There were many twists and turns during City Island Theater Group’s production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s The Man Who Came to Dinner in the fall of 2012. A cast of 19 with multiple costume changes as well as fitting a Christmas tree and a sarcophagus on the stage with multiple doors and the comings and goings of such a big cast is always a challenge, a challenge that the group meets on a regular basis. But add Super Storm Sandy, the nor’eastern, no public transportation, gas supply issues, no power and no heat and the challenge became daunting.
As the CITG board of directors met challenge after challenge it was also apparent that everyone was safe and spared the devastation which surrounded them. This prompted the group to make the decision to donate the ticket sales from the performance with the highest attendance to help with this crisis. CITG was proud to donate $1700 to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City for hurricane relief.
Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park was produced in November of 2013 by CITG. Feeling that “no one should be barefoot in the winter” the group requested their audience members to donate pairs of new socks at the theater and also partnered with the students of PS 175 who collected socks for donation. CITG was happy to donate over 1000 pairs of new socks to POTS (Part of the Solution), a multi faceted organization for the under served in the Bronx.
When delivering the socks to POTS, CITG’s board members were struck by the number of young children who were in the facility waiting for their mothers at appointments, eating in the dining room, etc. “The Rainbow Tour” in their 2014 production of Tim Rice’s Evita was the inspiration for collecting coloring books and crayons for these kids. The audiences responded with enthusiasm and CITG was happy to deliver over 650 coloring books and 350 boxes of crayons to POTS.
CITG thanks their generous audiences for helping them to give back to their community.
