Pandora’s Box of Donuts
Aly Kantor, Writer
Aly Kantor is a playwright, performer, and teaching artist from Long Island, New York. Her award-winning, internationally-produced work is pleasantly quirky, femme-focused, often queer, and full of speculation and subversion. She is a Creative Associate with EastLine Theatre, where her new adaptation of The Great Gatsby, These Gilded Souls, premiered in Westbury, NY, in December. Aly’s other full-length work has been developed across the country with organizations including Vivid Stage, Theatre Off-Kilter, Playhouse on Park, Music Theatre of Connecticut, The Bechdel Group, Mirrorbox Theatre, and New Normal Rep.
This year, Aly is developing two new full-length plays with EastLine Theatre: blowhole (a nautical, radical, turn-of-the-century adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata) and The Care and Feeding of Restless Spirits (an original drama about a ladies' supernatural club set in 1920s New York). Additionally, Aly is actively developing and workshopping her full-length play Murdering Medea, which addresses feminine monstrosity in Post-Roe Ohio. Upcoming workshops will be at Kent State Trumbull and The Tank NYC in collaboration with The Bechdel Group.vTo learn more about Aly’s work, visit www.alykantor.com, or find her on NPX.
C. Ryan Glen, Director
Ryan studied theatre and playwriting at the Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts (2010), and enjoyed several years in professional productions around DFW. Favorite roles include Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night with Shakespeare Dallas and John #3 in Dreamless with Ochre House, as well as a bevy of shows with the original Shakespeare in the Bar crew, Lyric Stage, and others. Ryan and his family recently live in Grapevine, TX, where he has a new life of being a father, landscape designer, writer, and otherwise charmingly-restless artist. With a past of difficult mental health issues of his own as well as several friends whose lives have been deeply marked by suicide, Ryan believes avidly in this production and these plays, and he is humbled to get to help bring one of them to life.
Meet the Cast
Aren M. Hugo, Cal
Aren Hugo is a DFW native actor most recently seen in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” with Shakespeare Dallas and the staged reading of “Walden (Remixed)” with Kitchen Dog Theater. Aren is incredibly excited to be a part of this production and would like to thank her friends and family for their constant support and A Light in Dark Places for this opportunity.
Leo A. Vibal, Em
Leo A. Vibal is a DFW-based artist. His recent work includes performing in The Mousetrap with Luminosity Theatre Center, and providing production assistance for Amphibian Stage’s Spaceman, and now he’s excited to work with A Light in Dark Places! He’s grateful for the opportunity to take part in sharing these stories. Leo would like to thank his family and friends.