Art Benefit Raises Funds for Human Trafficking Awareness Play

Renowned artists have joined forces with Mirage Theatre Company to raise funds in support of the development of a new theatre production -- Broken Dolls -- that addresses the complex issue of human trafficking. This very special benefit will be held at the Chinatown Soup art gallery at 16 Orchard Street, New York City on Friday, February 16, 2018 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Chinatown Soup is a community-centered space on the border of Lower East Side and Chinatown that fosters social activism and features the work of up-and-coming artists. Admission is free.

In 2017, more than 3,500 sex trafficking cases we're reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, and there are thousands of cases that go unreported because far too often the victims of trafficking have been silenced through a fear of recriminations and violence by their handlers. That is why Mirage Theatre is working with playwright Melisa Tien, a NY Foundation of the Arts Fellow and member of New Dramatists to create a play that gives voice to victims and survivors of human trafficking in its various forms. Her script and the resulting production will confront the ordeals faced by the most vulnerable members of our society who live in a form of modern slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally.

Among the many artists whose work will be offered for sale at the benefit are Amy Kaslow, an esteemed photojournalist who has been featured in Fortune Magazine, SLATE, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and on NPR, PBS, CNBC, and numerous other news outlets; mixed media artist, Nancy Mendez, whose vibrant and surreal style is influenced by horror movies, comics, graffiti and eclectic music; Margaret Reid Boyer, a photographer who specializes in narrative realism that lends a sense of immediacy and authenticity to each image; and Tatiana Rhinevault, a Russian-born artist whose work has been exhibited and sold in Russia, France, Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, and at the Gallery Revel in Soho, NYC.