Archive for the ‘Kudos!’ Category

Monetary contributions keep coming in, from both auction sales from the Fun and Fund Raising for Allen event as well as online gifts. We have currently raised around $14,000 for Allen’s cost of living. With Medicaid and Social Security kicking in, because of your overwhelming generosity, Allen and Olivia are confident they have enough financial assistance to help him through this cancer ordeal at this time.

For those of you who still want to contribute somehow, we ask that you please consider:

1. Sharing your good will with the Atlanta Community Food Bank (or whomever else you might feel inclined to help) with contributions of canned foods or money. As Olivia told me, “God knows that (a) folks have already been UNBELIEVABLY generous with us already and (b) that there are still tons of needy folks out there every day who also need tending to.”

2. Writing to Grady Hospital’s new CEO, Mr. Michael Young, and let him know how you appreciate the quality of care being given to (Patrick) Allen Hagler and encourage him to stay the course on reforming the state’s primary health care system. What you may not know, is that while we have (relatively few) complaints about the quality of care Allen is receiving – genuinely, the staff across the board has been positive, helpful and good at what they do – the fact is the system itself is so flawed that one mistake made by one person will cause a 2-hour appointment to last twelve hours or longer; that nurses are so understaffed some clinics wait for every patient to check in before they start triaging; and that some bathrooms and clinics (particularly in first floor clinics) are so filthy one questions whether a sick person will only get sicker the longer they stay in Grady … and considering how long they have to wait now, it does not seem conducive to healing. Read the rest of this entry »

Allen Hagler and Jo Howarth as G.W. and Latrelle, SORDID LIVES

And it just doesn’t stop! Yes, Sir, we’ll have some more…

Del Shores – internationally known playwright (“Sordid Lives,” “Southern Baptist Sissies”), actor, & director of film & TV – has offered to auction a DVD of “Sordid Lives: The Series” signed by himself and the entire cast (including Leslie “Brother Boy” Jordan) in support of Allen and our efforts to love on him. He’s doing this on his Sordid Lives Facebook site – which has over 15,000 fans!

Please note that Del Lives in LA and has never met Allen. In fact, when he made the offer he didn’t even realize that Allen played “GW” in Process Theatre’s production of “Sordid Lives” last year. He reached out simply because Allen is an actor in need. To quote Topher Payne, “You gotta love sweet Southern boys.”

To get more details and bid, go to the designated Sordid Lives Facebook page now. Thanks, Del!

Last night’s fund raising event for Allen Hagler was a smashing success!  While we’re still counting and have several outstanding bids from the silent auction to be settled, we’re expecting a tally of around $8,000 – 100% of which will go to Allen himself. PRETTY DARNED GREAT for an event thrown together on the sheer will of love. As one friend has said, “It felt way more like a birthday party!”

If you weren’t able to make it, then you missed the opportunity to enjoy a wealth of food, drink and generosity, as friends and family of Allen Hagler gathered together to hear new plays by Curt Shannon and David Fisher in concert readings directed by Betty Hart. In addition, the dynamic duo of Johnny Drago and Emma Crandall wowed the crowd with back-handed compliments that some of us are still wincing from today (but in a happy, codependent way). Read the rest of this entry »

August marked my third year as Managing Artistic Director of Working Title Playwrights and while it’s been a lot of hard work, it’s been a lot of fun, too, especially when I get to introduce a remarkable new play by a dynamic playwright.

WTP’s Ethel Woolson Lab presents John Drago’s THE BIRDWATCHERS at Academy Theatre, Sept. 26, 2009, 2 p.m.

A parable about the inevitable confrontation between the beauty and the horror of life, THE BIRDWATCHERS tells the story of a mother’s struggle to accept the death of her beloved though estranged son, driven from the family home in small-town Georgia some time ago by an unyielding daughter desperate for her own salvation from addiction. Read the rest of this entry »

So much has been happening with Working Title Playwrights and it’s time to congratulate some of our members with big things happening.

Read the rest of this entry »