Imagination Generation Station

A community engagement project led by Asylum Productions.

Asylum Productions is an award-winning, rural theatre company that creates unusual theatre in unusual spaces. They are passionate about climate justice, sustainability and creating inclusive and engaging theatre.

At Carlow Arts Festival 2023, Asylum Productions hosted the Imagination Generation Station. A drop-in space for people to feed in their ideas for an intergenerational, electrifying community production that considers the future of energy production by looking to the past - the Rural Electrification Scheme.

From this, Asylum developed First Light.

First Light

Asylum Productions in association with Once Off Productions presented First Light, part street theatre, part spectacle, part circus show specially created with and for Carlow.

In an alternate universe, in the town of Wolrac, the townsfolk are ready for Capacity connection, for the coming of the First Light. But the powers that be have other ideas. In the 1950s Ireland embarked on the largest social enterprise in our history - Rural Electrification. This was not that story.
Well, not really…

As Ireland faces the challenge of grid decarbonisation, Asylum Productions explored how we’ve done it all before. Bringing their unique brand of collaborative theatre to create this lo-fi, electrifying journey to another dimension, all unplugged and powered by the people of Carlow, and other renewable sources.

Adam Byrne
Aisling O'Halloran
Anne Barry
Aoife Doyle
Béibhinn Thorsch
Ben Nunan
Bernard Jennings
Bernie Brennan
Cara Armstrong
Charlotte Crowson
Cian Kinsella
Ciarán Dunphy
Danny Kelly
David Williamson
Dee Colhoun
Deirdre Flemming
Edwina Hopkinson
Elizabeth O'Brien
Emily Rose Brophy
Emma O'Brien
Fiona Broadberry
Fiona Dowling
Harry Shorthose
Kate O'Connor
Kayla Nolan
Kevin Tynan
Liam Dalton
Mark O'Brien
Mary Brennan
Meghan Dempsey
Michael Somers
Mollie Finn
Shane Byrne
Shannon O'Doherty
Sophia Rocca

Asylum Productions Team

Co-Artistic Directors:	Medb Lambert	Donal Gallagher
Co-Directors:	Donal Gallagher	Janice de Bróithe
Producers:	Maura O'Keeffe	Sadhbh Barrett Coakley	Joe Murphy
Production Designer:	Medb Lambert
Production Managers:	Liz Honan	John Grubb
Stage Manager:	Diarmuid Woods
Assistant Stage Manager:	Abbie Nolan	Róisín Kerin
Aerial Crew:	Jonah McGreevey	Conor McCague	Deirdre Griffin

Funded by the Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon

Additional funding from Carlow County Council and Creative Ireland Carlow

In partnership with the Watergate Theatre