About Us
In July 2002, at the Corner Bakery in Costa Mesa, California, two friends met over a cup of coffee to discuss what to do next. Karen had just completed an eight week intensive at South Coast Repertory’s Professional Conservatory, a program also completed by Sonja the year before. Both were eager to take what they had learned and apply it to the stage. For the last year and a half both women had spent time rehearsing and performing scenes in Karen Hensel’s workshop at SCR and one play that provided many challenging scenes was Collected Stories, written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Donald Margulies. In this two-person production Sonja played Ruth Steiner, a respected short-story writer and teacher who had made a comfortable life for herself in Greenwich Village. Karen played Lisa Morrison, a naïve but talented graduate student who offers to become Ruth’s assistant. The plays spans six years, and in as many scenes Collected Stories eavesdrops of Ruth and Lisa as their relationship evolves, beautifully and poignantly touching on issues of age, artistic license, and betrayal. Sonja and Karen had fallen in love with the story, the language and the characters.
Collected Stories was first put on stage in April 2003 at the DePietro Performance Center in the Don Cribb theatre, located in the Arts District of Santa Ana, for three performances only. Two of the three shows sold out. With a little profit in the bank and the encouragement of a supportive director a production company was born. Karen suggested they should find a catchy name, like “Panndora Productions” she offered as an example, using the name of her favorite feline. Sonja liked the name and by adding an extra “n” in the middle, they were able to honor a younger thespian, Sonja’s daughter, Ann.
The name stuck, and the rest, as they say, is theatre history
