A Cat In A Box
Sunday, November 2nd - Saturday , November 8th

Tom Nemec -performer, Jim Mendrinos-Director

A Cat in a Box is a raw, deeply personal solo performance that takes the audience into one man’s difficult childhood and his journey toward healing. Through evocative monologues, Tom shares the emotional landscape of growing up in a household shadowed by his father’s alcoholism, anger, and absence of love.

Set mostly in the memory-filled spaces of a family home, the show explores the fear of waiting for a drunken father to come home, the silence enforced to avoid conflict, and the loneliness of a child who must fend for himself emotionally. Tom’s storytelling is darkly humorous, revealing the complexities of love, loss, and survival in a fractured family.

The audience follows Tom’s coming-of-age—from the stifling environment of elementary school, through the confusion and despair of adolescence, to the moments that shaped his adult life. The show does not shy away from difficult truths: emotional scars that linger, isolation, and the struggle to be seen and heard.

A Cat in a Box is more than a story of trauma. It is about resilience, the sparks of hope and imagination that sustained Tom when no one else could, and the long road toward self-acceptance and purpose. Through candid reflections on addiction, numbness, and identity, Tom reveals how he found a path forward by turning pain into compassion—ultimately choosing to work with children and break the cycle.

The show invites the audience to witness a life marked by hardship and courage—the courage to face difficult memories, find meaning in struggle, and keep going even when the future seems uncertain.

With humor, honesty, and emotional depth, A Cat in a Box is a testament to storytelling’s power and the human spirit’s capacity to heal. It speaks to anyone who has ever felt alone or misunderstood, offering a message of hope that no matter how dark the past, the present holds the possibility of light.

CONTENT WARNING: brief mild profanity