Philadelphia actor Scott Greer plays Barney Cashman, the hapless lead who discovers he may not actually be such a hot lover after all.

Directing Greer and the rest of the Red Hot Lovers cast is Jennifer Childs, Greer’s wife and longtime member of the Philadelphia theater community. Childs also cofounded 1812 Productions, a comedy theater group.

She’s the director on stage, but who directs the show at home — Greer or Childs? They’ve been married for nearly a quarter century and are experts at dancing around that question.

“She’s a lot more organized than I am, but I don’t know that there’s any director at home,” he said. “There’s a lot of improvisation.”

“Our daughter,” said Childs. “She is away at college, but she’s still in charge.”

Said Greer: “We like to make each other laugh. That’s a big part of our dynamic. No one makes me laugh harder than she does, and I think she would say the same.”

Said Childs: “We have all the usual marital spats, but one of the things that sustain us is that we make ourselves laugh really hard.”

Greer just wrapped up a long stint at the Arden Theatre Co., playing the lead in Every Brilliant Thing. Less than two weeks ago, 1812 closed on its annual news spoof, This is the Week That Is, created and performed by Childs and others in the group.

“I hate to be boring,” Greer said, “but we’re both people who work and have careers. We’re empty-nesters now and don’t have to worry about childcare and any of that. We’ve been married for 24 years, and we were both working actors when we got married.”

The two met when both were understudies in Into the Woods at the Walnut. Later, he joined ComedySportz, a national improv and comedy organization with an office here. She was already a member. 1812 Productions derives its name from the address where the couple first lived together — 1812 Pine St. They now live in South Philadelphia.

Childs has directed Greer many times for 1812 Productions, but Last of the Red Hot Lovers is a first for a show outside home base, as it were.

“She’s really smart and good at her job,” Greer said. Their marital situation isn’t an issue for them in rehearsals. “It might be an awareness for other people in the cast. We go out of your way to not make it about that in the room.”

Childs said she enjoys directing her husband. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “We have a shorthand. I can say, ‘faster,’ or ‘love her more’ and he’ll know what I mean without a long conversation.”

As for work-life balance, “I think those lines are pretty easily navigated. We’re pretty good at compartmentalizing,” Greer said.

The biggest challenge, said Childs, is not that they are bringing their relationship into the rehearsal. It’s more in making sure they leave rehearsing at the rehearsal and “that we don’t keep working on it at home.”

(Through Feb. 5, “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut St., Phila., 215-574-3550, or walnutstreettheatre.org)

Maybe you are a theatergoer who enjoys plays performed in unusual locations. Or perhaps you relish immersion — where you get up close to the actors, or maybe even participate in the drama.

The Ways of White Folks, staged as a partnership between EgoPo Classic Theater and Theatre in the X, checks every box, plus it’s a world premiere.

Co-director Ontaria Kim Wilson explained The Ways of White Folks is derived from Langston Hughes’ collection by the same name written in 1934, during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of Black cultural and creative energy centered in New York’s Harlem neighborhood. The movement is the theme for their combined season.

The companies are presenting the play at the circa 1850 historic Glen Foerd mansion, a public park on the Delaware in Northeast Philadelphia. The audience will be divided into groups, and circulate among eight rooms in the mansion, one room per story, with lots of chances to mingle with the actors. Refreshments are also involved.

“It’s a story about Black people and white people in America,” Wilson said. “It shows friendships. It shows love relationships. It shows partnerships. It shows people being in conflict with themselves and with each other.

“It is more so a tale of the tragedy of humanity in the United States because we all suffer together and we also all glory together,” she said. “These stories are meant to unify. They aren’t meant to have people walking out thinking they are the problem.”

Wilson said the play’s strength comes from the genius of Hughes and his ability to vary the tone of the stories, while tying them together with a through-theme. Some are serious, some less so, and there’s satire throughout.

Hughes was “an activist,” Wilson added. “He had his hand in politics as a creative. He made a lot of people feel uncomfortable — both Black and white — with his poetry, his writing, his plays, and he did it for the impact that people could have on society.”

Wilson said that Hughes and others in the Harlem Renaissance created works building on energy derived from the Great Migration, a period when Black people moved from the South to the North, where they sought a better life in cities bustling with industry. “People were just trying to find ways to thrive,” she said.

Wilson sees a possibility for a similar renaissance now, one built on the many social pressures of recent years and pent-up energy actors and playwrights used to create new forms of theater in the wake of pandemic.

“Our society is so disjointed. We have to find a way to close the gap that is starting to rupture,” she said. “Race is a thing, but it doesn’t have to be the thing, because love is above race and love is the thing that wipes away the divide.”

To direct the work, conceived by EgoPo founding artistic director Lane Savadove, the two companies paired Wilson, an actor playwright and director who is Black, with Dane Eissler, EgoPo’s artistic producer, who is not. Wilson also acts in the show.

(Jan. 11-22, “The Ways of White Folks,” EgoPo Classic Theater and Theatre in the X, Glen Foerd, 5001 Grant Ave., Phila. 267-273-1414, or egopo.org and theatreinthex.com)

Local playwright John O’Hara’s 12 Chairs, a one-act drama about mother-daughter relations, kicks off SALT Performing Arts’ 2023 season at SALT’s Black Box Theatre in West Chester. The chairs represent stages in their relationship, with the promise of both laughter and tears.

(Jan. 13-15, “12 Chairs,” SALT Performing Arts, SALT’s Black Box Theatre, 19 Hagerty Blvd., West Chester, 610-488-2585, or saltpa.com)

What do artists do when tragedy strikes? They create. The Shadow That Broke the Light is a one-man show offered by Simpatico Theatre, written and acted by veteran actor Charlie DelMarcelle. Shadow will be presented in tandem with an exhibit by printmaker Adam DelMarcelle, Charlie’s brother. The two brothers lost another brother to an opioid overdose in 2014. As part of the performance, Charlie will share first-person accounts collected from family and friends of victims of the overdose crisis. Simpatico presented a digital version in 2021.

(Jan. 11-28, “The Shadow That Broke the Light,” Simpatico Theatre, Bluver Theatre at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila., simpaticotheatre.org)

Nothing like a love triangle to brighten up your winter, and the Ritz Theatre Co. obliges with romances among King Arthur, Queen Guenevere, and Sir Lancelot in Camelot, the musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

(Jan. 13-29, “Camelot,” Ritz Theatre Co., 915 White Horse Pike, Haddon Twp., 856-288-3500 or ritztheatreco.org)

Check with individual venues for COVID protocols.