Magic Theatre's 2018 Gala to Honor John Marx and Toni Rembe Rock

Magic Theatre (Loretta Greco, Artistic Director and Jaimie Mayer, Managing Director) announced today that the theatre's 2018 gala fundraiser, Magic Masquerade, will be held at the Julia Morgan Ballroom on Friday, March 9, 2018 at 6:00 p.m.

The gala will honor legendary playwright Sam Shepard - who premiered many of his seminal plays, including the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Buried Child, at Magic - by bestowing the inaugural Sam Shepard Legacy Award to longtime Magic supporters (and Bay Area trailblazers) John Marx and Toni Rembe Rock. The evening will also include a Sam Shepard Tribute Performance, directed by Magic Theatre Artistic Director Loretta Greco. The performance will feature Magic favorites Patrick Alparone, Jessie Campbell, Rod Gnapp, Julia McNeil and Sean San Jose.

"Almost 50 years ago," said Magic Theatre's Artistic Director Loretta Greco, "Sam Shepard embarked on a journey with Magic Theatre - a journey that would include the creation and premiere of 7 of his most enduring works. Magic Theatre provided him with an artistic home to explore, create and thrive during these formative years. The art he created allowed audiences to viscerally explore the essential elements of humanity and dared audiences to feel beyond themselves. Sam challenged the status quo and forged the way for countless other playwrights to dream and discover their own voices. Magic Theatre has continued to be the artistic safe-haven for the writer's vision to flourish. This accomplishment has only been made possible by visionary cultural stakeholders, like John Marx and Tony Rembe Rock, who were galvanized by Sam's unprecedented impact on the American theatre."

The Magic Theatre Board of Directors and Gala Committee - comprised of Ian Atlas, Kathryn Kersey, Jeremy Kotin, Corky LaVallee, John Marx, Matt Sorgenfrei, Alan Stewart, Bennett G. Young, Loretta Greco, Artistic Director and Jaimie Mayer, Managing Director - are overseeing the planning of this special event in partnership with Magic Theatre's Director of Development Gabrielle Chapple.

The Gala Committee includes Alexandra Corvin, Debbie Degutis, Kathryn Kersey, Jeremy Kotin, Matt Pagel, Joshua Reynolds, Alan Stewart and Leigh Wolf. Table packages are available from $15,000 - $5,000, and individual tickets are available from $750 - $500. Tickets and packages are available online at magictheatre.org/masquerade-ticket or by contacting Gabrielle Chapple at (415) 263-9047 or via email at gabriellec@magictheatre.org.

About John Marx

John Marx, AIA, is the founding design principal of Form4 Architecture in San Francisco, CA. He has widely lectured on the topics of Design, Placemaking, Emotional Meaning and Cultural Vibrancy in Silicon Valley and places as diverse as Korea, Italy, Austria, Australia, Canada and the Technion in Israel. Most recently John exhibited his work at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, and will be exhibiting in the upcoming 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. John's design work, and writing has been published in over 100 national and international publications, including the Architectural Review, Architect's Newspaper, Architect Magazine, Abitare, ARCADE, FORM Magazine, Domus, Architectural Record, Arts and Architecture, and ArchDaily. He is the recipient of over 140 design awards, including: Six German Design Council / Iconic Design Awards, Four WAN Civic Buildings Awards, Four American Architecture Awards (Chicago Athenaeum), Five Good Green Design Award (European Centre for Architecture), AZURE Design Award, AIA Justice National Design, Two AIA Honor Awards, Ten PCPC Gold Nuggets, and The Korean Institute of Architects 100 Architects of 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. In 2017, John became a Laureate of the American Prize for Architecture. Curated by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture, the award is recognized nationally and internationally as America's highest public tribute for architecture in the United States.

About Toni Rembe Rock

Toni Rembe grew up in Seattle, and did her undergraduate work at the University of Washington and the University of Geneva in Switzerland. After receiving a law degree from the University of Washington and a master's degree in taxation at New York University School of Law, she joined the law firm of Chadbourne & Parke in New York. In 1964 she returned to the West Coast and joined the law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (formerly Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro), specializing in international and tax law, and served for many years as the managing partner of the firm's tax practice. She also served as a member of Pillsbury's governing executive committee.

Now, a retired partner at the Pillsbury firm, she is President of the van Loben Sels/Rembe Rock Foundation, a private foundation focusing in the area of public interest law, and a board member of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. She is a co-founder and member of the board of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University. Toni formerly served on the boards of AT&T, Potlatch, Transamerica, Pacific Telesis, Safeco, APL Ltd., and AEGON N.V. (a Dutch company). She is a member of the advisory board and a past chair of The American Conservatory Theatre, and past president of the Commonwealth Club of California. She is also a member of Theatre Communications Group's National Council for the American Theatre.

About Magic Theatre

Now celebrating its 51st year of continuous operation, Magic is dedicated to creative risk: we cultivate bold new plays and playwrights to produce incendiary and ideologically robust stories that ask substantive questions about our place in humanity. Magic provides a nurturing yet rigorous artistic home where innovative writers can create a body of work. We believe that developing an evolved artistic vocabulary with the playwright at our side greatly improves a playwright's chances to thrive. By adding voices to the canon, we ensure the vibrancy of the American theatre.

Magic's impact has resonated throughout the country and beyond since its founding by John Lion in 1967; Lion brought in Sam Shepard and Michael McClure as playwrights-in-residence, establishing Magic as a space for the communion of playwright and audience. From these early plays to the World Premieres of Luis Alfaro's Oedipus el Rey and Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge and Hir, Magic continues to produce groundbreaking new work.

Since Artistic Director Loretta Greco assumed leadership of Magic in 2008, the theatre has produced nineteen world premieres, seventeen of which have enjoyed life beyond the Magic stage. Magic plays have received numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, ten Obie Awards, the Kennedy Center Award, Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards, and the NAACP Image Award.

To post a comment, you must register and login.