Promoting Ohio Northern University's "Sweet Charity"

April 16 was the first day of tech week rehearsals with costumes. Things did not go very smoothly for me with this rehearsal because I have nine different costumes and ten different scene changes. This might not sound too bad, but these costumes are pretty elaborate and the set pieces are gigantic platforms which needed hydraulic brakes to make sure they stayed in place while people stood, swung on or danced on them. As you can imagine these platforms are pretty heavy which is not fun when you have ten very fast scene changes which often occur at the same time as my costume changes. Long story short I ended up crying onstage just a little bit because I was trying my best to get everything done that I needed too as fast as possible, but I still messed up my scene/costume change going into the famous "Rich Man's Frug," dance number in the show. Many other members of the ensemble had similar problems as this show is massive, but we are all got through it together. To show just how grueling this show is I put a list of my responsibilities in the show that I edited after I figured out how to solve some of the problems from tonight below.

As ensemble members have no time to promote the show backstage, the job was given to Riley Alexander who plays Oscar Lindquist, the show's romantic male lead. He was given access to the Freed Center of the Performing Arts' Instagram and Snapchat accounts to post updates and get people excited to see the show. If you don't follow the Freed Center's Instagram or Snapchat, they are both @freedcenter. It appears that they took Kawasaki's advice from the beginning of the semester and have all of their social media channels linked to the same username.

Before our Oscar began posting about the show, the Freed Center's Instagram page posted about their new Snapchat account in order to get more people following it.

Alexander's first post was an introduction video telling the followers that he is taking over, and he made sure to encourage everyone to also check out the Freed Center's Snapchat account. Alexander took advantage of Instagram's story feature, which you will see below.

The first picture features Riley Alexander and Hallie Heffernan in costumes as Oscar and Charity. The second picture again features Alexander, but this time with Joey Nicoletti, who plays Vittorio Vidal, a love interest of Charity's, and various other ensemble parts in the show. The costume Nicoletti has on in the picture above is for the character "Dirty Old Man." If you want to figure out what role a "Dirty Old Man," plays in the show, you will just have to come and see to find out for yourself.

Alexander wasted no time on putting up content on the Freed Center's Snapchat account too! The first screenshot is of the treacherous walk in the snow to the theatre, since in Ohio it sometimes snows in the middle of April. Anyways, Alexander didn't get around to posting on the Snapchat story until the notes session following the dress rehearsal. If you look closely you can see me beginning to type this blog post in the second picture. If you can't spot me I included the picture with my circled below.

Be sure to follow @freedcenter on Snapchat and Instagram to get more fun updates, and don't forget to get your tickets to "Sweet Charity." The show runs from April 19-22 and information about tickets and when the show is can be found by following this link. If you are able to see the show be sure to let me know what you thought of it in the comments below!