Ain't no fancy cabaret!
I can hardly catch up with the energy of the highly spirited and eccentric character that is Michelle Washington, as she swings her way giddily under the rain and announces that she can easily sense it’s drizzling because of her bald head. I had seen Michelle before, bouncing around the College of Arts and Letters building at the University of the Philippines where she teaches theater. She isn’t hard to miss, with her big smile and outsoaring personality.
On this particular rainy Tuesday, we sit at a museum coffee shop and she tells me stories about growing up exposed to doing outreach, graduating with two master’s degrees in theater and moving to the Philippines with her expatriate husband. To keep busy, she teaches at the state university, and organizes events for charity. Michelle is president of the MMQ Theater and Events Group, a multicultural, non-profit, arts for charity organization founded to bridge the expat and Filipino community and ultimately give back to the Filipino people.
I had attended their salon series last February where they perform short plays in houses and people come barefoot, drink overflowing wine and socialize. MMQ produces these theater events all year round to earn funds for the less fortunate women and children, with a specific focus on building schools for indigenous children. Since the inception of the organization in 2007, their charities have benefited with over P2 million. The grand finale of MMQ’s yearlong string of events is the Le Cabaret show at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza this Sept. 17.
What’s been called “the best little dinner show in town,” MMQ’s Le Cabaret now celebrates it’s fifth anniversary, and is expecting another grand production filled with free-flowing champagne, cocktails, and a four-course French dinner and show — all for charity.
The guests come from different multinational organizations including several embassies, as well as several Filipino and international organizations. This year’s beneficiaries include the Chosen Children’s Village (CCV), the EVA Charity Foundation (EVA), and Hospicio de San Jose (HSJ).
“Picture this,” says Michelle, retelling the adventures she goes through when visiting the charities MMQ has aided. “I’m riding up a mountain on a horse, slipping off because the blanket is not tight enough, and I hear laughter — it’s children. And then you come out of the clearing and you see children playing in front of this one-room structure that’s not painted, with no windows, and these children who are wearing what looks like hand-me-downs, are laughing. They’re happy, because they have a school now. Wouldn’t that change you?”
Michelle tells me some people become skeptical of her outlandish demeanor. “But, honey,” she says, “what you see is what you get.” With her bubbly, selfless and generous personality, she says quite surely that helping people through theater is exactly what she loves to do. “That’s what I do, and that’s why I do it, and I’ll keep on doing it until the day I die. Some people retire; I will never retire.”
The cabaret is a multicultural soiree with guests from different embassies, organizations and social clubs. A number of luxury prizes will be up for raffle, and guests are expected to dine in an atmosphere reliving the best of the ‘20’s. “I want people to come to the cabaret, and I want them to have a good time. Were going to throw the biggest and brightest party you ever did see! Were going to bring together all these people of different shapes and sizes to come and help the children.”
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MMQ tickets may be purchased through Bryan at 0915-7222292 or Mios at mmqtheatre@gmail.com. Check us out MMQ’s website at www.mmqtheatre.com or search “Mmq Thtr” on Facebook for more information.
