From a Hole in the Ground
by Ken Yoshikawa
Apr 26-May 19, 2024
Thu – Sat @ 7:30pm, Sun @ 2pm
A co-production with Alberta House
5131 NE 23rd Ave
Supported by a grant from
Oregon Cultural Trust
and a contribution from Charlotte Rubin
Something stirs on the Other Side and comes knocking…
Commissioned by Corrib Theatre, From a Hole in the Ground is an original work by Portland-based playwright, poet, and actor Ken Yoshikawa, inspired by Irish folklore. Corrib will collaborate with Alberta House to develop the play, which will include mythic figures like ghosts, fairies, giants, and even the Púca, a morally ambiguous trickster creature from Celtic lore.
Someone, some thing, has returned from the grave hell bent on a long due confrontation, upsetting the world of the good folk, and set to bring chaos to mortals too. An exploration of fairytale, time, and connection.
Recommended for ages 10 and up.
Season sponsor: Ronni Lacroute
About the Playwright
Ken Yoshikawa is a playwright, poet, actor, and from Portland, Oregon. He’s appeared onstage with Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Corrib Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, NW Children’s Theatre, and Oregon Adventure Theatre. He performed his solo show The Art of Fly Swatting in town and at the Pan Asian Repertory off-broadway in NYC. His plays Medusa! Rapture! Party! and Through Bonavia, or The Simple Truth are being produced as readings in collaboration with The Historic Alberta House. His poems have appeared in Nailed Magazine, Letters from the Void, Hapa Mag, and Discover Nikkei. His first full length poetry book Monster Colored Glasses is out now on Lightship Press, and available to purchase at yoshikawaken.com! He is a Reed College graduate and an alumn of PETE’s Institute of Contemporary Performance, which he highly recommends. In his free time he enjoys video games, hanging with trees, and working as an astrologer.
“In general it’s a huge honor to be asked to write a play, an honor in proportion to the responsibility of entering into a whole cultural universe. It seems Irish is as delicate as it is hearty and these fairy tales reflect that. What feels right to me for this process is, rather than taking and adapting an established fairy tale with all its deep nuance and beauty, to process the interweaving qualities of the mythos into a new story. I myself am curious about my own Irish heritage, as disconnected as I may be from it as a biracial American.
From a Hole in the Ground is for me an opportunity to learn and do, to enter in, have a sense of being a guest, and accepting an opportunity to play and experiment. Discovering and getting to know characters is a sweet and tender process, and the research is a curious dive into a winding river. I’m sopping wet already and honestly going with the flow. I hope to please folks and I’ll be sure to cry out my warning when I toss the water out the window. Please don’t haunt me.”
CREATIVE TEAM
DIRECTOR
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, appearing under a Special Appearance Contract.
Nicole Marie Green
Nicole Marie Green (She/Her) is a New York native new to the Portland theatre scene moving recently from Kansas City, MO, where she received her masters degree in acting and directing from University of Missouri, Kansas City. Most recently Nicole was seen in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as the dance captain and Voice 1 at Portland Center Stage at the Armory. Other theatre credits include: Voice 1 in Curious Incident, Belle in A Christmas Carol, Lydia and Lady Catherine in Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice, Margot in The Diary of Anne Frank (Kansas City Repertory Theatre), Ruth in Tribes (Unicorn Theatre), Emilia and Time in The Winter’s Tale (Heart of America Shakespeare Festival), Dorothy and The Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (Meisner Puppet Theatre), Governess in Turn of the Screw (Spinning Tree Theatre), Edward Tulane, originating the role of Abigail Williams in Afflicted: Daughters of Salem (The Coterie Theatre) among many more. Nicole is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.
NicoleMarieGreen.com
Sara Hennessy
Sara Hennessy (she/hers) is a two-time Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award winner and an L.A. Weekly Theatre Award nominee. This is her third show at Corrib after having been in How to Keep an Alien and Little Gem previously. She’s been in several shows at Artists Rep (ART) including 1984, Everybody, Magellanica, Caught, Feathers and Teeth, The Skin of Our Teeth, Cuba Libre, Blithe Spirit, Intimate Apparel and Foxfinder. During the pandemic, she worked on several ART Mercury projects including the Magellanica audio drama, and two workshop productions: The Night We Won by Yussef El Guindi and Rudy, a 5-part comic series about a small Oregon town. Before moving to Portland, she lived in Los Angeles, where she was a co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed Furious Theatre Company. In addition to doing many shows at Furious Theatre, Sara worked at the Pasadena Playhouse, A Noise Within, and Theatre@ Boston Court. In Chicago, she performed improv at the iO Theatre. She also made appearances on NBC’s Grimm and the Netflix series Trinkets. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. sarahennessy.com
Wynee Hu
Wynee Hu (she, her, hers) is excited to be returning to Corrib Theatre! Past credits: Hurl and Eclipsed. She was recently an understudy for The Great Leap, co-produced by Portland Center Stage and Artists Repertory Theatre. She has also worked with Northwest Children’s Theater, Bag&Baggage Productions, Boom Arts, Advance Gender Equity in the Arts (AGE), LineStorm Playwrights, PDX Playwrights, Speculative Drama, Oregon Adventure Theatre, and Exoplanetary Media. Wynee is an associate producer for Lunchbox, an independent film (lunchboxthefilm.com). She was an Emerging Artist in the 2021 Spring Cohort of Advance Gender Equity in the Arts’ IGNITE program.
Cynthia Shur Petts
Cynthia Shur Petts (she/her) is an actor, writer, comedian, and teaching artist. She is happy to return to Corrib Theatre, where she previously played Rusty in Hurl. Other Portland credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Anonymous Theatre) and a reading of Lisa Kron’s solo piece 101 Humiliating Stories (Profile Theatre). She worked for many years in Chicago storefront theatres, and has performed as a comedian and storyteller at clubs and bars all over Chicago, and at festivals around the country. Cynthia has taught workshops in writing and performing at local companies including Portland Center Stage, From the Ground UP, and PlayWrite, Inc. She is a staff member and company member with Third Rail Repertory Theatre.
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Holly Griffith
Holly Griffith (she/her) has worked as an actor, director, writer, and theatre educator for over a decade. Her career began in Tucson Arizona where she was a resident actor at The Rogue Theatre and an Artistic Associate at Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. Holly recently recently earned her MFA in Theatre Directing from The Lir Academy in Dublin Ireland, where she collaborated with artists from all over Ireland and Europe. In her new role as Artistic Director, Holly hopes to enrich Corrib’s connections to communities both locally and globally whose stories are represented on our stages, and to use our resources to examine the intersectionality of Irish identity.
Matthew Kerrigan
Matthew Kerrigan is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist from Chicago, IL. His professional body of work includes devised theatre, theatre education & outreach, film & television, photography, clown, mask, movement, mime, installation art, and empathic communication training in healthcare systems across the United States and abroad. Matthew received his Bachelor's in performance from Illinois State University and took a deep dive into movement at Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. He is currently working as the Creative Director at Historic Alberta House where he is able to utilize his unique creative background.
Kyra Sanford
Kyra Sanford is a freelance scenic designer, props master, carpenter, and painter in the Portland area, working for theatres such as Milagro, PassinArt, Theatre Vertigo, Defunkt Theatre, Profile Theatre, Portland State University, Clark College, Lincoln High School, Third Rail Rep, and various others. She received her BFA in scenic design from The Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University.
sanfordscenic.com
Allison Normin Johnson
Allison Normin Johnson (she/her) is a designer and costumer who is delighted to be working in live theatre again. This is her first production with Corrib. She has worked in costume shops in Virginia, Arkansas, and locally at Portland Center Stage and Artists Repertory Theatre. Some of her favorite projects have been devised and emerging works with the CoHo Clown CoHort and Theatre 33, among others. Allison grew up in Beaverton and has returned to the area after earning her BA in Theatre Design from Willamette University. While earning her degree she spent considerable time studying art history in London, where her partner still lives.
allisonjcreates.com
Blanca Forzán
Blanca Forzán is a lighting designer, set designer, and writer. Blanca has a degree in Architectures from Del Valle de Mexico University, was a Banff Center intern (Canada), and worked with the National Institute of Fine Arts for over two decades (Mexico City). She is also a set designer, producer, manager, playwright, tour manager, and international technical director. Notable shows include Faust (Brooklyn Academy of Music, N.Y) and Hamlet (Cadiz Spain). Other credits: Broken Promises, Contigo Pan y Cebolla, El Muerto Vagabundo and Astucias (Milagro), Bicycle Country (Aurora Theatre, Lawrenceville, G.A.), An Octoroon, A Doll’s House Part 2, and La Ruta (Artist Repertory Theatre), The Taming (Coho Theatre), In the Next Room (Portland State University), Men on Boats (Willamette University, Salem), Jump (Confrontation Theatre), Mother Courage and Ruined (Profile Theatre), The Measure of Innocence (Bag & Baggage, 2020), two participations in digital soliloquies as a writer with Bag & Baggage, one participation as an interpreter with the Mercury (digital) company (Artist Repertory Theatre), A Bright New Boise (Willamette University, 2021), A Christmas Carol (Portland Playhouse, 2021), In the Name of Forgotten Women ( Coho Theatre, 2022), Neat with Passinart at IFCC, 2022, and Bella: An American Tall Tale (Portland Playhouse, 2022). Happy to be with you for the first time.
Alan Cline
Alan is a designer, programmer, and technician working in the Portland theatre community for the last ten years. His work has been seen at Artist’s Repertory Theatre, Profile Theatre, Third Rail Repertory, Oregon Children’s Theatre, BodyVox, Northwest Classical, and others. He is very pleased to be making his first appearance with Corrib.
Elizabeth Young
Elizabeth Young (Sound Design) is happy to be working on another Corrib production, particularly with such a female-focused production and design team. She has been involved in theatre behind the scenes, with sound designs for Corrib Theatre, CoHo Theatre, Theatre Vertigo, and Post5, and choreography and direction for Anonymous Theatre, and is a proud company member of Anonymous Theatre. She has also appeared onstage with many theatre companies around town and beyond, including most recently in Don’t Hug Me at Broadway Rose Theatre Company. Much gratitude to Tracy and Gemma for the opportunity, and to Darius, Julian, and Mark for ignoring the strange noises emanating from the study.
Sophina Flores
Sophina Flores holds a BA in Theatre and Dance from Amherst College. She is the founder of local dance theatre company Roots & All Theatre Ensemble, centering marginalized identities and breaking the boundaries of realism, who you may know from productions such as Liminal and The Between Spaces. She has stage managed for shows such as Sweeney Todd, Urinetown, Big Love, Peer Gynt, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Most recently she stage managed Milagro’s Duende de Lorca. As a theatre maker, playwright, director, deviser, and choreographer, her work centers the intersectionality of identities as a bisexual Puerto Rican woman, and prominently features themes of mental illness and trauma, with surrealist or magical realist motifs.
