Did You See What You Did?

Today is your last opportunity to make tax-deductible donations in 2011. We hope that you will include Theatre East in your giving. As we gear up for our most ambitious season yet, we’re counting on your support once again. For the first time, Theatre East will produce a full season, starting off in fall 2012 with the WORLD premiere of Bennett Windheim’s NORMALCY, a play that uses transracial adoption as a catalyst to have an honest & candid dialogue about race in America through the prism of a well-meaning, well-to-do white couple contemplating the adoption of an African-American child.

Then in spring 2013 we'll produce the New York premiere of an amazing play that we're currently in negotiations for (and can’t quite announce yet). But you’ll hear about it soon! We’ll of course continue the Neighborhood Reading Series and educational programming. And we can’t wait to bring it all to you!

So, what do we need to pull all this off? $120,000.

That may sound steep, but a gift of just $25 can put us on our way. For more information click here. You can also go here to see all the benefits of giving; this is just a small way for us to thank you for your support. As always, every gift is truly appreciated.

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Mother Teresa Would Want You to Donate to the Arts

from William Franke, Director of Development & Communications

Ahh, it's the holiday season...when everyone is so busy wrapping up work projects, shopping for gifts, going to parties...and attending fundraising benefits for nonprofit organizations.

I know that for me, it's hard to prioritize which types of charities to give to. Even for people in the arts, it seems like there are so many more important causes out there.

Then I heard this story on The Moth, which is a collection of real people telling their true stories on stage. The guest host for the Moth’s Chicago story slam evening, Peter Sagal (host of NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me) related this story at the end of the evening that his friend, Morgan, had told him about Mother Teresa:

When she was younger, Morgan was a dramaturg and, for whatever reason, she became quite infatuated with Mother Teresa and thought her the apotheosis of humanity. Her obsession with her ran to the point that, when she learned Mother Teresa was in New York for some kind of official visit (back in the ’80s), she tracked down the hotel she was staying at and went to see her. She caught up with Mother Teresa as she was getting out of a car (with a cadre of nuns) and proceeded to gush “Oh, Mother Teresa, the work you do is so wonderful; the work you do is so important and it’s so wonderful and I just want to come to Calcutta and do that work with you. Because I just think it’s so wonderful.” 

And Mother Teresa gently shook her head and said “No, no, you don’t do this work because you think it’s good; you do this work because you so love the poor people of Calcutta with whom I work, that you can’t be away from them. That’s when you come and you do this work.”

Morgan stood there, realizing she’d been gently rebuked, when Mother Teresa asked what it was she did. Morgan replied “Well, what I do is not important. What I do is I work in a theater and I help put on plays, and what use is that?”

To which Mother Teresa replied, “There are so many different kinds of famine in this world. In my country there is a famine of the body. In this country, there is a famine of the spirit. Stay here and feed your people.”

With your help, we promise to continue doing our part to nourish & feed the people in our community as best we can.

Now, you may have noticed that Theatre East is not throwing a year-end fundraising gala, but that doesn't mean we aren't trying to raise funds! We'll be in touch about a live event in the spring. But for now, since we know everyone is so busy, we thought we'd keep the time commitment low with an event on Facebook; or you can go directly to our website.
With your donations, we'll be able to continue bringing you plays like The Solider Dreams and Eye of God. We're currently ramping up for our most ambitious season yet—our first full season, starting off in fall 2012 with the WORLD premiere of Bennett Windheim’s Normalcy, a play that uses transracial adoption as a catalyst to have an honest and candid dialogue about race in America through the prism of a well-meaning, well-to-do white couple contemplating the adoption of an African-American child. We'll also be continuing our educational efforts with the New Rites Collective.

Thank you so much for your support, now at the end of the year & always.

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illustration by Nadia Nadege

Chase Community Giving 2011

Chase is giving away $3 million to 100 small nonprofits—like Theatre East! If you're on Facebook, it only takes a couple of clicks to help us secure at least $25,000 of that $3 million pie:

1. Go to Chase's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving
2. Click the "Like" button up in the top middle of the page
• If you already "Like" Chase Community Giving, go to the menu on the left-hand side & click on "Chase Giving"
3. Click on the green  Get in on the giving  button
4. In the upper right, enter Theatre East in the "Find charities..." box and click  GO 
5. Go to page 3 of the results and click on Theatre East (don't ask me why, but we're #4 on page 3) UPDATE: including our ZIP code helps narrow it down, so enter theatre east 10108 and we should be the only choice that pops up!
6. Click on the link for THEATRE EAST New York, NY 10108
7. Click on the big green  Vote & Share  button
8. THANKS! You've cast a vote for us to win $25,000 or more. You can share your vote on your wall if you like. You can also vote for 9 other charities

Voting ends in 3 5 6 days on 11/22/2011.
If you'd like to view a demo, click here.

Right now we need at least 790 675 610 570 480 votes to crack into the Top 100 & get $25,000 to Put Community Back in Theatre and bring you productions like EYE OF GOD and THE SOLDIER DREAMS and teach underserved kids the power of the arts for self expression with our Educational Program THE NEW RITES COLLECTIVE.

If all of our Facebook friends who like the Theatre East page vote, we could crack the Top 20!


Of course, you can always donate directly to Theatre East via our website!

TheatreEast.org
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