Hi everyone, I have been keeping quiet about this exciting project I’ve been working on for the past two years, but I’m happy to report it’s finally ready for the limelight! As some of you know, I have a background in theater. Well, OK, I took Drama as an elective in high school, and I have been pulled up on stage at least once during an improv show. This is enough for me to realize I love acting and performing.
So for the past couple of years, I’ve been developing a one-man show and testing it out with small focus groups (usually my friends and family members who couldn’t think of excuses fast enough to get out of it).
And now, with generous sponsorship from the Satterberg Foundation, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (MCN), and my Patreon community, it’s ready to hit the road this June on a nine-city tour (Seattle, Portland Oregon, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Asheville, New York, and Toronto).
The four-hour show (with intermission) is called “Please Send Money: A Joyful Yet Soul-Crushing Journey Through Nonprofit and Philanthropy.”
It is a deeply personal but hopefully also universally relatable exploration of what it means to work in this sector, based on a lot of the stuff I’ve been rambling about on this blog. While I can’t reveal everything about the content, as the element of surprise is part of the experience, and there are slight variations from show to show, here are a few things you might see:
“After the Monsoon”: A wistful retelling, using puppets crafted by artisans in Vietnam, of my childhood and the series of events that sparked my passion to make the world better.
“Con Khùng Rồi Hả?!” A conversation between me and my father, where he tries to dissuade me from going down my chosen career path. I do my best to embody his tone and mannerisms.
“Downward-Facing Budget”: I am a yoga instructor who leads willing audience members in poses named after various nonprofit and philanthropic concepts. Besides the titular pose, there’s the “Mountain (of Emails)” and the “Declining Warrior.”
“Birth and Character Count”: A 17-minute silent segment where I struggle to come out of the “womb,” covered in pennies and strawberry jam, to represent the 9 months it often takes to complete a grant process and receive a decision from a funder.
“Just Pay Your Taxes, Brayden!” A raw, emotional, no-holds-barred speech to a fictional donor, represented by an empty Herman Miller chair sprinkled with glitter and organic granola.
“Waiting for the Dough”: A minimalist, condensed two-act play where I stand handcuffed to a street lamp in the darkness, eating some hummus, occasionally looking at my watch, as a small fire in the distance keeps growing.
“Robert’s Rules”: I play six different board members, each one with a distinct archetypical personality and accent. Thank you, Satterberg, for paying for my voice acting coach; that Cockney accent is a doozy, but I fink I got it down, guv’nor.
“Ah, Balinor, the Eternal Lands”: While hobbits, dwarves, and humans fight Zauron’s army onscreen in the background, I dress up as elven Lord Elfrond and deliver a Shakespearean-style soliloquy where I rationalize why the elves only give out 5% of our gold to fight Zauron, saving the 95% in our endowments so that we could live in perpetuity.
“White Moderate Tango”: Putting my semester of college Argentine tango training to good use, I molinete, calesita, and ochos my way around the stage while whispering things like “we need to be civil,” “let’s wait it out and see,” “it’s too political,” and “stop saying fascism” eventually tripping over myself and collapsing on the floor.
There will be more. Lots more! I can’t wait for you to see it. Hopefully it’ll be as fun for you to experience as it has been for me to create. There will be live captions and ASL interpreters for every show.
For the tour schedule and ticket information, please see this PRESS RELEASE. And if you’re interested in being a sponsor and bringing this experience to your city, please contact my agent Stacy at nwbspeaking@gmail.com.
Thank you again to the Satterberg Foundation, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Patreon supporters, and focus group participants for making this dream a reality.
