We had a wonderful fundraiser last night at Occidental College's Keck Theater. The Burglars of Hamm did an amazing, extended performance of "Easy Targets." And we had a fantastic turnout.
I was a little nervous going in with only 37 reservations. And I was not sure which of those might just be donations and not actually ticket sales. I joined the Burglars in rehearsal and we bagged up 60 bags of socks, figuring that would be plenty.
But then MANY people showed up at the door, which was fantastic. I saw friends I never excepted to see. An old high school friend, friends from Singular Productions, a theater company I was a member of, CalArts friends, Oxy friends, work friends, even Soren's teacher from UCLA! A large number of students came, which I was really happy about. And as our sock-sellers were handing out the socks, we looked in the bins and saw that we were running out of our 60 bags. We ran backstage to find the extra duffel and bin of unbagged socks. Then we scrambled to find bags. It was the best problem to have!
Soon we were just handing people handfuls of socks. I think we sat over 100 people. The sock-sellers were working frantically between monologues to restock people's sock supplies.
And, MAN, can those audience members hit hard! When I sang my Vagina Song, there were moments my microphone protected me from a sock to the face. Though I got plenty of those as well. And I must say, in my return to the stage after 9 years, I had a blast. I sported an "I Heart Vaginas" T-shirt. I got swamped by socks on certain lines of the song. I heard groans of displeasure. It was great.
The rest of the Burglars--Albert, Carol, Matt, Jon, and special guest Pat--all gave FANTASTIC performances and were properly pummelled.
I thank the Burglars for their time, Occidental College for the beautiful theater of Keck, the Theater Department for the services of Brian Fitzmorris and the AMAZING crew--all of whom gave up their time free of charge for this event. These people know how to run a smooth show!
And to all of you!
On the money front, our presale tickets were $780. Then with the tickets at the door, sock selling, and a few on-sight donations, we made a little over $1,760 (I haven’t counted the loose change yet. Students were shelling out nickels and dimes to buy socks!). And donations from folks who couldn't make it to the show but wanted to contribute came to $4,090. That’s a total of $6,630! Not too shabby!
And with that, we met our $5,000 matching funds from The Talbert Family Foundation. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for being so generous, for coming out, and for helping us with our beautiful son Soren!
Amy
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