Dear Friends,
We did it!
2022, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival moved to a spectacular new home in Garrison, NY. In ways both literal and metaphorical, our new campus provides common ground where folks from all backgrounds can gather with an abundant sense of welcome, and find some aspect of their own lived experience reflected in stories that animate our stage. This theater company – and its new home -– belongs to all of us. It belongs to YOU.
I’m writing today to ask you to support HVSF with a charitable contribution, but before I do that, I want to remind you that our mission of celebrating our shared humanity isn’t just about entertaining summer evenings under the Tent. Of course, that’s part of the joy our organization brings into the world. But I believe it’s also larger and more beautiful than that.
In today’s divided and fractious world, we’re constantly being asked to take sides, to sequester ourselves into silos of Montagues and Capulets. We are woefully out of practice at finding common ground where we can connect with other people, especially those whose perspective might be radically different than our own. Spending time outside in this beautiful place, and gathering under the Tent to experience a timeless story of our shared humanity is the perfect antidote to the impulse to retreat and entrench. It brings us closer together, and encourages us to find new ways to see ourselves in each other’s stories. Sure, we may all move through the world in different ways, but we’re also not alone. In fact, we’re all in this together. This is part of why I love working at HVSF, and why I believe in our mission so passionately.
If you share in this belief, please consider a year-end gift to HVSF. We’ve planned a glorious season for next summer, and we need your help to make it a reality.
Donate
Last summer was Year One in our new home. Your year-end gift will ensure that live theater – and its uncanny ability to help us find common ground – will return to HVSF’s beautiful new campus next summer, and for many years to come.
Thank you again for being a part of the HVSF family, and I look forward to seeing you next summer!
