To Kankaanpaa & Back Again.

In a couple of weeks Spark Productions will be hitting it's second birthday. That's right on July 1st we will be two years old. Don't be scared to send us an ole postcard. We are going to be that little bit older and hopefully that little bit smarter and wiser.

The very first Spark play. One For The Road which performed in the Duiske Inn in August 2011.

Well as we get that little bit older and we start to spread our wings and venture outside of Graig and build up our fanbase, opportunities start to come our way. Opportunities that are too big and too valuable to turn away.

This year is going to be a hugely exciting one for us. With bringing Brownbread to the Watergate Theatre(June 20th) and then on to the final night in St Michaels New Ross(June 28th), yes this is just one of the many things that we will be doing this year.

So what is Kankaanpaa you ask? Kankaanpaa is a lovely town situated outside Tampere in Finland. What has that got to do with us? Well read on friends!

It's many a time we are asked what we are up to and what's the next show going to be. Anyone who has done work with us will tell you how much we love keeping things secret, then BOOM we hit you with it.

This is going to be the biggest news we may ever possible deliver so here's the scoop.

Spark Productions are going to Finland!!!! Why?

This Is KanKaanpaa.

Well over the past few months, since the end of 2012, we have been working with the KIlkenny Leadership Partnership on a transnational project(very fancy, we know). This transnational project began in Finland and the programme is all about developing theatre in rural areas.

With this we are also proud to say that Graiguenamanagh will be the town representing Ireland in this project, with countries from all over Europe including Italy, Malta and Bulgaria.

The programme is called Y.E.S, standing for Youngsters on The European Stage. The main goal of this is for us to develop a new play and along with the other countries, present this new work next summer, along with the rest of them.

But that's not all.

This project has lots and we mean lots of other developing projects that come with it. That we are proud to say will not alone benefit us but also the town we are so proud to be from, Graiguenamanagh. We won't go in to details but, like, as we say keep some mystery until another time.

One thing we can say is that we will be working with another theatre company. They are legends in the southeast and are truly inspirations to us. Tomorrow John Morton of Devious Theatre in Kilkenny will be coming on the flight along with Alison Allan of KLP and Adrian Kavanagh of, well, Spark Productions.

John Morton(Right) with Ken McGuire drinking tae. #countrystyle

Devious Theatre have been going since 2006, bringing work that has never been seen in Kilkenny before and also developing exciting new & original writing. Show's such as Night Of The Living Dead, Trainspotting, Shifting and Bash to name but a few. They have really done an amazing job bringing new life along with a new audience to theatre in Kilkenny and a company that we can honestly say, without them, we would not exist.

Spark & Devious will be working together to help develop Spark Productions further and help us with the workload that will be taken place over the coming year & beyond. We are proud & delighted to have them on board.

Tomorrow will see us jet off to Finland to discuss with the other member countries our plans for the project, an ole meet & greet if you will. We will be wearing our sharpest suits and fancy shoes, and we hope to bring back lots of pics.

We will have more news soon, but for now that's the big scoop of the week.

All we can say is, we are unbelievably excited and we hope to do ourselves and Graiguenamanagh proud.