Our approach
Led by co-artistic directors Allison Pajor and Mark Pajor, AMP Theatre Company brings you productions where we’re all in the light — the actors can see you just as you see them, and so our characters confide in you, deliver punchlines to you, and bring you into our story.
Our shared-lighting approach is about connecting with our Michiana community in the present, inspired by the theatre of the past. English renaissance plays were written for actors and audience sharing the light together, with actors delivering lines directly to individual theatregoers.
Allison and Mark both trained in original-practice theatremaking while earning master’s degrees in Shakespeare & Performance at Mary Baldwin University, a program operated in partnership with the American Shakespeare Center.
We believe in the power of theatre to bring people together and help us connect with one another — and we believe that power is even stronger when we can all see one another as we share in the theatrical experience.
Our rehearsal process
At AMP Theatre Company, we value right-sizing the commitment for your availability. If you are cast in one of our productions, you’ll rehearse at most three evenings per week (often less), and you’ll only need to be there when we’re working on one of your scenes. Let us know at auditions what your availability is, and then let us know each week if you have any new conflicts, and we’ll schedule rehearsals with that in mind!
Many of our shows feature roles of varying sizes, meaning there are lots of opportunities for us to find something that fits for you. If you want to fit theatre into your life but aren’t sure if you can, come out to auditions or contact us about how we can make it work for you!
Our co-founders
Mark Pajor
Mark brings deep experience with renaissance plays to AMP Theatre Company. Prior to co-founding AMP, he directed Twelfth Night with the South Bend Civic Theatre in 2024. For the 2024 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare After Hours, he directed a scene from Francis Jaques’ The Queen of Corsica — likely the first time the play, surviving today only as a handwritten manuscript from 1642, was ever staged. As an actor, Mark played Touchstone in Shades of Orange’s As You Like It and Don Pedro and Theseus in the Civic’s Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
While earning a master’s degree at Mary Baldwin University, Mark adapted Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and three other renaissance and restoration “shrew” plays into The Taming of the Show, a branching-path production where the audience decided what happened next at five different points in the play. Before that, Mark was president of the student-run What You Will Shakespeare Company at the University of Illinois, with whom he directed The Spanish Tragedy, The Winter’s Tale, and As You Like It. Mark’s on-stage roles have included Hamlet, Oedipus, Enobarbus, Cassio, Claudio, Angelo, and Lucentio, as well as Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac and Sir Clyomon in Clyomon & Clamydes. Mark regularly contributes to Beyond Shakespeare’s exploring sessions of renaissance plays.
Allison Pajor
Allison comes to AMP Theatre Company with experience in an array of theatrical genres, including Shakespeare, musical theatre, children’s theatre, and devised work. She served as Text Coach for several seasons of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, and she has also worked with NDSF as assistant director (Hamlet 50/50), actor (Countess, All’s Well That Ends Well), and assistant production manager (2024 Community Company). A native of South Bend, Allison has performed locally for over two decades.
Allison has worked as an education artist for the American Shakespeare Center, Shakespeare at Notre Dame, and the South Bend Civic Theatre. During her Master of Letters graduate work at Mary Baldwin University, she devised lessons to introduce Shakespeare at the kindergarten level, and she was a founding member of the Motley Shakespeare Players while pursuing her Master of Fine Arts. Allison served as head of educational workshop development for the Motleys, and she was head editor for the company book Motley Minded, to which she contributed a chapter on playing Paulina in The Winter’s Tale during the rise of the #MeToo movement. Allison is a proud alumna of the Department of Theatre and Dance at Ball State University, and she has performed with the American Shakespeare Center, Prague Shakespeare Company, the Motley Shakespeare Players, Sweet Wag Shakespeare, Round Barn Theatre, Prairie Fire Children’s Theater, and the National Theatre for Children.