Jeffrey Hartgraves

Press

Jeffrey's play Blood Mirage, directed by Mike Ward, opened the 2008 Playwrights Theatre series at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation. Click HERE for more info.

Click HERE for Photos from Butterfly Effect!

Butterfly Effect Raises Over $10,000 for Jeffrey Hartgraves Fund

The Butterfly Effect: An All-Star Gala Benefiting the Jeffrey Hartgraves ~~Cancer~~ Recovery Fund was a tremendous success, raising over $10,000 for the Fund!

Well-known Bay Area talents Connie Champagne, Leigh Crow, Veronica Klaus, Matthew Martin, Trauma Flintstone, David Bicha & Don Seaver, davidmahr, Liz Ryan, T.J. Lee, Donald Currie and Libby O'Connell lent their support by performing in the show.

Leon Acord co-produced and hosted the sold-out event to raise money to assist good friend and frequent collaborator Hartgraves in his battle against bone cancer.

A silent auction and raffle featured donated items such as fine art and photographs, autographed books, photographer packages, and a slew of products donated by Falcon.

"It was such an amazing, magical night," says Leon of the April 20th affair. "The show could not have gone better! Every performer was at the top of his or her game. And the success of the silent auction and raffle totally exceeded my expectations. I had hoped to raise around $6,000 or $7,000. The fact that we raised close to $10,000 for Jeffrey is extremely gratifying!"

Jeffrey Hartgraves, “a deeply valued veteran of Bay Area theater as a playwright, director, and actor” (Bay Area Guardian), was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2005. Following a year of remission -- during which he wrote and starred in his critically acclaimed “almost solo show” Shark Bites at The Rhino and published a collection of essays entitled Bone Matters – Hartgraves is now back on another round of painful chemotherapy, making it difficult to make ends meet.

"The Butterfly Effect is the theory that a butterfly's wings in Argentina can cause a tornado in Kansas," says Leon. "And we proved that just a little bit from a lot of people can add up to alot! Plus, we're still getting contributions from our mail-in campaign!"

Jeffrey's Thank You:

"I have to thank absolutely everyone up here, and I’ll do that individually later. I brought a lot of lip gloss. Then, of course, I have to thank all of you. This is really amazing. I mean, you know, it’s actually kind of hard to believe. And – fucking bubbles!! Thank you so much for your time and everything. The only thing I have to say to you is, I never thought I would be in this situation. And no one does.

If you ever do find yourself on the receiving end of this sort of thing, it’s very difficult. Because as I was growing up, charity was a good thing as long as it was going out. But learning to accept help from people is not an easy thing. t’s really isn’t. But there’s one thing I did learn. The simplest way, is that in your mind and your heart, you simply change the word from 'charity' to 'friendship.' And it’s much easier.

And a lot of people say to me, you know, when they hear about my story, 'That’s tough, that’s really not very lucky.' But I don’t think anybody in this room can look around and say that I really wasn’t the luckiest person here. So, thank you."