Take a look at these books. What a mixed bag of thoughts, ideas, and writing styles. If you attach each of these books to a person, bring them together and put them in the same space, you've got a really eclectic gathering.
We have these books at The Playhouse right now because we offered a ticket incentive to our patrons for the final weekend of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, the lovely production featuring Don Devona and Stephan Roselin that just closed this week. The books will be donated to the local chapter of
REACH OUT AND READ and the
Elm Grove Public Library and we can be thankful to our fabulous and eclectic group of patrons who make this contribution.
To me, sharing a book is sharing a bit of your personality and a bit of your history. I have a story in my head about all the books we collected and how they came into the individual lives of the people who were kind enough to pass them on to the next reader who will end up with one of these page turners. It got me thinking about The Playhouse, what we can do for you, and what challenges and opportunities we have for all our friends to participate in during the future.
I'll admit that a lot of my time is filled with facts, figures, spread sheets and donation requests. It sometimes can be daunting to keep the whole picture in perspective, and the way I recharge my batteries and understand the basic goodness of what we do at The Playhouse is to stop into a rehearsal, gab with one of our amazing volunteers when I might instead be adding numbers in a column, or peek in at a set being built onstage. I'll also admit that I've been bad about sharing those little moments when I see them and have had to rely on the kindness of a superb staff and volunteer base to keep putting the good word out about The Playhouse.
That's all about to change. I love blogs. I really do. And I love that The Playhouse maintains ths Troupes Blog honoring a lovely publication that used to be mailed to our volunteers on a semi-regular basis. I tasking myself with something today, and I need your help to keep me true to my word: today begins a daily process of posting at least one Playhouse experience from my perspective during the busy work week (okay, I've going to give myself the latitude of doing five posts a week sometime between Monday and Sunday because my schedule shifts due to production and sometimes the days can be full).
There's my April resolution for you all. My content. More blog. You'll continue to see fine stories from our volunteers and staff, but it's time for me to throw my voice in, too.
I mentioned opportunities and challenges, and there are many. Opportunities abound, and our biggest task is being specific about how you all can help. Today, I'll mention one of those.
Waterstone Bank is doing a pretty great thing to celebrate their 90th Anniversary. They are giving $90,000 to area nonprofits in a challenge. It's a simple one. You go online to
following this link vote for Sunset Playhouse as many times as you possibly can, and if we get the top number of votes we win $30,000. If we're not top dog but in the top four below that, we get $15,000. So vote away, my friends. My fingers have been clicking away.
This opportunity brings up one of our biggest challenges. When you look at the voting for the Waterstone Bank challenge you can learn a lot about a group. I hadn't heard about
Sophia's Heart, the top ranking group in this
Waterstone Bank Challenge, but when I looked on line and found it was Danny Gokey's charity, I was impressed. He's a cool dude, we all know, and his non-profit aspires to do great thing. Quickly he has done something really great, too--built a community that believes in supporting a worthy cause.
We've built a community, too. But we can do better. It comes down to us all believing in The Playhouse. I guess that's why I think it's important for me to challenge myself to tell you my Playhouse stories many times a week, because I believe abundantly in the goodness that we do here at The Playhouse. We may not have the star power of a Danny Gokey, right now, but we've got something really great to believe in for anyone who loves theatre, meeting friends, and believes in the value of education and volunteerism. Our numbers need to grow, and hopefully story upon story upon story we'll see our community swell in a super swell way. (
Warning: I have been accused of superlatives and embrace the accusation with gusto.)
Just have a great day today. And please vote if you're able. It's election time in your neighborhood, and voting makes you thinner, prettier and smarter (I know, I voted already.)
Jonathan West
Managing Director
