June 28, 2019 -- Volume VI, Issue 23

This will be the final Good News Friday with Virginia Rep listed first on the masthead. On Mon, July 1, I begin my new job as Executive Director of the Chesterfield Cultural Arts Foundation, and the masthead positions of Virginia Rep and the CCAF will flip. Virginia Rep will continue its weekly e-newsletter which comes from the desk of Dir. of Communications, Liz Nance. It will continue to showcase all the news at Virginia Rep. If you don’t receive the Virginia Rep e-newsletter, you can contact lnance@virginiarep.org. Liz can help ensure that you’re receiving what you’d like to receive. Good News Friday will continue too, but it will become the weekly e-newsletter of the CCAF / Virginia Rep partnership. As in the recent past, it will continue to include performing arts features about Chesterfield AND its partners, including Virginia Rep, Swift Creek Mill Theatre, and others. If you’d like to stop receiving GNF, all you have to do is reply to this email with the word “unsubscribe,” or “please unsubscribe” if you’d like to be polite. I promise I won’t be offended. One final note: GNF started as a personal email to arts supporter and good friend Phyllis Galanti when she became ill. Since then it has always been a labor of love … a chance to share good news related to RVA theatre with other arts supporters. All plans are to continue in that tradition. Many thanks for your support. 

A major partnership that has existed between Virginia Rep and Chesterfield since 1983 is Community Health + Wellness (CH+W). The mission of CH+W is this: “Powered by research and innovation, we create, implement, evaluate, and promote model projects that demonstrate how theatre can positively and effectively impact vital community issues.” Hugs and Kisses, which I co-wrote and directed in 1983, has been VA’s principal child sexual abuse prevention program for 36 years. It was our first CH+W program. The commitment that drives Hugs and all CH+W programs is as much a part of me as my brain and heart. When I resigned from Virginia Rep, Phil and Board Chair Jeff Gallagher encouraged me to continue to lead CH+W. When I was offered my job in Chesterfield, I said that the CH+W commitment came with me. They approved. So, the longstanding Virginia Rep / Chesterfield partnership is still in place and expanding, to the benefit, I believe, of all concerned. I will soon begin my work leading the latest CH+W project—organizing a cooperative venture in support of prevention of and early intervention in human trafficking. Working with me, and representing local law enforcement on the Statewide Advisory Committee, is Col. Jeffrey Katz, Chief of Police, Chesterfield Co. Virginia’s children will become safer because of this partnership. Much more to come. 

We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. When we planned the Ground Breaking for the Baxter Perkinson Center for the Arts for one of the first days of a predictably sweltering RVA summer, we didn’t know if we should expect 20 people or 200. Thankfully, 200 was approximately the number of arts lovers who actually showed up, with 160 filling every chair under the tent and close to 40 more standing in the sun. Yours truly emceed. Featured speakers included the Honorable Dorothy Jaeckle, elected member to the Board of Supervisors from the Bermuda District; Dr. Joseph P. Casey, County Administrator; Art Heinz, Chair of the Chesterfield Economic Development Authority; Hugh Cline, Chair of the Chesterfield Cultural Arts Foundation; and Barry Matthews, son of Betty Matthews, the civic activist who lobbied for the Center for over 20 years. Pastor Shawn Franco from Cornerstone Assembly of God offered the Invocation, and Mariah Lyttle, who plays Dorothy in Virginia Rep’s production of The Wiz, sang the stirring anthem Home. Joining in the shovel line were philanthropists Baxter and Elaine Perkinson as well as Donna Dean Stevens and her husband Jayson, members of the County Board of Supervisors, members of the Board of the Chesterfield Cultural Arts Foundation, and leaders from the community of RVA professional and avocational artists.   

I hopped and skipped around a bit last week to wax lyrical about The Drama Book Shop. To get back on track, I’d been reporting on Saturday: had breakfast at the Galaxy Diner, purchased my matinee ticket for Burn This at TKTS Times Square, visited site of former Drama Book Shop on 40^th. Then I headed to the satellite Lincoln Center TKTS Booth, located in the Rubenstein Atrium at 61 W 62^nd St. Here’s the deal. At the flagship TKTS Booth in Times Square, you can purchase tickets ONLY for the next time slot. In other words, from 10 am until 2 pm on Sat, you can purchase ONLY tickets for that day’s matinee performances. Here’s a tip lots of people don’t know. At the two smaller satellite TKTS operations (one at Lincoln Center and the other at South Street Seaport), opening Sat at noon and 11 a.m. respectively, you can purchase half-price tickets for that day’s matinee and evening shows AND the next day’s matinee. There’s no Fast Pass returning customer line at the satellite locations; no Play Express line for non-musicals. But the overall line is MUCH shorter. So I arrived at the Lincoln Center line at about 11:15, and within ten minutes after the Booth opened at noon, I’d purchased Terrie’s evening tkt for The Cher Show and my evening tkt for Ink. For full information about the three TKTS Booths, visit the Theatre Development Fund website.

“I’m of two minds,” emailed Gerald Tomkins. “I confess I’m among those who like the brevity of Good News Friday. I get too many emails and I appreciate your working to boil down your thoughts to make it quick and easy. But also, when I read the slightly longer piece on The Drama Book Shop, I enjoyed every word and can’t imagine what you could’ve or should’ve left out to make it shorter. I say just keep doing what you’re doing. You seem to have a good sense of what works.” Thanks, Gerry. No one else rose to the challenge of addressing the serializing and length questions, so, I’m gonna keep following my gut. Three of you sent in your own love letters to the Drama Book Shop, including this valentine from Barb Johnson-Knowles. “The only location I ever knew about or went to was the one on 40^th St, which I discovered by accident. I was starving before a Wed matinee and hunting for Capizzi Pizza because Joan had told me they had an Eggplant Parmesan Pizza I’d love. On the way toward 9^th I passed his unassuming storefront and sign that said Drama Book Shop, and I couldn’t resist. I went in, and wound up staying for over an hour, missing lunch entirely. But it was heaven for someone like me who loves reading about theatre. Thanks for the new information.” Thank you, Barb, for giving me the name of another pizza place to try!