The London premiere of Impact, written and performed by Amy Engelhardt will play Voila Festival.
There are no coincidences . . . only connections. In 2019 a remarkable chain of over 30 compelling “follow-signs” leads American award-winning playwright/performer/comedy writer Amy Engelhardt to Scotland. What begins as a bucket-list trip to honour friends lost in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988 evolves into a personal and global exploration of grace, kindness and simplicity.
Impact was born of tragedy, specifically the deaths of 243 passengers, 16 crew members and 11 Lockerbie residents who perished in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988. Five of those people — Miriam Wolfe, Nicole Boulanger, Theodora Cohen, Tim Cardwell and Turhan Ergin — had been Engelhardt’s classmates at Syracuse University. She first heard about the deaths from newspaper headlines, while standing on a subway platform in Boston, that jarring news has remained with her, a shadow intensified because, as she says, “I was sort of obsessed, read all the books and watched the documentaries. It was always there in the background, haunting the things I did”.
Told through the lens of memory, music, and multimedia, Engelhardt’s one-woman emotional tour-de-force is a funny, uplifting and moving piece of theatre, which celebrates the power of kindness amid great tragedy. As Engelhardt puts it, “Impact is an American love letter to the people of Lockerbie.”
Impact won the Jury Prize for Best Score at the U.S. National Women’s Theatre Festival, enjoyed a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe and was just produced Off-Broadway in New York City at The Tank.
Directed by Kira Simring and first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023, Impact is part of London’s Voila! Theatre Festival and runs at the Barons Court Theatre from 15-17 November at 5.30pm. For further information and tickets visit voilafestival.co.uk
