Theater Resources Unlimited is pleased to announce the sixth
annual TRU Love Benefit honoring producer and friend, Cheryl Wiesenfeld. On Sunday afternoon, November 11 from 1-4PM
at the legendary Sardi's (234 W. 44th Street in Manhattan), Wiesenfeld will be given
the TRU Spirit of Theater Award, which TRU gives each year to a person in the
performing arts community who has demonstrated noteworthy generosity and helped
nurture young producers.
The star-studded event will include a performance from Tony
winner and 2007 Emmy Award winner Elaine Stritch (schedule permitting).
Additional performances include: Tonya Pinkins (Tony Award
winner for Jelly's Last Jam), who
will perform a song from Caroline, or
Change, recreating her Tony Award nominated performance; Mia Dillon and
Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey
and David and Lisa) will perform an
excerpt from The Exonerated with an
introduction by the playwright, Jessica Blank; Laura Marie Duncan will perform
a song from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,
with which she toured; and Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter will perform an
excerpt from In the Continuum which
they co-wrote and performed in New York and in South Africa. Performances will
also include songs from Legally Blonde
and two upcoming new musicals that have been selected for this year's TRU
Voices new musicals reading series.
Wiesenfeld has been a supporter of TRU for over five years,
helping to underwrite the annual scholarships TRU gives to aspiring producers
who wish to attend the Commercial Theater Institute's 14-week training program.
She was the first official mentor in TRU's Producer Mentorship Program, and has
mentored a half dozen emerging producers in the last two years. The Benefit Co-Chairs
are all people Wiesenfeld has mentored: Mari Carras, Van Dean and Hillary
Cutter of Van Hill Productions (Saint
Heaven), Janet Pailet (The Grinch Who
Stole Christmas), Melissa Maxwell and Jean Marie Donnelly (who Wiesenfeld
advised on a recent production of the show Black
Man Rising which garnered four Audelco Award nominations).
Tickets for the benefit, including a full luncheon at Sardi's,
are $150 for "Circle of Angels" seats at the Honoree Tables (includes
a Patron Gift Bag) and $100 for unreserved tables. A Silent Auction will
include tickets to Legally Blonde, The Color Purple and the Broadway
production of In the Heights, as well
as a $5,000 photo portrait sitting from Renaissance Portraits, massages, acting
coaching and assorted gift items. Tickets may be purchased online at www.truonline.org/store.htm, additional
details of the event may be found by visiting the TRU website at www.truonline.org and click the link for
the 2007 TRU Love Benefit.
The benefit will raise money to support TRU's programs,
including the upcoming TRU Voices New Musicals Series and the Spring New Plays
Reading Series, in which TRU offers producers an opportunity to do a
developmental reading of a new work. Plays in the series have gone on to be
part of the New York International Fringe Festival, the Midtown International
Theater Festival, NYMF and NAMT, several have had productions in New York. Several have
even found producers and productions as a result of the series. As the series
is only 9 years old, TRU expects that many more works will go on to even
greater success in the coming years.
