TN Shakespeare Co. Will Host Children's Literacy Gala

Tennessee Shakespeare Company will host its 16th annual Children’s Literacy Gala on Saturday, May 3 at 6:00 pm: “American Celebrity Poetry-Slam” where the audience will decide the winners from our participating poets on the competitive runway.

Famous contestants likely will include Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Frost, Jack Kerouac, Mary Oliver, Maya Angelou, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Frederick Douglass, and more.

TSC also will honor longtime White Station High School English teacher Theresa Fairchild with its third annual “Teacher of the Year” Award, sponsored by Gossett Motor Cars.

All proceeds from the Gala will go toward TSC’s Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund and the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund: supporting a variety of Education and Outreach Programs for the coming year and making possible as many as 30,000 points of contact with children and participants of all ages in over 50 area schools, detention centers, and the Memphis V.A. Hospital.  

TSC’s Gala will feature the award presentation to Ms. Fairchild, her remarks, a festive buffet feast, open bars, fun live and silent auctions, and a chance to enter and win the drawing for a Broadway Trip for Two to NYC sponsored by Thane Smith.

The live auction will feature framed throwback jerseys autographed by Memphis Grizzlies basketball stars Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson, Jr., as well as the FedEx Flight Simulator experience, and a year’s worth of homemade ice cream.

The on-stage centerpiece of the evening will feature TSC’s first “American Celebrity Poetry-Slam” gameshow, which will feature 12 of the country’s foremost poets costumed for the new Tabor Stage runway competing against one another to be crowned TSC’s American Poet Laureate.  

In single-elimination sectionals starting with quarterfinals, two poets will go head-to-head reading their famous works (or the ones they believe will topple their specific opponent).  Then, the Gala audience will vote on the winners who will advance to the next round until the champion Laureate is crowned.  

TSC’s Associate Artistic Producer Stephanie Shine will emcee the fun evening.  Actors on stage as our poets will include Dan McCleary, Lauren Gunn, Cheleen Sugar, Marquis Dijon Archuleta, Kierra Turner, Chris Cotton, Michael Khanlarian, Stuart Heyman, and Lorraine Cotten.

Attire is festive.  Seating will be limited to 220 guests.

TSC annually works with children ages 5-18, primarily in Title 1 schools, as well as incarcerated youths and military Veterans in near-daily programming that develops students’ literacy, desire to read, and compassion.  Those acclaimed programs include the Romeo and Juliet Project, the Macbeth Initiative, Feast of Crispian-South, Poetic Justice, and Juvenile Justice.  

“Right now, few other professional, regional theatres in the country are continuing to expand education and outreach programming as successfully as TSC,” says founder and Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary. “That is due to two things: our staff of teachers and artists and administrators are committed to being of service to everyone everywhere, particularly in challenging environments; and because this Gala annually provides the funding necessary for each year’s expansion.  That equates to hundreds and hundreds of community friends being uniquely generous.  Our children, families, and I thank you.”

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