Best-selling Irish American author, Mary Lou Quinlan, is bringing her hit one-woman play “The God Box: A Daughter’s Story” to the Siamsa Tire Theatre, Tralee, on Friday October 21th, with the Kerry Hospice Foundation to benefit. Based on her powerful New York Times bestselling memoir of the same name, the emotional place shares Mary Lou’s personal story of a family in love, in loss and in triumph. The Kerry date is part of a nationwide tour with all proceeds to benefit local hospice groups through The Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF), a national charity striving for best care at end of life for all which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Mt Ted Moynihan, Chair of the Kerry Hospice Foundation, said he is delighted that Mary Lou, a great champion of the hospice movment, is coming to Siamsa Tire to do the show.
“We need all the financial support we can get at the moment. Kerry Hospice Foundation is currently building an inpatient room with 15 beds on the grounds of University Hospital Kerry at a cost of €6.2 million. All the rooms will be en suite and will open onto a landscaped and it will make a huge difference to care of patients near end of life in the area.”
In addition to this project Kerry Hospice Foundation is donating €400,000 a year for five years to the running of the new unit which will be finished next February and opened in the middle of next year.
“We appeal to as many people as possible to come out and support this wonderful play which has as one of its themes loss and grief and letting go of loved ones.”
This comic and heart wrenching play tells how after her mother’s death Mary Lou discovered “God Boxes”, small containers stuffed with hundreds of tiny notes, sharing her mother’s innermost thoughts. They revealed her concerns about her kids’ demanding careers, to private wishes for people she’d never even met, to concerns about her own health and everything in between. The poignant notes, scribbled in supermarket queues, restaurants, and at the kitchen table, were her mother’s way of releasing life’s worries and hopes. The discovery of the boxes triggered Mary Lou’s own unraveling, a journey to confront the greatest human challenge – learning to let go. Co-written with Martha Wollner, an award-winning actor/playwright and director of NYC’s LAByrinth Theatre, the play has been presented in theatres across the US, including Off-Broadway. In 2014 it enjoyed a 24-night run to rave reviews at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Quinlan has donated all proceeds to hospice, cancer care and education. To date she has raised nearly $400,000. Mary Lou Quinlan is a hugely successful entrepreneur, and widely known in the US for her marketing company, Just Ask a Woman. She has advised over 100 blue chip companies on marketing to women and was formerly CEO of a large NYC ad agency. She was recently named as one of Irish America Magazine’s Power 50 Women
Bookings for The God Box: A Daughter’s Story at Siamsa Tire Theatre, Tralee, 8 p.m, Friday October 21stth are now open.
