Avant Bard Responds To Immigrant Family Crisis

Avant Bard today announces its "Welcome Tempest-Tossed Campaign": For the final weekends of its production of THE TEMPEST, Avant Bard commits to donating one-half of all full-price ticket proceeds to RAICES Texas to provide legal and educational services to refugees and immigrants at the southern border, including removal defense, services for DACA candidates, and services for unaccompanied children.

"Immigrant families seeking asylum are being ripped apart and interned by a storm of American forces," said Artistic and Executive Director Tom Prewitt. "Shakespeare called such acts 'mountainish inhumanity.' We cannot weather this crisis in silence.

"From the beginning of production on THE TEMPEST, my intention was to frame the play as a story of refugees and exiles that asks, 'How can we all get along on this island Earth?' So it is in that spirit that Avant Bard has launched our Welcome Tempest-Tossed Campaign. We invite all to join us."

General admission is $30 on Fridays; $35 on Saturday evenings and Sundays. Tickets are available online or by calling 703-418-4808. A donation to RAICES Texas will be made automatically with each purchase.

THE TEMPEST plays to July 1, 2018, at Gunston Arts Center, Theatre Two, 2700 South Lang Street Arlington, VA 22206.

Photos: Above left: Christopher Henley as Prospero in Avant Bard's production of THE TEMPEST. Photo by DJ Corey Photography.

Above right:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"