Opera in the Better Borough

So I'm a little Brooklyn biased, and when good things are happening here, I think everyone should know about them.  When this nugget came across my radar, I couldn't help but share it.  I mean, they made a docu-trailer for an opera!  Who doesn't love a good trailer?  Any how, this isn't your typical opera, and I have a feeling the crowd won't feel quite the same as the one at the Met, but I think its pretty cool, and definitely worth checking out.

Tydrus the Twit
A new opera by Zeke Virant and the Brain Rain Players

December 8, 10, 11 at 8pm

December 9 at 9pm * $5
Presented by The Bushwick Project for the Arts



The Brain Rain Players and Bushwick Project for the Arts are proud to present the premiere of “Tydrus the Twit,” a new opera. "Tydrus the Twit" is about a middle-Georgia punk's inability to get a job and his bad trip through a dream world filled with witches and hopeless love. The opera is an immersive musical world spanning the intense reality of a small, southern town and the dreams of its occupants.

The Brain Rain Players are an operatic group of free jazz improvisors, untrained singers, performance artists,
and other widely talented persons. With a multi-disciplinary approach that combines spoken dialogue with
environmental and procedural music, the Brain Rain Players bring opera's irrational forms to the forefront of the theater.

ABOUT THE MUSIC



The music for “Tydrus the Twit” combines instrumental music and unmusical sounds made by the mouth. The
score specifically avoids the carefully notated practices of traditional opera, relying instead on procedural
notation and musical games employing the entire ensemble. These practices, designed with an eye to creating
an immersive theatrical environment, includes singing, blowing on bottles, laughing, clicking tongues, whistling,
buzzing, grunting, yawning, and spitting.  “Tydrus the Twit” expresses a world of sound that is not dependent on technical ability and draws out unique responses from each musician.

LOCATION
Bushwick Project fot the Arts
304 Meserole St. 

Brooklyn, NY 11206
Off the Montrose Ave. L stop

The More You Give The More You Get

image from marathondynamics.com

It's December.  Tonite's the first night of Hanukkah and we're a few short weeks away from Christmas.  The holidays can be daunting, especially when you're already juggling a busy schedule and carrying the world on your shoulders.  The moment that you feel you're completely running on empty is exactly when you should start giving. 

I'm not talking about annual appeals and end of the year giving, I'm not even talking about toys for tots.  When you feel like your plate is overflowing you have reached the perfect moment to ask your coworkers, friends, family if they need any help.  It seems counterintuitive to offer favors left and right when you can't get your own checklist wittled down, but it works.  When you open yourself up to helping others, you fill up your tank in more ways than one.  Think about it:

"When you help others, you can't help helping yourself." ~Avenue Q (gotta throw in those theater references)  Helping out someone else just feels good.  You get a break from your own tasks and you help someone cross something off their list.  Instant satisfaction from crossing something off a list? Check.

What goes around, comes around.  When you help someone, they remember it.  They're going to want to help you out too.  People often don't remember things you say, but they remember the way you made them feel, and if you helped them reach a sense of accomplishment, they're going to feel good.  Instant teamwork? Check.

There are a million reasons to pay it forward, so get to it!

The most important element of your social media strategy is customer service.

image: the biomed library public services blog

Yes folks, the most important element of your social media plan is not your twitter account, or the SEO of your website, or even the number of likes you have on Facebook. The number one, absolutely most important thing is the experience your guests/customers/patrons have when they walk in the door of your establishment. This is because social media is based on a conversation, of which you are only one part. The other end of this discussion is fueled by the people who use your service/buy your product. Therefore, if you’re serving up an inferior product or a bad experience, you’re going to hear about and so are all your potential guests/customers/patrons.


Here’s the good news, if you’re doing it right, someone will talk about it. If you’re providing people with great experiences and excellent products they’re going to say something, they’ll even stick up for you if some outlier is railing your cause. By providing a great customer experience and delivering a great product, your social mediums will flourish simply by interacting and responding to your constituency. On the other hand, if you’re peddling something that’s sub par, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of bad viral PR on social media platforms, and it takes a lot of work to dig yourself out of that hole.

So what does that mean for theater?

1. The art is important. Make sure that you’re building marketing and outreach strategies around great works of theater and not the other way around. Building a product to fit a marketing pitch is a recipe for disaster.

2. Prepare your front of house staff. From box office personnel, to ushers, all the way to sanitation, you need to cultivate a front of house staff that is passionate about your theater and well versed in customer service. As the saying goes “People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.”

3. When you get negative feedback on a social media platform, deal with it. Don’t get defensive or try to block someone and hide all evidence. Engage people who didn’t like your show or had a bad experience and grow from it. Let your audience know when you’re making improvements and thank them for bringing problems to your attention when appropriate. People like to be validated, and if you can improve their experience the next time around, they’re likely to be your biggest advocate going forward.