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September 9, 2022 • Volume VIII, Number 11
"Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway."
-- Kent M. Keith (born May 22, 1948), is an American author, educator and religious scholar. This is the seventh stanza of his poem, The Paradoxical Commandments, inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta, and often mistakenly ascribed to her. Keith wrote the poem to minimal acclaim while a student at Harvard in the late 1960s. He has no idea how it came to the attention of Mother Teresa.
Excitement was palpable last night as we launched our first rehearsal for the East Coast Premiere of Chicken & Biscuits, the acclaimed Broadway comedy that will open our 22-23 Signature Season at the historic November Theatre on Sept 30. C & B tells the story of the Jenkins family reuniting to celebrate the life of their recently deceased father. The blessings of reunion threaten to unravel when a family secret shows up at the funeral. Playwright Douglas Lyons showed up himself at the first rehearsal, via Zoom. “Broadway and Hollywood love to see Black people pillaged, raped, struggling, oppressed,” Lyons said. “That’s not the majority of my experience. There was so much laughter and food and love everywhere. I’m trying to bring that joy center stage.” Bringing her own joy to the rehearsal, Virginia Rep veteran Tyandria Jaaber, who is playing teenage granddaughter La’Trice, shared that she won NYC’s Amateur Night at the Apollo the night before. Her new stage family couldn’t have been happier in sharing her joy.
In honor of Labor Day, we’ve assembled the following information. One of Virginia Rep’s many significant contributions to our community is this: we proudly stand among Virginia’s leading employers of creative talent in professional performing arts. During the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022, even though still firmly in the shadow of COVID, we employed 249 actors, directors, designers, playwrights, musicians, production workers and arts administrators, paying $2,648,533 in salaries and fees, exclusive of benefits. This amounts to approximately 54.6% of our total operating budget. 82% of this compensation was earned by and paid to artists based in Greater Richmond. Approximately 23% of these artists worked for Virginia Rep for the first time in fiscal 2022.
Martha Vannoy with Guy Fieri
We were saddened to learn this week of the death of Martha Vannoy, a former member of Virginia Rep’s Board of Directors. We met Martha when she traveled to London with us on one of our pre-COVID annual theatre trips. After serving on our Board for five years, Martha stepped back from Virginia Rep for health reasons. This week we learned of Martha’s passing through her financial advisor, who told us she had named Virginia Rep as a beneficiary of an annuity. This generous remembrance will amount to the largest bequest in our history. After struggling through the last years of COVID-related challenges, this heartfelt support came at just the right time. If you would like to join those who choose to remember Virginia Rep in financial planning, please contact Phil Whiteway at 804-592-4552. Be assured that your support is much needed, will be wisely spent and greatly appreciated.
We received (and appreciate!) a record-breaking 11 “talkbacks” this week. Thank you. The prompt involved the upcoming decisions we will be making regarding reducing the size of our playbills to lesson our environmental impact. Overall, 4 of you welcomed the idea of smaller playbills with more online content, 3 of you preferred keeping things as they are, and 4 of you were caught somewhere in the middle. We promise to respect everyone’s input; we’ll publish our decision soon. One of our favorite comments came from Beth F.: “As an old woman who loves to read about the actors in the shows I’m seeing, I do enjoy the full playbill. But as a grandmother who wants there to be a safe planet for my beloved grandchildren to live on and have grandchildren of their own, I’m willing to give up the hard copy playbill for the good of us all. I vote for the QR code! I’m sure one of those grandchildren can teach me how to use it :)"
We encourage your comments, corrections and feedback. Please email your thoughts to mhaber@virginiarep.org.
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