Westside Food Bank Hosts Cornerstone Theater Company’s play, fellowship
For the next two Fridays, Westside Food Bank’s warehouse will be transformed into a performance space where Cornerstone Theater Company will present fellowship, a play for volunteers. Surrounded by pallets of food, audience members will make sack lunches while cast members perform. fellowship is the story of volunteers giving their time at a local food bank when an unwanted stranger, Hunger, pays them a visit. The eighth play in Cornerstone’s Hunger Cycle, fellowship is a performance that immerses the audience into the role of volunteer. At fellowship, you will be invited to help prepare and assemble sack lunches to be distributed to hungry people via Westside Food Bank’s member agencies.
Now midway through its run, fellowship is settling in comfortably at the Westside Food Bank and the three other hunger assistance agencies hosting the play; MEND Poverty, Pico Union Project and Watts Labor Community Action Committee. The play’s director, Peter Howard commented, “Westside Food Bank is our most intimate venue for fellowship, and I love how the show is working there. Actors brush right up against audience members, and the coziness really seems to encourage people to introduce themselves to their table mates and make new friends as the play proceeds. The Food Bank tells such an important part of the hunger story, without us having to draw attention to it. Audiences who may be new to WSFB can just look around the room and see the abundance that exists in our communities, if only we can find ways to get that food to people who need it. At WSFB, they are sitting in a living, breathing example of the work that is actually happening to address the realities of hunger in our region, and our hope is that maybe some of them will be inspired to come back and spend some volunteer hours there, or at another organization, in the future.”
fellowship tells the story of five souls that find fellowship in giving their time together in a weekly volunteer shift, making sandwiches for a local food bank. They work hard, sing, laugh, and share stories of what brought them to this service. This weekly time together is their church and sanctuary until the day a stranger enters. What happens when Hunger comes to visit?
Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can, suggested donation $20. For reservations, and specific details for each performance, visit www.cornerstonetheater.org or call 1-800-578-1335. Capacity is limited and reservations are required. For more information on Westside Food Bank, visit www.wsfb.org
