June 10: Final Stage & Screen Night at PT

Join Pacific Theatre's Artistic Director Ron Reed and special guest Jan Keisser for the last in our series of Stage & Screen nights. We'll be talking about PT's current show, the sparkling comedy YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU. Members of the cast will be joining us to show some scenes from our production, and we'll be comparing not only the beloved 1938 Frank Capra film treatment, which fundamentally changes the focus of the story, but also a videotape of the 1984 Broadway revival starring Jason Robards.

For more about celebrated Canadian cinematographer Jan Keisser, check the Stage & Screen post about DRIVING MISS DAISY. And you can get a sneak preview of some of my thoughts over at the Soul Food Movies blog.

Hope to see you there!

For tickets to Stage & Screen or the Pacific Theatre production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, call our box office at 731-5518 or order online. And if you want a look at the DVD... You know where to go... Videomatica!

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This season's special Stage and Screen events have been sponsored by Rhema Health Products. You know, it's easy to assume that sponsorship for the arts is some obligatory thing that multinational corporations dole out, a tiny line item from a massive budget that's portioned out from some remote corporate office someplace. But at Pacific Theatre, these sponsors really are just like anybody else in our audience: enthusiastic fans of the work we create who step forward to get involved. Less than 7% of our annual budget comes from government sources, and 3% from large public foundations: all the rest is from our audience, who buy tickets and subscriptions (about 45% of our revenue) and make charitable donations (the other 45%), whether as individuals or through the companies and foundations they are involved with.

This amazing support from Rhema is an especially great story. In 2006, a couple contacted us out of the blue and said they were long-time fans who had just seen A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR and decided it was time to begin supporting Pacific Theatre's work financially. Within a couple weeks a cheque arrived for $7000, a year ago they increased that support to $10,000 (to sponsor our Stage & Screen series), and this year they've decided to make that $15,000 to underwrite next season's Emerging Artist Showcase production of YOU STILL CAN'T.

Artists can feel pretty isolated and unsupported. But that hasn't been Pacific Theatre's story, because of the extraordinary affirmation and practical support of our audience. It's not just a platitude to say that PT is more than just a group of actors and other theatre artists: those folks are just the most visible part of a pretty large community of people who are as invested in the life of this company as the ones you see onstage or in the office. Thanks Rhema. Thanks, Holy Trinity Church. Thanks, all of you.