Only Make Believe is a wonderful organization that creates and performs interactive theatre for children in hospitals and care facilities in New York City and Washington DC. Their belief is that freeing a child’s imagination is a valuable part of the healing process and brings joy and inspiration to chronically ill children. Earlier this week, the organization held their 14th annual gala, ‘Make Believe On Broadway,’ which was hosted by Sir Ian McKellen and honored Susan Sarandon and Dr. Alex Karp. The evening featured a performance at The Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and an after party reception at John’s Restaurant.
The evening played host to a number of famous faces, including Alan Cumming, Tony Danza, Kathy Griffin, Joe DiPietro and many more. We were able to speak to a few of them about why this evening and this organization is so important to them. Bonnie Wright, most notably known for her role as Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter films said, “I think it’s a great thing to harness performance and use it as a way to interact and help people.” She’s been quite busy these days, having just wrapped up performing in a play in London and filming in Connecticut, she is now about to begin filming for a movie that she will be directing.
Famed theater actor Brad Oscar stated, “I had a friend who was involved in OMB and that was my first connection to it. I was part of the first benefit they did back in 2001 and have been on board ever since. I became an honorary board member along the way and just love to do whatever I can do to support this extraordinary organization. It’s close to my heart because having seen what this organization does — you go to the hospitals and you see these terminally ill children, and you see what happens to them over the course of the hour when these actors come in, it’s transformational. It is the most satisfying thing to observe, especially as an actor. To actually be able to take the craft and use it for that purpose, there’s just nothing better.”
“I’m a friend of Dena Hammerstein; I’m in her show Honeymoon in Vegas, hopefully coming to Broadway soon. I’m a big believer in anything that reaches out to help kids. It’s so much harder to be a kid nowadays. Theater is a great way to reach out to kids. You have development through performance,” said good-natured Tony Danza.
The evening was a huge success and with such a great organization at the helm, we knew it would be. We look forward to hearing about all the amazing work they continue to do.
