About Neighborhood House
Every year, we serve over 50 artists and ensembles through subsidized performance and rehearsal rentals.
Neighborhood House is a performance venue and a catalyst for the arts on the historic Christ Church campus. We support artists through subsidized performance/rehearsal rentals in our namesake building, and we commission new site-specific works informed by our architecture and history.
Our Story
Built by the Christ Church parish to serve the residents of industrial Old City, Neighborhood House opened its doors in 1915. In the late 1990s, local artists seeking unusual, flexible, and affordable venues for Live Arts/Fringe Festival performances discovered the building’s large, open spaces. The Neighborhood House program solidified around that homegrown demand and the facility advanced with it, greatly aided by the significant initial investments of the William Penn Foundation.
Today, in addition to housing the Christ Church Parish and Preservation Trust offices, Christ Church Neighborhood House serves a core constituency of cross-disciplinary performing artists who imagine new and experimental works in our ADA-accessible, 110-seat theater. The reach of our arts programming extends beyond the building walls to include concerts in the Christ Church sanctuary and commissions for every corner of our historical campus.
In 2016, we took over operation of the Farmers Market at Christ Church, formerly N3rd Street Farmers Market. Every Wednesday afternoon, May-November, we invite farmers, artisans, and the community onto the brick pavers outside the church gates.
Join Our Team
Current Openings
None at the moment – please check back
Our Staff
Zack Biro
Executive Director
Ryan Rebel
Production & Rental manager
Zack Biro
Executive Director
Zack says he first fell in love with history at age 6 running through Gettysburg National Military Park. “It mostly started as a way to let out some little kid energy while my parents were visiting my older brother at college, but with each passing year the stories of the past continued to grip me and I couldn’t get enough. Soon my weekends were full of trips to museums and looping documentaries were always on the living-room TV.”
Zack continued his adventures in history at Lehigh University where he received a BA in History and Religion Studies and later an MA in History. Learning about the power of historical narratives and how they inform our collective identity was not only fascinating, it was clear to him how important they were to creating inclusive and impactful communities. Zack started his career volunteering as a weekend tour guide at his local historical society where he first learned about how history is communicated in museum and community spaces. From there Zack says he was lucky enough to experience work in different historical and non-profit settings including Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites, Congressional Cemetery, Moravian Historical Society, Moravian Church Archives, Science History Institute, Mitzvah Circle Foundation, and most recently as the Executive Director at Historic Sugartown.
In 2015, Zack first encountered Christ Church when he worked around the corner at the Science History Institute. “I was enamored with the history of the Church and Burial Ground but what hooked me was the wonderful community of parishioners and history enthusiasts that held Christ Church as a special place. It is truly an honor that nearly a decade later I have the opportunity to join the Christ Church Preservation Trust team! I’m excited to work with our amazing staff as we highlight unheard voices, share our history with the Philadelphia and national community in innovative and creative ways, preserve our physical spaces for future generations, and continue to grow Christ Church as a vibrant community space.”
Email
215-922-1695 ext. 29
Ryan Rebel
Rentals & Production Manager
Ryan Rebel (he/they) is the Rentals & Production Manager at Christ Church Neighborhood House. He is a Barrymore-winning Theatre Director, Producer, Production Manager, Dramaturg, and Performer. Most recently, he directed the award-winning COMET with Upstream Performance Collaborative, and Production Managed the PEW-funded historical performance project On Buried Ground with Christ Church. Ryan has a passion for cultivating the art ideas of his collaborators. His own creative work is invested in pushing multimedia boundaries to explore the contradictions of modernity.
John Hopkins
Director of Operations & Burial Ground Coordinator
Bio coming soon
Email
215-922-1695 ext. 33
Christ Church Preservation Trust
Neighborhood House is a program of Christ Church Preservation Trust. Founded in 1965, the Trust is a secular nonprofit that ensures the preservation of and strengthens the multiple communities that use historic Christ Church properties for community building, personal growth, education, and artistic expression.
Christ Church
Known as “The Nation’s Church” due to the famous Revolutionary Era leaders who worshiped here, Christ Church was founded in 1695. It was the first parish of the Church of England (Anglican) in Pennsylvania and the birthplace of the American Episcopal Church.
