TEXAS CITY -- John Murrell's 1980 Waiting for the Parade is an award-winning Canadian drama about how five very different women cope on the home front during World War II.
In the spirit of community involvement, neighborly sacrifice, and individual mindfulness that suffused that bygone era, the College of the Mainland Arena Theatre is reaching out to The Bridge Over Troubled Waters, a woman's refuge serving southeast Harris County. Anyone attending the Thursday, April 30 performance of Waiting for the Parade, which opened April 16 and runs through May 10, will receive free admission if they donate a bag of supplies to the social service-type organization. Needed items: paper products, articles of personal hygiene, women's professional clothing.
Primarily a shelter, The Bridge, as it is affectionately known, annually assists an average of 16,000 women and their children who've undergone domestic abuse, sexual assault, and other forms of neglect. For more than 20 years, the nonprofit alliance has provided emergency housing, transitional services, child care, peer counseling, assisted living, and other means of support.
Mark Adams, associate director of the College of the Mainland Arena Theater, and the director of Waiting for the Parade, observed, "The play celebrates women triumphing over adversity. The Bridge is trying to create these same success stories." Waiting for the Parade and The Bridge are all about strength and empowerment, recovery and growth, concluded Adams, who has conducted similar benefits before and who has directed Waiting for the Parade, which employs comedy, poignancy, music and dance, at every theater with which he's been affiliated because of what he called its multifaceted ability to stir audience humanity.
Waiting for the Parade continues at the College of the Mainland Arena Theater in Texas City through May 10. For tickets, $ 8 - $15, or for more information about the benefit performance for The Bridge Over Troubled Waters on April 30, call (888) 258-8859, ext 345. The Bridge Over Troubled Waters can be reached at (713) 473-2801. -- By Peter Szatmary
Texas Correspondent
