2024 Gala Tickets tax deduction info…
If you attended our 2024 Champagne Gala and Fundraiser, $30 of your ticket may be…
Laurie and her husband, Ray, are long-time friends and supporters of Prairie Fire Theatre. Laurie is an accomplished photographer whose colorful, thoughtful, and enlightening photos of her trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo), are on exhibit at the McLean County Arts Center through February 21, 2025.
ABOUT LAURIE: Laurie Bergner is a clinical psychologist who has lived in the community for almost 50 years! She has always loved to travel, meeting people from other countries and learning about their cultures, history, politics…So putting that together with a love of photography leads to this exhibit. While most people might not be interested in or would be scared to go to a country like the Congo (DRC), Laurie was super excited to go there, so get, as she says, “behind the curtain of mystery,” or “beyond the heart of darkness”. Laurie traveled to Congo in November, 2013 with a small photography tour, adding 4 days with her personal guide when that tour ended. She was able to visit an IDP (Internally Displace People’s Camp) where villagers flee when militias attack their villages. Talking with them was heartbreaking and fascinating, seeing the children who didn’t have the money to attend the school on land they were camping on, and the women who risked rape every day that they had to go into the bush to gather firewood. But she also went to a youth community center where young people play basketball and dream of being “discovered” and playing in the NBA like one lucky Congolese youth did. In this exhibit, she tries to give a sense of the country, the people and the culture, to make the country be real and the share the moving story with all of us. It’s a country with warm people, and lots of energy, but also the people in the East of the Congo where Laurie visited live in the shadow of constant violence.
BENEFACTORS:
Dick and Charline Watts
PATRONS:
Marilyn Townley
Deb and Steve Wannemacher
Duane and Carolyn Yockey
SPONSORS:
Ray and Laurie Bergner
Michael DeVore
John and Marilyn Freese
Linda and Ralph Lehmann
Dan Rinkenberger
Joan and Charles Vanden Eynden
GUARANTORS:
Fran and Herm Brandau
Phil and Marla Corkill
Jana and Orlyn Edge
Steve and Ruth Ann Friedberg
Tom and Mary Gerwig Hanson
Susan Guess-Hanson
Margaret Ann and Tom Hayden
GUARANTORS CONTINUED:
John and Rita Hensley
Judy Hines
Mike Kerber
Mike and Eva McCrossin
Sonrise Circle (First United Methodist Church)
Peg Schickedanz
COLLEAGUES:
Bill and Rhonda Alverson
Jeannie and Bruce Breitweiser
Laurie Burke
Galen and Gail Crow
Barbara Disko
Larry and Chris Eggan
Colleen Farlee
Bryan Freeman
Carol Gardner
Loretta Hess
Pat Johnson
Linda Park
COLLEAGUES CONTINUED:
Fred Render
Sally and Lee Rudolph
Carol Schrantz
Paul and Kay Swiech
Studio Connect
Charlotte Talkington
Marge and Barry Weaver
Gwen and Charles Yurieci
Phylis VerSteegh
ASSOCIATES:
Nancy Armstrong
Joyce Benninghouse
Dorothy Frank
Rhys and Devon Lovell
Gretchen Monti
Dan and Kathy Steadman
FRIENDS:
Don Jackanicz
Pat Pence
Ann White
IN KIND DONATIONS:
Ken Solem
Kelly and Jim Honzel
Barb Dallinger
Lois Jett
Kris Stayton
Charlotte Cooney
Michelle Vought
The Garlic Press
The Coffeehouse
About our 2024 production of Treble Trouble…
The Land of Melodia needs a heads up because Count Sticky Fingers is planning to steal all their notes and feed them into the Music Munching Machine! And those notes include the magic Star Notes that must be hung and sung in the palace courtyard each night as the moon rises. That ritual is the only protection Melodians have from the Petrification Curse, which has begun to leak out anyway. Before you know it, Queen Adagio’s legs will be turning to stone! It’s up to Princess Poco. Can she recapture the notes and reverse the curse before it’s too late?
If you attended our 2024 Champagne Gala and Fundraiser, $30 of your ticket may be…
Our phone number: 309-808-8558. Details of our 2024 season will be announced soon! APRIL Saturday,…