Blog on WAISTWATCHERS

Thanks to Lynne over at The First Pancake for writing such a nice story on our own WAISTWATCHERS: The Calorie-Free Musical. We're really glad you came and that you enjoyed the show so much.

For everyone else, WAISTWATCHERS must close on May 10! Say you saw it first, we understand several other performing arts centers and theaters around the country are very interested in licensing this home-grown show!

Sweet deal on Taste the Best of Tampa Bay!

Taste the Best of Tampa Bay at TBPAC. Live music, sample food and drink from the best restaurants. $40 tix with promo code FACE.

Special moments in theater

So I was sitting in traffic this morning with the iPod on shuffle and Spring Awakening's "The Mirror-Blue Night" came on. I love this song mainly for the violin instrumental break after Melchior's solo verse. If you've seen the show, that's the exact moment that the hayloft platform starts to rise and the blue lights illuminate like stars on the stage. Live theater magic!

That got me to thinking about other great theater moments where all the elements of a production come together and move you in some amazing way. When Elphaba flies at the end of "Defying Gravity" in Wicked or "Circle of Life" in The Lion King.

What is your favorite live theater moment?

Seen our 09-10 Broadway season yet?

Our 2009-10 Broadway Series announcements ran yesterday in The Tampa Tribune, St. Pete Times and the Bradenton Herald.

Head over to TBPAC.ORG and see it for yourself!

Midori in Asia

Violin virtuouso and world-renowned educator Goto Midori will play TBPAC on April 14.

You can get to know her, or catch up with her most current travels by checking out her blog. She uses the space to not only talk about what she's up to, but answer questions from fans.

Check it out here!

New Grey Gardens Movie on HBO

Last night I caught a trailer for a new HBO film, Grey Gardens, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. For those of you who follow Broadway, you'll recall a show called Grey Gardens a couple seasons ago starring Christine Ebersole. It never toured, but I had the opportunity to see it in New York and really enjoyed it.

For those of you who don't know the story of Grey Gardens, it's about the eccentric aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. They were quite the socialites in the 1940s but eventually they ended up living in their run down, 28-room mansion in East Hampton.

If you have HBO, or know someone who does, the movie will be on Saturday, April 18, at 8 p.m. Check it out!

Lucky you! Lots of tickets now just $17!

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, we've assembled a load of great deals on tickets to many upcoming shows. Check them out here: http://tinyurl.com/tbpac17

Know anyone that would appreciate those deals? Please pass them on!

Are you a WAISTWATCHER? Can you give us a hand?

One of the core components of good show marketing is knowing who your audience is and planning smart to reach them. You can buy all the TV, radio and print you like and still miss people though (as was evidenced this weekend when overheard at the Watchmen was "they should have an intermission in three-hour movies, you know, like back in the day when they had plays"). Some shows come with built-in niches. For a show like Motherload we'll obviously reach out to mom groups and play-date services. For HATS! we located all of the Red Hat chapters in a 100-mile radius.

For WAISTWATCHERS: The Calorie-Free Musical we've been reaching out to health and fitness organizations: Weightwatchers, Anytime Fitness, Shapes and the like. Still, it would be a virtual impossibility for us to hit up every single gym, weight loss center and health food store in the whole DMA.

And this is where you might come in ...

Grass-roots level marketing is important. It costs nothing in dollars usually, but is often the most labor-intesive and elusive. Our patrons operate on a grass-root level when they see a show then tell their friends who would like it to make a plan. They help us by posting links in their blogs or on their social networks. They can also help us out by taking a poster or some flyers to a relevant business they frequent - in this case like those gyms, weight loss centers or health food stores I mentioned previously.

Can you give us a hand?

If you've seen the show already, you know what folks are in for. Maybe you'd like to come back again and bring a friend? That might be possible for us to work out. You scratch our back and maybe we can scratch yours. Maybe you haven't seen it and you'd like to. Pitch in and we can probably take care of you, too.

So let me know if you can lend a hand. Any and all help is appreciated and we're always working on a show like this that's here for such a long time to help make sure that the show stays top of mind with folks.

Help like this isn't valid just for WAISTWATCHERS (though, admittedly, it's my most immediate need), but you can always help any show at TBPAC by doing any of the following:

• Request a poster or flyers to put at a relevant business, your work or church
• Follow us (tbpac) on Twitter, friend us on MySpace or join the group/become a fan of us (tbpac) on Facebook
• Use the forward to a friend feature on an eCenter newsletter that you think someone else might be interested in
  
• Post tinyurl links to your Twitter status
• Post links to our blog or our videos or photos to your Facebook or MySpace profile.
• Post how excited you are to see a show or what you thought of a show to your blog or social network

TBPAC is here for the community, and the community can also help us continue to bring the best of touring shows and regional productions by pitching in to get the word out!

Louis CK on Conan O'Brien

This video has really been making the rounds on all our social networking sites. Have you seen it yet? Tres funny. I'd embed it, but it's been disabled by request - so head over to YouTube to check it out. You can also catch him here on March 19.

VIDEO: Everything's amazing, nobody's happy.

Eat SPAM a lot!

Need something for dinner? How about a tasty quiche? Or stuffed acorn squash?

Sure, you could pick those up pre-made at your local Whole Foods, but why not make it yourself using simple recipes and a main ingredient of everyone’s favorite canned meat product. It isn’t your grandma’s SPAM anymore.

Check out this link to a story in the St. Petersburg Times’ “Taste” section for more info on SPAM.

And don't forget, Monty Python's SPAMALOT is in town only through Sunday. You can still get those $25 tickets (noted in an earlier blog) for tonight and tomorrow night's performance. Just use promo code RABBIT when ordering.

-PB

Guns and gore coming to TBPAC

From the Oscar and Tony Award nominated writer of In Bruges and The Pillowman ...





The Lieutenant of Inishmore contains violent scenes that some may find disturbing, loud gunfire and music, extremely graphic blood violence, adult language and adult situations. This play is not intended for the easily offended. No real cats will be harmed in the creation of this production.