Dear Friends,

The daily news has become increasingly gut-wrenching, fist-clenching, head exploding and ultimately heart- breaking. Stunned, we watch events unfold as Absurdist Theater: histrionic courtroom follies, congressional farces, revenge plays, dystopian disaster tales and the ultimate human tragedy of ancient hatreds and brutal wars. This decade’s relentless parade of unfortunate events has pushed people to the brink of sanity and the planet to the brink of livability.

Mending this mess requires a global effort that we can begin locally. We can begin by encouraging people to talk to each other and not at each other. Through commonality, we build unity and create solutions that benefit everyone. We have already seen success in union support and pro-choice voting.

2024 presents opportunities for people to take back the power snatched by the mean spirited regressives and self-inflated oligarchs who benefit from our division and are threatened by our solidarity. We have the strength and the numbers but we need everyone’s commitment to vigilant action. These times do not afford us the luxury of laziness. Complacency is complicity.

2024 also marks the Mime Troupe’s 65th birthday and retiring is the one thing we won’t be doing. Onstage we will continue to create relatable characters whose different points of view aim to jumpstart constructive conversations offstage. We are also expanding our SFMT Educational Programs as we empower the next generation of activist artists.

2024 will offer a full year of SFMT projects: Winter '23/Spring - Presenting our 28th Annual Youth Theater Project (YTP); Summer - Free Shows in the Parks & Summer Workshop; Fall - YTP Fall Session & Young California Writer’s Project (YCWP); Winter - We will top off our birthday year with the premiere of our fully realized production of A Red Carol, our take on the holiday classic as Dickens meant it to be told.

Exciting but ambitious at a time when theaters are cutting back or closing. Yet our mission to use theater to inform and activate is particularly necessary now as is our need for your financial support. Institutional funding continues to disappear. Please help us realize our 2024 vision by donating as much as you are able. Also, you can donate for a friend as a holiday present. Your tax-deductible gift will serve as an antidote to the news by providing SFMT a chance to offer hopeful alternatives using comedy and music as a conduit for positive actions toward a peaceful, equitable future and a healthy planet.

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Always In Solidarity and With Gratitude,
The San Francisco Mime Troupe