I’m speaking to you from the center of two mind-blowing experiences.
Cassie Rosenbrock as Audrey in Impact’s production of As You Like It. Warden Lawlor was her Touchstone. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.
The first involves a close friend of mine, the amazing and wonderful Cassie Rosenbrock. She’s been going through an incredibly difficult time, including the sudden and unexpected death of her father and her husband’s mysterious and debilitating illness they’re now hoping the Mayo Clinic can diagnose. All while giving birth to her second baby. This family is generous, warm, and full of love and humor. No, seriously– you would LOVE THEM. A few of her friends and I set up a donation site to help cover their ballooning medical expenses, and the money just roared in. We’re overwhelmed by the outpouring of support.
Lauren Spencer as Ulysses and Rogelio Landaverde as Paris in Impact’s production of Troilus and Cressida. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.
The second involves my theatre company, Impact Theatre. We’re a small company, living close to the bone. The first two shows of this season were huge successes– we were artistically satisfied, we got great reviews, and we had very happy audience members whose responses were very positive. We also raised artist stipends this season to match what other companies our size are paying. We’re still at the low end of that, to be honest, but we had to at least get on the board to remain competitive and continue to attract the best local talent. We have three upcoming shows this season we’re very excited about. We just made a local critic’s (the awesome Sam Hurwitt) list of top ten productions of 2013 with our summer show, Thao P. Nguyen’s Fortunate Daughter. On the surface, things couldn’t be better at Impact.
We have a commission opening this spring by rising star Christopher Chen called Mutt. It’s a political comedy about the hapa experience in America.
Unfortunately, neither of the two shows so far this season came even close to reaching sales goals, and, with very little cushion this year, we’re facing a truly terrifying financial crisis. We weren’t even sure how we were going to pay rent over the next few months. We don’t do donation campaigns very often. I think we’ve done about 3 or 4 since we started the company 18 years ago. We’re quite open about the fact that we accept donations, and we put words to that effect in our programs and on our website, but that end of the year letter or email you get addressed to “Mail Merge” from 132 places asking for donations during this season of giving? That’s just not something we usually do. We decided we really needed to if we wanted to live to fight another day, and put out a call for donations. And again, the money just came roaring in. It was overwhelming. I got email notice after notice after notice with donations from actors, audience members, former Impact members who had moved away. We received donations from people we only knew through social media. Twenty-four hours into it, and it looks like we might, if this keeps up, reach our goal.
I was floored going through all the emails. I could not stop crying.
I believe the “meaning of life” is to live in service to others. I have a personal mission to somehow help everyone I meet to success and happiness. I want to leave the world, and people’s lives, better for having known me. I always want to be the person who reaches out to help.
But nothing, NOTHING could have prepared me for what it was like to reach out *for* help and see 100 hands reaching back to me. It’s been one of the singlemost humbling experiences of my life.
The amazing Thao P. Nguyen, whose solo performance this summer at Impact, Fortunate Daughter, was voted one of the top ten Bay Area productions of 2013.
The world is remarkable. Yes, it’s shit, and people are awful, and politics are awful and terrible people say terrible things on terrible TV shows about their terrible beliefs. But the world is remarkable, full of love, and hope, and kindness.
My blog will be a year old in a few days. I’m grateful for each and every one of you who read it. Thank you so much for helping to make this such a remarkable year. Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Capturing the Impact holiday spirit perfectly are Jax Steager, Impact’s resident lighting designer, Read Tuddenham, our production manager, and Sarah Coykendall, one of our resident actors.
