March, 2008

 

Dear Friends:
If you are reading this, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your generous, at times indeed heroic, efforts on BC/EFA’s behalf over the last six months.

Together we enjoyed the warm days of autumn and the eager anticipation of a new theatre season.   In 21 years, seldom have we had a more beautiful Sunday for The Broadway Flea Market.   Six weeks later, together we faced the crises of an unprecedented 19-day strike on Broadway.  Since the health of BC/EFA is tied directly to the robust artistic and commercial health of Broadway,  there was no better news than that a settlement had been reached between The Broadway League and IATSE-Local One on the evening of November 28. BC/EFA joined the entire Broadway community in its thrill to be back at work, operating at full steam.

The permissions, the support, the efforts on-stage, backstage and in management offices across the neighborhood allow BC/EFA a unique opportunity to fund a “safety net” of social services for all of us in the community, as well as for many across the country who may never be lucky enough to attend a Broadway, Off-Broadway or national touring show.

But BC/EFA’s fundraising efforts are a combination of the generosity of so many in the theatre community coupled with that of our generous corporate sponsors; major donors; auction, event tickets, merchandise, Care-Tix, and Carecare buyers, as well as thousands of individual donors who live and work well beyond these 20 blocks making up the Broadway theatre district.   Special thanks to our intrepid volunteers whose personal gift of time, effort and enthusiasm is boundless and incalculable.   Our thanks to all.  It is a unique equation of which we all can be very proud.

More importantly, I hope you know the difference each of you has made in the lives of thousands: perhaps someone sitting right next to you at a dressing table backstage; someone living on life’s edge, or a family facing a crisis and needing a hand to pull themselves up and recover what was or feels lost.   We’ve all been there in some way.   Thank you for sharing your current good fortune with someone “going through it” today.

I hope you’ll read through this edition of Behind the Scenes.  But I also believe what one of my favorite writers, George Bernard Shaw, expressed when he wrote, “the greatest problem of communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”   No kidding.

So, you’ll hear from us again in six months.  In the meantime, give yourselves a grand standing ovation!!

With great appreciation and affection,

Tom Viola

Executive Director