Green Room holds charity show for AIDS
Photo courtesy of Lillie Sallas Directors of the student shows bow after the last performance.
In their first year of holding a Benefit Show, Green Room was able to raise $376 for the Aids Foundation of Chicago (AFC) on April 17.
Students in Green Room got the opportunity to write, direct and act during the fundraiser. It was meant to teach students how to write and go through the workshop process on their own. The idea of the show was not to make things as clean cut as a traditional play or skit might be, but to allow the students to work with trial and error.
“I knew we didn’t have a ton of time to put the acts together, so I thought that the performance would continue to be a workshop style where actors may or may not be memorized, minimal set and costumes being used and just really relying on the writing and the acting to tell the story,” said Green Room sponsor Cher Schwartz.
Green Room sold out their show at the fundraiser, selling 60 tickets at $5 each. All of the proceeds went directly to AFC. Green Room was also accepting donations.
“We didn’t want to profit from this work, it felt to be in the wrong spirit, so all proceeds of the show were donated to AIDS Foundation Chicago. We wanted to support them in a similar fashion to Broadway’s AIDS foundation ‘Broadway Cares.’ Much of the theater and LGBTQ+ community has been touched by AIDS, so we wanted to give back to a foundation we felt a strong connection to,” Schwartz said.
Despite this being the first time that a charity event like this was set up by Green Room, all members felt like it was successful not only in earnings but in their work as directors and actors.
“Acting in the charity show was fun and rewarding since it was for a good cause and we were allowed to do what we wanted,” said actor Sam Brick.
There were still slight challenges that some students faced while working with the short timeline of two and a half weeks, but students appreciated the support they received from peers.
“Directing was a challenge because we were only given a week to rehearse; however, the writing was fun because I was able to receive feedback on my script from peers,” said student director Natalie Grzesik.
