Stefanie Barish, Media Relations Fellow
The holiday season can mean lots of things, but I’ve learned
in the past month that when you work in communications, the holiday season
means appearances, appearances, appearances!
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been busy preparing for an
upcoming Arena event – we’re singing at the National Christmas Tree! This
Saturday, December 19, members of the Arena staff and two cast members from our
upcoming production of Stick Fly will be singing as part of the National
Christmas Tree Evening Music Program at President’s Park. Our performance time
is 7:00 p.m. and you don’t want to miss it. We had rehearsal last night and let
me say, our staff members are very talented.
To give you a little sneak peek, our own Director of Publications
will be representing The Fantasticks and singing a beautiful rendition of Try
to Remember, two of my fellow fellows will be serenading each other with Baby,
It’s Cold Outside, Amber Iman, who is starring in Stick Fly, will be belting
out the holiday classic, The Christmas Song, and the entire group of fifteen
will be singing my personal favorite, the long version of We Wish You a Merry
Christmas, figgy pudding and all.
Another upcoming event the communications team has been
preparing for is our upcoming Family Fun Days at The Fantasticks. What makes it
fun? Well, we’re having a juggler, a stilt walker, and a magician who will be
there to entertain before the show. Plus, there’s free popcorn for all and
balloons for all the kids. Our first Family Fun Day is for our Monday show,
December 21st at 7:30 p.m. and our second Family Fun day is for our
noon matinee on Tuesday, December 22nd. If you come on Tuesday,
you’ll even have a chance to meet the cast after the show!
Finally, we did have an appearance in early December at the
Alexandria Scottish Parade on December 5th. You may have missed us
since it was snowing/raining/sleeting all morning and what I remember as being
sub-zero temperatures. There were five of us, marching through the slush,
giving out sapphire beads, showing off our homemade red scarves and clever
banner (thanks to April, our marketing fellow, and Ronee, a senior new play
producing fellow, for their handy work with felt). Despite the fact that most
of us lost feeling in various extremities, it was a lot of fun seeing children's
eyes light up when we handed them the beads, there was probably also a lot of
smiling going on, but it was hard to see underneath the layers of clothing
everyone had on. It was especially nice when people shouted out to us when they
recognized our name, so thanks to those of you who cheered us on or even
offered hugs while we trekked through the streets.
So it’s been a busy few weeks here in the communications
department as we’ve been preparing for all of our holiday fun and I look forward
to seeing all of you at our upcoming events. Feel free to bring us some figgy
pudding, especially since I have no idea what that is…