A scene from the 2017 Broadway's Babies gala; Ben Houghton and Mary Page Nance are center stage. (Photo courtesy Broadway's Babies)
Vilner, a young man living in Jacmel, Haiti, has spent his life contending with severe cerebral palsy. He’s spent most of his days confined to a wheelchair without access to much to alleviate his challenges. During this past year, however, his enrollment in classes for dance and art have both energized and inspired him. He leaves his chair to dance on his knees, and he's making original paintings.
“Totally burst my heart to see that,” says Ben Houghton, a Richmond native and New York-based entertainer associated with the nonprofit Broadway’s Babies. The organization raises funds to bring arts education to those unable to find it, whether in small towns in Haiti or in New York City. Last year, Houghton, along with Richmonder and New York-based actor Mary Page Nance and several other Richmond entertainers, joined forces to create a one-night-only fundraising event.
That showcase, paired with a silent auction, raised around $11,000. This amount paid to hire four Haitian arts educators and acquire musical instruments. They work at the Lekòl Sen Trinité, a day school that provides arts instruction for the region’s neediest youth. They also bring the arts into the lives of residents at the Wings of Hope, a home for children with physical and mental disabilities.
Broadway's Babies participant Vilner poses with one of his paintings. (Photo courtesy Broadway's Babies)
This year's Broadway's Babies fundraiser is on Friday, Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the Hippodrome Theater’s Speakeasy. Find tickets here.
Young Vilner demonstrates the transformative power of creativity. He's using the money earned from the sale of his works to buy art supplies. “That's tangible progress," Houghton says.
Nance has in past years traveled to Haiti for aid work through St. James Episcopal Church. She and Houghton performed in the lobby space of Virginia Repertory Theater at Willow Lawn specifically for charitable undertakings on the island. A couple of years ago, she’d not trod the boards of Broadway. That’s all changed.
You may remember her from a 2016 Richmond magazine feature about Richmonders working in New York theater. Then, Nance was in the cast of “Finding Neverland.” The show stopped, but she didn’t, going on to “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812," which also wound down, and she isn’t traveling to Haiti this year because of other theater commitments. Houghton, however, and several of the participants practically will be exiting the stage here and then boarding a plane for the island nation.
Sending the funds to Haiti, Nance elaborates, was something like faith. “There is corruption,” she says, “and it’s tough to manage, especially when you’re not there every day. And it’s amazingly, literally possible because of the Richmond community. This year we can show everybody where the money went. It’s inspiring for me to see those four full-time salaries teaching artists from Haiti.”
Participants in Broadway's Babies' programs in Haiti (Photo courtesy Broadway's Babies)
Those educators are Mackendy Augustin (visual art); Gerald Joanis (dance); Eddie Louis (drums) and Gethro Jean. (Learn more about Broadway Babies' global programs here.)
The concert’s cast includes New York colleagues Skie Ocasio (also Houghton’s husband), Ta'Nika Gibson and Broadway’s Babies co-founder Katy Pfaffl.
The Richmond component of the evening is a deep bench of theater professionals: Debra Wagoner, Ali Thibodeau (also a singer-songwriter with Deau Eyes), Audra Honaker, Scott Wichmann, Maggie Roop, Washington, D.C.-based Felicia Curry, plus students from School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community (SPARC) and Appomattox Regional Governor's School, and other surprises.
The silent auction includes mostly regional offerings, and that is in part handled by Nance’s mother, Liz, who is no stranger to the business of show, either, as she’s the director of communications for Virginia Repertory Theater.
Houghton’s mother Deborah is in on the act, too, because she’s temporarily housing the uniforms for the students — more than 100 of them.
“When we started,” Houghton says, “we expected, I don’t know, 60 or so.”
In the parlance, the classes at Trinité and Wings of Hope are boffo.
