Pandora Theatre, Kilkenny’s new theatre company, have launched their inaugural event entitled Out of The Box.
It is an evening of four comic, dark and absurd plays by the founders of Pandora, who aim to produce new plays and foster Kilkenny-based playwrights of all ages and levels of experience.
Writing workshops will begin shortly after the company’s launch, and there will be an invitation to Kilkenny-based writers and future collaborators.
Out of the Box comprises two elements – Prisoner Suite and Voices in the Rubble.
Prisoner Suite is a trio of short plays by Shawn Sturnick, while Voices in the Rubble by Darren Donohue portrays forty years of marriage magically compressed into forty minutes.
The cast includes Amy Dunne, John Morton, Melissa Nolan, Shawn Sturnick and David Thompson, with direction by Darren Donohue, Melissa Nolan and Shawn Sturnick.
Darren Donohue and Shawn Sturnick, the founders of Pandora Theatre, met through the training ground of the Abbey Theatre’s New Playwright’s Programme. With the aim of creating sustainable creative careers locally, they joined forces to bring professional new writing for the stage to Kilkenny.
Darren Donohue studied Journalism at Ballyfermot and Psychology at NUI Maynooth before completing a diploma in Theatre Performance at Trinity College. He is currently short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Award 2011.
Shawn Sturnick is a writer and actor who holds a Post-Graduate Degree in Acting from New York University. His short plays have been internationally published, and his writing has been seen at the Watergate Theatre, Project Arts Centre, the Dublin, Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, to name a few.
Pandora’s vision is to be a committed group of local professional theatre artists sustaining itself through a combination of workshops, outreach and productions, supported and funded by the Kilkenny Arts Office.
Out of the Box runs from Wednesday to Saturday, September 7-10 at 8pm at Cleere’s in Kilkenny. Admission will be €10 at the door.
