Bidding For A Cause!

The Red Chair Project!

As August comes to a close, there is a buzz in the air… the unofficial beginning of the Cultural season is here! And for the past few years, Orlando Arts organizations have been fortunate enough to kickoff that season with The Red Chair Project! The Arts & Cultural Alliance is gearing up for its 6th Annual Red Chair Affair benefit where they will auction off a total of 99 IKEA, red chairs. Each year, IKEA donates red chairs to each participating sponsor and the sponsor is in charge of personalizing the chair to represent their company. Along with this, each sponsor can partner up with another and put together a prize package to make the bidding more competitive.

FAIRWINDS Broadway Across America – Orlando and Florida Theatrical Association are once again a sponsor of this great event! Last year, in case you missed it, we broke out the roller skates and created a 70’s theme, XANADU chair! With the chair, we included a pair of on-stage tickets to see the opening night performance of XANADU, along with exclusive cast party invitations. In addition, we paired up with Semoran Skateway to give away a Family Four Pack of skating tickets!

Orlando Broadway’s “XANADU” chair from the 2009 Red Chair Affair event!

This year, we’ve chosen one of our 2010/2011 Season shows to be the inspiration: WEST SIDE STORY! If you’ve seen this classic, I’m sure you remember the infamous “I Feel Pretty” song. Even if you haven’t seen the show yet, I’m sure you can hum the lyrics… Pretty… I feel pretty…! Every girl can relate to it. Haven’t we all had at least a few moments in life where we just beam and think, I feel pretty! That’s what Maria, one of the main characters in the show, was feeling as she belted out the famous song, she’s in love, and nothing can dampen her spirits!

And actually, that’s how we feel about this show and our entire 2010 – 2011 season – we’re in love! With that said, we put together an “I Feel Pretty” chair. The office set aside a day to do some crafting and after some spray paint and a few accidental hot glue gun burns – Voila! We, of course, had to give the chair a white, lacy skirt and flower! And you can see the cityscape represents New York – the setting for the show. Finally, on the seat of the chair we painted some of the lyrics from the song itself! The “WEST SIDE STORY” sign is created with foam board and the ladder is ingeniously designed from… coffee stirrers. Told ya we got crafty!

Orlando Broadway’s “I Feel Pretty” chair with inspiration from one of our 2010/2011 Season shows, WEST SIDE STORY!

Along with the fabulous WEST SIDE STORY, “I Feel Pretty” themed chair, the winning bidder will receive a pair of tickets to see the February 1st, 2011, opening night performance of WEST SIDE STORY at Orlando’s Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre! Not only do the winners get tickets to SEE the show, but they will receive exclusive invitations to MEET the some of the cast members at our Cast Party immediately following the performance! But, the prize doesn’t stop there! Orlando Broadway teamed up with Box Office Hair in College Park and put together a gift package to help truly make the winners “feel pretty”. The winner of this chair will receive two $100 gift certificates for whatever service they wish (wash, cut, style, color, etc), as well as two Paul Mitchell gift sets! All together, this chair is worth more than $400!! While the highest bid is only $100 right now, we are hoping someone just can’t help themselves and bid it up even more at the actual Red Chair Affair event this Saturday, August 28th.

We will certainly be at the event, probably bidding on some of the other awesome, locally decorated chairs! If you want more information about the event this weekend, visit their website. If you want more information about WEST SIDE STORY, visit our website!

Have a good week and happy bidding!