We beat the odds. We're officially registered through the Camden Fringe Festival. And with your help, we're taking The Blind to London this August for SIX performances, August 12th—17th!
Producing the show overseas will mean raising at least $19,000 in funding. This amount ensures we can cover the costs of airfare and accommodations; food, transportation, and airport transfers; the cost of renting our venues; marketing and promotion; registration and licensing fees; sound and lighting equipment and support; compensation for our actors so they can take leave of their life and work obligations...and numerous other expenses.
This is How We Do Things Around These Here Parts
Listen, we know that we can raise this $19K. We know that there are people who have both the bold conviction in the importance of this show's message AND the means to contribute in a major way and we trust that some of those folks will come through for us. But we want to structure this campaign so that we're ALL making a statement together as a community, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and life circumstances, whether your individual meaningful donation is $10 or $10K.
So we're doing things a little differently here for our Back the Blind campaign.
Rather than focusing on the final number we need to raise, we've prioritized another, more meaningful goal:
We want to receive support from a minimum of 806 individuals and businesses, whatever the amount of their contribution.
As we continue producing this new take on Brian's story for new audiences, we want to do it with a community behind us. So we've set the goal of building an Original 806: Eight-hundred and six people who have our back.
"806" is in honor of the (806) area code that covers our region from the Texas High Plains to the South Plains—the area where our story takes place, and the region where Jason and Brian Deneke, and many, many others, worked to bring music and art and freedom and friendship and support to other young people.
The Original 806: Here's How it Works
It's very simple. There are "rewards" levels listed on this campaign because ...well...that's the way fundraising campaigns work. Right? But for our campaign, every single person who can donate a minimum of $10 has the same reward: When you donate $10 or more, you become one of The Original 806 "Backers". We'll sign your name to the back of our virtual class T-shirt, just like we did in elementary school when we were all just kids.
Yes, we need larger donations to come in and we're thankful for those! But we know that many of our $10 donations actually represent far more of a sacrifice for some backers than some of the other, larger gifts. And the pure love and solidarity behind that sacrifice isn't lost on us.
So in the spirit of our show and in honor of so many punk kids who find scrappy and unconventional ways to take care of one another, we're going to ALL stand side by side as equal Blind Backers as we keep moving this show and this message forward.
Wait. What is The Blind??
Oh, man. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we're just getting started here and that some people are just now hearing about the play for the first time!
Well...a lot has happened since the summer of 2024 when Jeni Stennis got back in touch with Jason Deneke after 35 years since they were childhood classmates together.
About the play:
The Blind is a metadrama referencing the 1997 hit-and-run murder of 19-year-old artist and punk musician Brian Deneke in Amarillo, Texas (often called "Bomb City" due to the nearby Pantex Plant, the center for the disassembly and reassembly of nuclear weapons in the U.S.)
Blind /blīnd/ n. A projectile not fired in anger which failed to explode when employed but may still pose a risk of future detonation.
Compelled by her concerns about a recent surge in hate crimes and the indifference she witnesses in her own community, a woman returns to her hometown to visit a former classmate more than 25 years after the murder of his brother. Her intent: to write a play about the events that culminated in his brother's tragic death and the subsequent trial that upheld the power of privilege. But as the evening unfolds and as stories, music, and challenging perspectives are exchanged between them, the clear lines of liability begin to blur around a new allegation.
The Blind creator Jeni Stennis, a childhood classmate of Brian Deneke’s older brother, Jason, endeavored to write a metadrama based solely on true-story elements as events unfolded in real time during the summer of 2024. She relied on court transcripts, community interviews, and her own memories and lived experiences as well as those of Jason’s, mining the significance of spontaneous conversations and coincidental encounters, in a process designed to uncover the raw, brutal truth.
An artistic expression of cultural reparations and an experiment in strategic storytelling, the show exposes the crime of societal indifference and asks us to examine how “good” people unwittingly facilitate hate.
The Blind is now performing its festival-length version for a limited number of performances in Texas and in nearby states as a Community Conversation Event with a facilitated discussion following the show. It's also undergoing development into a full-length version over the next year. And we have big plans for a number of related projects, all of which aim to achieve reparations for past harm and to create a safer, more inclusive culture within communities.
What These London Performances Mean for our Journey
During this stage of development, performing in the Camden Fringe Festival presents a unique opportunity:
We'll get to test the impact of the show on an international audience, giving us valuable insight, before finalizing our full-length version.
We'll get to represent Texas—and all of you—on an international stage.
We'll be in the heart of a major international center of punk history there in Camden Town, and we'll perform for people in the punk community who live outside of the U.S. who've felt connected to Brian through his story.
We'll be able to leverage the prestige of performing in London toward securing future performance dates here in the U.S. and build on the grassroots support for our ongoing development and related projects.
We'll get a chance to tell a story that made international headlines in a way that gives the final word back to those who were harmed and gives the rest of us a chance to take collective responsibility and to serve as an example of reparative community building.
Will You Back the Blind?
You can help in several ways!
Join us as one of the Original 806 by donating $10 or more! (See the Reward Levels section for details!)
Share this campaign with friends and family and ask them to donate a minimum of $10 to be one of our OG806 as well!
Follow us in Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theblind.play/ Our follower numbers help promoters and news outlets take us seriously and means we'll be able to produce the show in more locations.
Finally, tell your people far and wide to come see us in London August 12th-17th! We have already heard from folks all over the world who are making plans to see it there! Maybe someone you know will want to come experience it as well! (Tickets are available now, here: https://camdenfringe.com/events/the-blind/)
Thank you SO MUCH for your support!
*"The Blind" by Parabolic Arts & Impact is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of "The Blind" by Parabolic Arts & Impact must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Rewards
Featured
Be One of Our Original 806!
Donate $10.00 or more
Amount is fully tax-deductible.
OG806SamplePromo.png678.36 KB In the spirit of our story, we have a special goal that's far more important to us than the total dollar amount that we need to raise. We don't merely want to raise the money needed to further develop this show; we want to move forward with our plans knowing we have broad community support—from a community that has our back!
Our dream is that a large number of individuals and businesses representing all walks of life, different belief systems, and a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds might all come together to support the message of The Blind.
806 is the area code that covers the Texas Panhandle through the South Plains. This is the region of Texas where numerous bands would stop over en route to playing shows in Dallas, Las Vegas, or Denver. These bands had bigger gigs on the weekends in bigger cities, but they would stop here because of the promotional work that Jason and Brian Deneke and other punk music-loving young people did to recruit them, promote their shows and music, house and feed them, and give them a place to shower, sleep, and do a load of laundry back in the early to mid 90s.
With your donation of $10 or more, we hope you'll identify with these kids who gave what they could spare for something they knew their community needed.
And if you're able to become one of our Original 806 with a donation of $20, $50, $100, or more (through this reward level or as an "Honorary Angel", "Honorary Punk", or as one of our affectionately named "Sell-Outs"), we hope you'll donate in honor of others who don't have the $10 to give, but whose hearts are fully with us.
We'll ALL walk away with the same "reward": to document our names side by side as a team and a community. It'll be our honor to "sign" your name to the back of our virtual "Original 806" Class T-Shirt as one of The Blind''s early supporters who "have our back", alongside ALL of the first eight-hundred and six people who make a contribution to support this show!
THANK YOU FOR BACKING THE BLIND!
Honorary Angel
Donate $500.00 or more
Amount is fully tax-deductible.
You're "watchin' over [us], every move [we] make..." IYKYK
We'll sign your name on our virtual Class T-Shirt alongside every single person who joins The Original 806 to Back The Blind!
Honorary Punk
Donate $1,000.00 or more
Amount is fully tax-deductible.
You may or may not have ever owned a pair of Vans, but you're always ready to stand up for others or help someone in need. Thank you for digging deep and showing up for us!
We'll sign your name on our virtual Class T-Shirt alongside every single person who joins The Original 806 to Back The Blind!
