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Theatre in Park hosts benefit

Stewart Oksenhorn

For several years before Tammie Dauson came on as executive director in 1997, Aspen Theatre in the Park devoted a small portion of its energies to teaching the art and techniques of acting. When Dauson joined TIP, she came with a commitment to expand not only the company’s summer season of theater presentations, but also its teaching program.Over the last two years, TIP has created the Aspen School of Theatre Arts, which has held summer children’s programs and adult master classes in areas from public speaking to Shakespeare.Now, Dauson is looking to further the boundaries of the School of Theatre Arts. TIP is holding its annual fund-raiser tomorrow at the TIP Tent in Rio Grande Park. The event, An Evening for Rising Stars, will raise funds for the specific purpose of making the School of Theatre Arts a year-round institution, and for hiring a first-ever, full-time education director.”We want to integrate other people into the work we do,” said Dauson. “We want to bring our programs into the schools, to collaborate with other arts groups like the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, Aspen Ballet, the Aspen Music Festival. And we hope to do productions in the winter for children. We want to introduce our children to theater, as audience members.”If you have an education director, you can start to focus on all that.”An Evening for Rising Stars begins at 7 p.m. and includes an hors d’oeuvres feast from a host of local restaurants, including Blue Maize, Conundrum, Farfalla, Jimmy’s, L’Hostaria, Renaissance, Syzygy and Takah Sushi. Wine and champagne will be provided by Cache Cache, Campo de Fiori, the Little Nell and Of Grape & Grain.Entertaining the crowd will be actors from TIP’s past and present, who will perform scenes from TIP musicals “Pump Boys and Dinettes,” “Forever Plaid” and the current production, “Side by Side by Sondheim,” as well as from the comedies “I Hate Hamlet” and “Sylvia” and the drama “Jake’s Women.”Tickets for An Evening for Rising Stars are $125 to $1,000. For further information, call 925-9313.