Transcendence Donates $25,000 to Jack London Park, Plans Next Year's Shows

Transcendence Theatre Company will donate $25,000 from its summer series to help keep Jack London State Historic Park open, Amy Miller, artistic director, announced at the end-of-season show there on Saturday. She said the group is invited to perform there again next summer.

In April, Transcendence Theatre began a partnership with the non-profit Valley of the Moon Natural History Association to perform in the old winery ruins on the property to help keep the park from being closed due to state budget constraints. They offered to donate $5 from every ticket toward the park's operation.

The theater group plans another Broadway Under the Stars series next summer. They'll announce the lineup in a couple of months, Miller said Saturday.

"Perhaps there'll be a full musical," she told the audience at the end of the show.

Miller said this summer's series brought in $350,000 and that the non-profit theatre group had "almost broken even." They held a silent auction fund raiser and collected donations Saturday, with part of the proceeds going to the park.

During the show, the group read a list of performances they'd done for non-profit groups over the summer and they played a video of local leaders and sponsors praising their efforts.

As guests streamed out of the winery ruins after the show, they told performers how much they'd appreciated the summer series.

"Thank you for the way you've enriched our community," one woman said.

The Glen Ellen performances can be traced to a vision that the Transcendence group had while performing at a small community theater in Mexico. Executive Director Stephan Stubbins told Patch recently that some of the performers were able to visit with children in the community there and tap dance for them.

"Some of these kids had never seen anything like that before," he said.

Videos from their work in Punta Banda, Mexico and their motorhome trip around the United States in search of a permanent theatrical home can be seen on their website .

Stubbins said several of the theatre group members now live in Sonoma and they'll be seen in the community between now and their next park series. Other members will travel to perform at venues around the country, then return next summer.

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