IMPACT

There are no coincidences… only connections. Shortly after the 30th Anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, a remarkable chain of “follow-signs” lead award-winning playwright/composer/performer Amy Engelhardt (Bastard Jones, Grammy nominees The Bobs) to Lockerbie, Scotland. What begins as a bucket-list trip to honor lost friends evolves into a personal and global exploration of grace, kindness and simplicity. A multimedia scrapbook of the journey, Impact unfolds through photographs, video, storytelling and soul-stirring original songs as Engelhardt’s previous and newfound connections to the tragedy unexpectedly yield a renewed hope for humanity.

BIO/IMPACT info

Composer/lyricist/bridge-and-tunnel kid AMY ENGELHARDT wrote the score for OBA Best New Musical nominee BASTARD JONES at the cell theatre NYC (Resident Artist), TRIPTYCH (book/music/lyrics, NY Transit Museum Commission), CONTACT (lyrics, Puget Sound Theatre Award) and A COMEDY OF ERAS (ACT Seattle w/the Flying Karamazov Brothers). She received MAC’s Burman Songwriting Award and co-created TUNE IN TIME, New York’s Musical Theater Game Show (“the BMI Musical Theatre workshop on steroids”) at the York Theatre. Amy also performs as a solo singer/ songwriter, most notably in Judith Owen & Harry Shearer’s annual CHRISTMAS WITHOUT TEARS (LA/NY/Chicago). From 1998-2012, Amy toured the US/Europe as the sole female vocalist/writer for Grammy-nominated, genre-busting band The Bobs. And in 2019, as Mother Superior of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl in Amazon Prime’s GOOD OMENS immersive promo campaign (Winner: 7 International Clio Awards), she led a convent of Satanic, rock-belting nuns at series events in London, New York, Hollywood and Austin and produced their EP Unholy Night for Amazon Music. She still insists that her third solo album (FINISH WHAT) will be released in 2020. www.amyengelhardt.com 

IMPACT was developed at the 2020 National Winter Playwrights Retreat in Grand Lake, CO. During lockdown in 2021, a filmed version co-produced by the cell theatre (NYC) and The Playhouse at White Lake (Whitehall, MI) streamed on demand. The live version was incubated at the cell, developed at the Creative Centre in Iceland and Paul Provenza’s Green Room Live. After productions at Bethany Arts (Ossining, NY) and NAMBA Arts (Ventura, CA), IMPACT won the Jury Prize for Best Original Score at the 2023 National Women’s Theatre Festival in Raleigh, NC. The show comes to Los Angeles after a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, produced by Mike Blaha/Fringe Management.

“Engelhardt puts her tremendous storytelling talent to its best use in this performance, acted by her with the ease of one so familiar with the tools of comedy that she merely absorbs them into the narrative. IMPACT conveys its story with a straight-to-the-heart power that only well-crafted songs can evoke…an intense hour of songs and words with Amy front and center telling a story she needed to tell. That it celebrates – in only most moderately joyful sense of the term –  a labyrinthine journey of heartbreak and grief, without lapsing into the maudlin or making a cheap sale of the heart-warming finish, is a testament to Engelhardt’s many skills, all brought together in a piece speaks to all of us who have been anywhere near a tragedy. In other words, all of us.” – WORDS AND MUSIC

“…through her warm storytelling and reflections on her experience – and her affecting framing songs – we get a clear sense of how huge public tragedies can affect even those who observe them from afar, and how sharing these experiences can lead to healing from them. ” – THE SCOTSMAN

“Moving, sorrowful, hopeful and ultimately enlightening…  a stirring and brilliant new performance piece. IMPACT packs quite a theatrical punch.” – NITE LIFE EXCHANGE