Scenes from famous musicals and rock-n-roll will be featured at “Off, Off, Off Broadway,” the fourth annual fall fundraiser and membership drive for the Foundation for the Chilkat Center for the Arts.
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 19 with a champagne reception for the foundation’s founding members and Adopt-A-Seat sponsors. The main show starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission of $20 covers entertainment and food.
Organizer Lorrie Dudzik said entertainment will include at least eight acts, including two performances by Jackie Ruggirello’s dance group. The dancers will perform a Flamenco routine plus “All That Jazz,” a routine from the musical “Chicago.”
Dudzik said scenes will include “Hey Big Spender” from “Sweet Charity,” “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little” from “Music Man,” and “Why Don’t You Do Right” from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
In addition, “April Showers,” a skit involving a knife, fork and spoon performed at the first center fundraiser four years ago, will be reprised. The male chorus, Men of Note, also will perform.
The evening will include two intermissions – one for hors’ d’oeuvres and a second featuring desserts – as well as a silent art auction. Beer and wine will be available for purchase. Ed’s Plumbing, a local rock band, will provide the show’s finale, playing Broadway musical-themed music to a big light show.
Annual memberships in the foundation will be available and are priced at between $25 and $200. Auditorium seats can be adopted, beginning at $250.
Money raised by the event will go toward improvement and expansion of the center’s kitchen, Dudzik said. The kitchen is too small for preparing foods for even a 50-seat dinner in the center’s lobby, she said.
At a Valentine’s Day event last year, food had to be cooked at Haines School, she said. “People had to wait for their food. If we expect to serve 50 people in that lobby, we need to be able to cook for 50 people,” Dudzik said.
A mud room adjoining the kitchen and a serving area in the corner of the lobby allow room for expansion, Dudzik said. Appliances in the kitchen also should be replaced, as they date to the 1970s, she said.“That would do the center the most good in terms of use. Everybody’s into food these days, but the kitchen is not conducive to working in. It was designed mostly as a concession kitchen.”
Dudzik said the foundation is still finishing up work from a $204,000 grant for auditorium, lobby and dance studio improvements received from the Rasmuson Foundation. Some project costs came in lower than expected, allowing for installation of a stationary DVD projector and screen in the lobby, she said.