MAD Company & Living Room Productions to Present EVE OF THE FIRST SPARK Gala
The benefit at Resobox will raise funds for Twelfth Night: 1941 and audio drama Sleepy Hollow.
MAD Company and Living Room Productions, two of New York City's independent theatre companies founded by graduates of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, will present Eve of the First Spark, a joint fundraising gala celebrating the artists, patrons, and friends who help turn new ideas into fully realized productions. The event will take place Thursday, April 30, 2026, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Resobox.
The evening invites guests to usher in the spring with an open bar, curated light bites, live entertainment, and a raffle with prizes designed to pique every guest's interest.
Proceeds from the gala will directly support both companies' upcoming projects: Living Room Productions' Twelfth Night: 1941, a reimagined staging of Shakespeare's beloved comedy, and MAD Company's audio drama Sleepy Hollow.
April 30 also happens to be Walpurgis Night, the centuries-old European eve of May Day, traditionally marked by bonfires lit to banish the last of winter's spirits and welcome the first warmth of spring. It is a night of thresholds: between seasons, between the spectral and the living, between what has been and what is about to begin. It is, in the truest sense, the eve of a first spark.
"Walpurgis Night is a storyteller's holiday, the whole tradition is built on things that go bump in the night, and the bonfires we light to answer them," said Helena Mueller, Executive Director of MAD Company. "That's the same air our audio drama Sleepy Hollow is working in, and it's the spirit we wanted for this gala: gather in the dark, tell a good story, and let the spark do its work."
"Twelfth Night: 1941is about a troupe of actors in wartime London who trade the drone of the sirens and the waves of exhaustion for a comedy that makes room for love, grief, and reunion all at once," said Ellyn Heald, Artistic Director of Living Room Productions, " It's the same thing Walpurgis Night has always been about: gathering together, lighting a fire, and refusing to let the darkness win."
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