Magic Theater Reaches Goal, Season is Saved!

The Magic Theatre website has reported it has reached the needed fundraising goal, it will survive to bring theatre to the local San Francisco audience. Magic Theatre raised $450,000 in a little over a week due to the support of the many people who heard the theatre and its pleas for help.

The message on the website is as follows: 

On behalf of the Board and staff of Magic Theatre, thank you. We are deeply grateful to our community of supporters--subscribers, artists, audience members, and other theatre-lovers--here and all over the country, who made contributions to keep our doors open.

We are thrilled that we will be producing Tough Titty-- the kind of play that comes along perhaps only once in a lifetime. Performances begin January 24.

We thank you for your generosity, and we thank our Board of Directors for its extraordinary leadership.

Loretta Greco
Artistic Director

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Since its initial appeal nine days ago, San Francisco's nationally acclaimed new plays theatre, MAGIC THEATRE, has raised more than $300,000. MAGIC was just awarded an anonymous challenge grant from a leading national arts supporter to encourage the theatre to meet and exceed its fundraising goal so that Magic has the resources to continue its 43rd season and secure its future. To maximize this challenge, MAGIC has extended its fundraising campaign three days. The challenge will double the impact of contributions up to $100,000 made to MAGIC now through midnight Monday, January 12, 2009.Please donate now to increase the value of your contribution and keep Magic Theatre alive.

With funds raised so far, we began rehearsals for our next production-Tough Titty by Oni Faida Lampley-slated for previews beginning January 24th. The staff, furloughed for two weeks, is back at work with pay. MAGIC must raise a total of $350,000 by January 12, 2009 to retain our staff, continue the season, and remain responsible to our creditors. The new challenge grant is a crucial opportunity for MAGIC to ensure that we have the resources to complete our season and create a plan not just to survive, but thrive.

In a world where more and more theaters are eliminating the challenging and risky work of mounting new plays altogether, please help us fulfill our commitment to new work. We're $39,500 short of our goal. You can make a difference. Please donate now.

Our core value of risk over commercial gain makes MAGIC a challenging endeavor in any economy, and going forward, MAGIC is committed to a new model of financial stability for a new world-without compromising our mission. Today however, MAGIC's accumulated debt combined with sharp declines in earned and contributed revenue due to the global economy, place us in imminent peril of shutting our doors in March.

The response to Magic's fundraising appeal so far has been extraordinary and includes contributions from subscribers, artists, audiences, and theatre lovers from all over the county. Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel and award-winning San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis are among the many who have underscored the importance of MAGIC's mission.

MAGIC THEATRE has given life to some of the most important, diverse, and powerful voices of contemporary American artists, including four Pulitzer Prize winners. From its humble beginnings in a Berkeley bar, MAGIC has emerged as one of the crown jewels of American Theatre. The closing of MAGIC THEATRE would be a great loss for artists and audiences here and across the country. The second largest theatre in San Francisco, MAGIC employs over 200 artists annually and touches the lives of tens of thousands of people. We need to keep our artists and our work on the stage!

Artistically, MAGIC is thriving, building upon its rich legacy under the artistic direction of Loretta Greco, who joined the theatre last spring. The critical success of the first two productions of this season demonstrate the rigor to which MAGIC adheres in each aspect of new play production-and the hoped for excitement, awe, and wonder that come from watching great art play out for audiences.

For more information, visit the Magic Theatre website at www.magictheatre.org.