“After the Curtain Call We Want To Make A Difference”

“After the Curtain Call We Want To Make A Difference”

Senior Theater and Spanish double major Jeffery Silvey believes art has a greater purpose than entertainment. The Hinesville, Ga., native recently took action when a personal connection to a Center for Art & Theatre performance hit close to home, and all the pieces fell into place.

As the marketing intern for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences’ Theatre and Performance program, Silvey also serves as the Dramaturg, one who researches plays and digs deeper into the historical and cultural aspects of a drama’s subject matter to help cast members gain full understanding of what they’re acting.

This week the Black Box Theatre launched “The Clean House,” a whimsical romantic comedy. One of the main characters in the play has breast cancer, and while Silvey was researching the topic, he realized October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. His grandmother lost her life to breast cancer in the 1980s, and his mother and aunts had also experienced close calls with the disease. It was his chance to raise awareness and support a worthy cause.

“Growing up I’ve always been very aware and proactive for breast cancer causes. So, when all these puzzle pieces came together, it seemed like the perfect time, the perfect opportunity and the perfect cause.”

Enter the “Take a Bite Out of Breast Cancer" campaign.

Silvey took initiative and pitched his idea to use green apples – a motif in “The Clean House” – as the central image to communicate the “Take a Bite Out of Breast Cancer” campaign’s message. After contacting the American Cancer Society’s Colleges Against Cancer organization, they teamed up with Georgia Southern University’s Theatre and Performance Program, and the campaign was born.

Participants can purchase green paper apples in memory or honor of friends and family. Apples are $1 each and will be for sale throughout October at the Box Office located in the Center for Art & Theater at 233 Pittman Dr. All proceeds benefit a local chapter of the American Cancer Society’s Colleges Against Cancer research efforts, and the apples will hang in the Center for Art & Theatre as a reminder during “The Clean House” performances.

“Whether you like visual art or performance art, there’s the capacity to entertain and there’s the greater capacity to change lives and affect what people think. “The Clean House” is a great production, and this fundraiser shows there’s a deeper purpose for art,” Silvey said. “It’s a perfect example of how Georgia Southern’s theater program tries to reach out to the community to have a bigger impact than just what you see on the stage. The intention is to go beyond… after the curtain call is over we want to make a difference.”

“The Clean House” begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday – Saturday at the Black Box Theatre until Wednesday, Oct 2. For more information, visit the Center for Art & Theatre website.