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| Super hero Julien beats Leukemia with Chemo gloves | Julien with Clown Doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City | Grandpa Jim, mommy Jacqueline, Julien and a visitor |
Oranjestad -- 'Wintertulpen,' winter tulips, a one woman show is set to raise funds here for two local charities.
The benefiting charities are the Edmund Harms Foundation, providing free, at home, hospice-care to terminal cancer patients and the Wilhelmina Cancer Fund, established by the Dutch queen, dedicated to education, prevention and support.
The benefit honors Julien Collot, 4, who is presently battling Leukemia at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City . It is being organized by Aruban friends of his parents Thierry & Jacqueline Collot. The general public is invited to a moving experience at Cas Di Cultura, just 572 seats per show, on April 7th in the evening & on the 8th for a matinee, featuring a European one woman play about the subject of cancer.
'Wintertulpen,' from Antwerp, Belgium, is based on a book, 'Chemo' by Christine Lafaille, it tells in an ordinary and sometimes humorous way what happens to a woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer, and the audience gets to intimately follow her medical and mental process through her internal dialogue. Her personal odyssey ends on a positive note.
Just 1,144 tickets will be made available and organizers hope to sell out the performances and raise awareness for prevention and early detection that way, on the island.
'It's something positive for our community,' reports a spokesperson for the organizers, 'we've all been reading Jacqueline's heartbreaking and informative reports from the hospital over the past year and in the same way that she has educated us, we can now share the awareness with a larger circle.'
The group of organizers who in the past managed to collect a six figure amount for the Asian Tsunami victims here, reports that 'Wintertulpen' is a compelling work about the triumph of the human spirit and people's amazing ability to cope with anything and everything which is a story really worth telling.
Tickets will shortly be available via a grass root network. Reserve yours at mesavista@hotmail.com or ronacoster@gmail.com. Invite all your Dutch speaking friends/employees to attend. A commemorative program booklet supported by local sponsors will be printed courtesy of Mega Color of Deerfield Beach, Florida. Thank you Divi Resorts for sponsoring accommodations for actress Marleen Merckx and her stage director Steph Goossens.
Wintertulpen premiered in Antwerp December 4th, 2006. Marleen Merckx can we seen weekdays evenings on the BVN channel in the popular, long-running 'Thuis,' a Belgian TV-soap series. She has a personal interest in the story. Her real-life mom is a cancer survivor.
Mark your calendar April 7th & 8th, at Cas Di Cultura for a dramatic, touching interpretation of the disease experience.
'Julien Collot Production,' thanks its first ticket buyers and sponsors among them the Kan Family, Milton Berlinski, David & Ann Brown, Minouche Hamers, Jodi Tobman-Hagedoorn, Lincoln Gomez, Julia Renfro & Grace Mary Maduro.
For more information about the play go to: www.paljas.be and click on Marleen Merckx.
