Bring The Torch Ensemble to Edinburgh!

The Torch Ensemble is a new theater company started by Padraig Bond, Penelope Deen, Luis Feliciano, Kristen Hoffman, and Tibor Lazar. The five of us met as theatre majors at Hunter College, a public university in New York City. Our mission is to premiere two of Padraig’s original plays, The Trash Garden and Debating Extinction, at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival this August. We have already been accepted into the festival, and have been offered fifteen performances at Greenside Venues, one of Edinburgh’s central theaters! We need your help to bring us there. The Edinburgh Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world, and we are using it as a jumpstart to our five careers like many artists have done before us, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Robin Williams to John Cleese to Alan Rickman.

The Trash Garden

a new play by Padraig Bond

directed by Padraig Bond

starring Luis Feliciano, Kristen Hoffman, and Tibor Lazar

The Trash Garden is an environmentalist comedy inverting Adam and Eve, and introducing us to the last two people left on Earth after climate change, Atlas and Evelyn. Trapped together in dystopia, they explore the meaning of their lives together through imagination, play, and reminiscences of the past. It is a play about human resilience, love and hate, isolation and friendship, environmental collapse, and of course, recycling.

Debating Extinction

a new play by Padraig Bond

directed by Padraig Bond

starring Penelope Deen, Kristen Hoffman, and Tibor Lazar

Debating Extinction is a bold romance about the modern question of whether or not to have children in the face of the climate crisis. Susan and Teddy are young lovers living post climate change, and are preparing to have a child to restart humanity, but they must keep it secret from Susan’s tyrannical, yet deeply environmentalist mother. It is a play about the future, about love and death, environmental collapse, and the spirit and true nature of humanity.

Our performances will be:

August 4 - 19, 2023

Fern Studio, Greenside Venues

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

We have already made it into the festival, and registered with Greenside Venues, one of the most well-known theaters in Scotland. The difficult task that lies ahead of us now is raising the money to bring us there. We need to cover the costs of our five flights to Edinburgh, our accommodation (which is very expensive during the festival), our registration fees for the festival and for our venue, for our food during our fifteen day run of performances, and for the scenic design of the plays themselves.

We are asking for 20,000 dollars, every cent of which will be put to use. Let us break it down for you:

Average Airbnb for five people for three weeks in Edinburgh: $10,000

Average round-trip flight from New York to Edinburgh in August: $800, x5, $4,000

Registration fee for the festival and with Greenside venues: $2,500

Living costs for the five of us to eat during our stay: $1,500 (300 each for 3 weeks)

Marketing expenses: $200

Costumes, props, and set: $300

Artist stipend: $1,500

If you don't have the means of supporting our project financially, please still consider showing your support by spreading the word and sharing our fundraiser with friends or on social media. Every bit counts!

Meet the Team:

Padraig Bond is an American playwright, director, actor, and producer from New York City. He is the founder of The Torch Ensemble, a new theater company that will be performing this August at Greenside Venues in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest arts festival in the world. He has trained with the SITI Company in New York and Paris, performed with OYL Theatre Company in northern Greece, and studied comedy improv with Upright Citizens Brigade. He is a senior at Hunter College in Manhattan, double majoring in Theatre and Political Science. He most recently interned at the Climate Change Subcommittee in the United States House of Representatives, and in the Advancement and Innovation Department at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Penelope Deen is a recent graduate of Hunter College with a Women & Gender Studies/Theatre Double Major and a Dance Minor. A dual citizen of Canada and the U.S., she is beautifully mixed-race and proudly queer. She made her Off-Broadway debut in 2019 as the lead in the internet-famous feminist musical Oceanborn most recently played the role of Hamlet at Hunter College. She has also been seen on the Off-Off Broadway Scene in multiple New Perspectives’ Women’s Work Playwriting Lab, where she also works as a Program Assistant and Project Coordinator for NPTC's Theatre From the Streets project since its inception. During the week works as a Dancer, Choreographer, Dance Teacher and is an Instagram famous, published model. Penny is known for her activism, mostly in regards to Sexual Assault with her “Save Title IX” and will be producing The League Of Professional Theatre Women’s Women Stage The World March this June.

Luis Feliciano is a Teaching Artist that focuses pedagogically on Math Education, Theatrical Clown, and Kristin Linklater Voicework, and artistically focuses on acting, writing, and directing. Instagram @Leezusprime

Kristen Hoffman is a co-founder of the artist collective Lobster squad and an Actor-Creator from Homestead Florida. Curious about the world around them, Kristen finds excitement in being curious, challenging ideas in the mainstream, and playing with elements of chaos and extremities. Performing for over 10 years, she’s studied acting, writing, and vocal technique with Peter Brook, Benjamin Moore (Linklater Certified), Christopher Bayes (Pandemonium Studio), the Movement Theatre Studio, and more. Kristen strives to live out their full humanity in and with the world everyday, and hopes to find ways to extend that to their audiences. @thekristenhoffman Featured Credits: Clown Girl (Clown), 20 Years Later (Luke/Kristen/Ensemble divisor), Fuddy Meers (Claire), The Sex Myth: A Devised Play (xDEATHBUNNY37x/ Assistant Director), You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (Sally Brown)

Tibor Lazar is a New York based actor. After pursuing a BFA in Acting at Boston University, he moved to New York where he has participated in numerous productions on both stage and screen. Some of his recent credits include Laertes (Hamlet), Saul (Ablaze), and background credits on Gossip Girl (2020), The Blacklist, and Blue Bloods. He would do anything for a Klondike Bar.