Steve and Carol Horowitz
Carol Horowitz
Do you remember the song “Getting to know you … getting to know all about you” from the musical South Pacific? This is the premise for LAFF (Laughter and Friendship Forever)! In an effort to promote unity and inclusiveness here within our own communities of Sun Lakes and surrounding neighborhoods, the concept for LAFF was created!
Inspired by a love of performing arts, two Sun Lakes residents, Carol and Steve Horowitz, presented the idea to Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation who were thrilled to become the sponsor for this new interfaith organization that seeks to use the performing arts (art, music, dance, and theater) to promote interfaith and multicultural understanding, to share camaraderie, and to develop new friendships through laughter! It’s grown and flourished beyond all of its original expectations, with its purposely large casts and crews representing most of the religious organizations within Sun Lakes, as well as residents who are not affiliated with any religious organization but enjoy LAFFter!
While its anticipated goals have been achieved, we’ve been delighted beyond words to discover new and unexpected benefits of participating in LAFF, either as cast, crew, or even as audience members! Since LAFF participants are mostly your friends and neighbors within our senior community, people have found that LAFF has offered opportunities to cross off goals or dreams from their personal bucket lists! People learned new skills and tried and succeeded in doing things they never thought they would ever experience, yet have now accomplished! People discovered hidden talents and developed new interests and, for some, it gave new meaning to their lives and helped alleviate loneliness.
And all of this happened through our attempts to find laughter and friendship and, in the process, bring laughter and entertainment to Sun Lakes! We do not claim to be professional entertainers. What we are is a just group of interfaith, fun-loving people who share the desire to LAFF and to share LAFFter with our audiences!
LAFF would like to express our very deep appreciation to the Greater Sun Lakes Community Foundation for their very generous grant award two years in a row! We are deeply thankful for their continued support of our efforts to help us fulfill our unique mission.
If you enjoyed LAFFing throughout our first two performances, you’ll love our third musical comedy, The Key to a Good Night’s Sleep (March 14, 15, and 22), which promises to be an even funnier (actually, hilarious!) but shorter production!
Our performances are fundraisers to benefit Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation and the churches who share the Chapel for All Faiths. LAFF is open to all interested, whether you aspire to become performers, crew members, non-performers who work on costumes or stage sets, or those who just plain want to LAFF with us and have the time of your life!