"Giving and Getting"
Supporter and Recipient Spotlight
The Giving and Getting feature has become an especially popular one among our Foundation Newsletter readers. Usually it features a single recipient. This quarter, all of the members of our campus community are potential beneficiaries.
Over the years, thousands of Las Positas College students, faculty and staff have enjoyed performances by San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare on Tour. Since 2006, the LPC Foundation has underwritten annual campus visits by talented actors who perform one-hour versions of such plays as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and, most recently, Macbeth.
The scripts include all major plot points and the well-known speeches of each play and feature professional props and Elizabethan-era music.
At the conclusion of the show, the actors answer questions from the students, many of whom report that this is the first time they have seen a Shakespeare play.
The professionally-directed 55-minute show is performed in Shakespeare's original text and, for interested teachers, includes three weeks of one-hour lesson plans designed to prepare students for a better understanding of the plot, themes, character motives, and language found in Shakespeare's writing. The lesson plans are written by the play's director Rebecca J. Ennals, who is renowned for her ability to make Shakespeare accessible to audiences of all levels.
As for continued funding of these amazing performances, "To be or not to be" is no longer the question since the LPC Foundation has earmarked funds for at least another two years of performances by Shakespeare on Tour.
Before the LPC Foundation was founded in 2003, a dedicated group of faculty and staff members got together to create a fundraising group, aptly called the "Angels for the Performing Arts."
In the mid-1990s, dismayed by limited funding, the Angels embarked on a series of fundraising events. They hosted community members at opening night dinners and receptions for drama productions; presented "Pasta Pizazz and Vocal Jazz" at a local winery that included fine Italian food and music by the LPC jazz choir as well as many other clever events.
The Angels began the process of Giving by establishing an account at the College to provide student scholarships; to help pay incidental expenses for the speech, drama and music departments; and to bring the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's touring company to campus.
The Angels' account was transferred to the LPC Foundation when it began. Some original members of the group retired, while others moved on to other projects, but the Angels' account still exists through the Foundation and still supports the yearly Shakespeare Festival performances.
Remaining members of the LPC Angels hope that in this time of severe and disheartening budget crunches, community members will continue to contribute to the Angels' account at the Las Positas College Foundation to support students and programs in the performing arts at LPC.
All of the members of the Las Positas College campus community join in saying, thank you Angels!
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