A theater’s perfect run

Curtain Call and Nadia Comaneci.

Not two names you would readily associate, but the perfect 10 is what connects us. I’m aging myself by admitting that I clearly remember the incredible summer Olympics of 1976 when Comaneci was the first gymnast to score a perfect 10, but with a perfect 10 for Giving Day staring me in the face, you’ll have to forgive my tagging on her coattails.

While I can only imagine her excitement and exhilaration — combined with exhaustion from relentless practicing — I think I have an idea how Comaneci felt back then. After 10 years of participating in the marathon, county-wide day of giving offered by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, I too am excited, exhilarated and exhausted. But oh, so darn thankful.

For 10 years in a row, Curtain Call, Stamford’s longestrunning and only year-round producing theater company, ended the day on top of the leader board. No other organization has had the broad support across Fairfield County as we have and for that we are all truly grateful.

When Giving Day launched in 2014, I had no idea how it would work for us, a relatively small arts organization. I went into the project hoping for a decent showing — I didn’t want to be embarrassed by the many, larger nonprofits across the county. As much as I invested time, energy (and torturing my wife) I never expected to be all alone at the top of that first leader board. And there we have been each year thanks to the amazing generosity of our community.

Over the years, it has been great to share the stage as it were with so many of our colleagues in the arts. Theater reaches people in many ways — whether creating or witnessing — but I believe that connection to the art is what has made our Giving Day campaigns so successful.

Now, as they say, all good things must come to an end — the foundation will no longer be offering this program. No matter how disappointing that may be, we cannot be more grateful to them for this incredible event, which, since 2014, has raised nearly $15.5 million dollars for hundreds of nonprofits across all sectors. This year, just more than $1.7 million was raised on Feb. 23 from nearly 11,000 contributors —wow!

All of my efforts, and those of our amazing team of staff, board members and volunteers, have been rewarded, but Giving Day would be nothing without the “givers.” I doubt Giving Day would’ve happened at all without the support of Bill Tommins, Bank of America’s Southern Connecticut market president and his team as the lead sponsor of the event. They and so many other sponsors made the thousands of dollars in bonus prizes available … the competition for the prizes definitely makes the day exciting and fun.

Since that first Giving Day, more than 10,000 online contributions have helped support and maintain Curtain Call, especially through the dark days of COVID. Thankfully, we’re back to creating programming by and for our community, but audience numbers are not back to pre-pandemic levels. That’s why Giving Day support is especially important to us and every performing arts organization that participated.

Since we just closed “Groundhog Day: The Musical,” I’m going to repeat what I said here last year: “Many years ago, the great entertainer George M. Cohan famously said, “My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And, I assure you, I thank you.”

I can’t say it any better than that … except to add that my brothers thank you, my wife thanks you, and on behalf of the hundreds of artists who work on presenting our shows each year, and our amazingly dedicated board of directors and staff, too! (For those who have seen my 101-year old mother’s social media video asking for support, you know how much she thanks you.)

As an actor, I’m more used to using someone else’s words, so I’ll let Paul Newman’s words wrap this up: “I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don’t look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community”

On behalf of everyone at Curtain Call, thank you for investing in our community. I hope to see you at the theater, soon.