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After I attended a recent Boston Pops concert featuring the wonderfully talented Brian Stokes Mitchell, I waited after the concert with some other fans to meet him. What a treat it was to meet this fabuous talent-now dubbed "Broadway's Last Leading Man"-and to experience first hand his exuberance, warmth and humility! This got me to thinking about how worried I am that the arts are suffering in this economy and that I will do my small part in helping them stay afloat.

It is not just the many and varied shows on and off Braodway that are uniquely American and an important part of our culture that need our support. We need to do what we can to help our regional and local theatres as well as our local musicians survive. It is with much sadness that I have been reading about some of the small and medium size theatres in the Greater Boston and New England area having to close or join up with other theatres for their very survival.

I appreciate great actors on the big screen at the Cineplex as much as anyone. Actors as varied and talented as Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Denzel Washington, help all of us escape into good stories transporting us into other worlds. I hope this is true whether your taste be for the big special effects movies, the small indie films, or those originating from another country with their subtitles along the bottom of the screen.

But, please, do yourself a favor whether you live in New England, the West coast, the South, the Midwest or in the heartland. Find a local theatre and see a "straight play" or a musical. Go to the New Rep Theatre in Watertown, Massachusetts, the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, the Allliance Theatre in Atlanta, the American Heartland theatre in Kansas City, Missouri or the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington. And, of course there are hundreds more throughout our country.

Pull yourself away from your favorite TV series some night. Drag your husband away from the ball game. Look in your local paper for a concert with an artist you've never heard of. Go out for some jazz, some country, a symphony or whatever you like. Go to a play even though the actors may never be famous but who all work hard at their craft and are usually terrifically talented nevertheless. I guarantee you will usually be pleasantly surprised at how much you enjoy it. Most of our country's local and regional concert clubs and theatres are reasonably priced. Some will have 2 for the price of 1 tickets. Some will even have a "pay

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