Do you see the people Tweet?
We all know (or should know) the classic tale of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. A fugitive name Jean Valjean desperately tries to escape his criminal past, while fighting his way to keep undercover during a revolutionary period in France. The audience watches as lovers Cosette and Marius bloom their affection for one another, and Eponine struggles to keep her true feeling of love for Marius under wraps. It’s a classic tale, but for the 25th anniversary of the performance the AT&T Performing Arts Center here in Dallas is going social. The AT&T PAC and Winspear Opera House created the ‘Review Crew’ earlier this year and Jencey Hirunrusme has been at the helm since. Essentially I was chosen to be the Twitter face of the opera house during the Lexus Broadway Series performance of Les Misérables. For every show this season they will select 4 participants to fill this duty. So without further adieu, here is my experience!
After arriving to the Winspear Opera House for the opening night of Les Misérables, I met with Jencey from the AT&T PAC marketing team who brought the team of ‘tweeters’ into the house of the Winspear to take a behind the scenes look between Fantine and a working girl. How cool! Then we did our before show interviews. The before and after interviews are an integral part of the ‘Review Crew’ as it captured our true reaction and anticipation in regards to Les Miz. Jencey then swept us up to the “Tweet Suite”, a bird’s eye box suite with the best views of the action, where we had a chance to really get a feel for the house and stage. When the lights dimmed, our phones lit up. The ‘Review Crew’ used Twitter to live-tweet and reply to a flurry of incoming questions and reactions. It was like no other experience to be able to provide a play by play from song lyrics to our own personal opinions of the storyline and its characters. Other outside participants using our designated hash-tags craved up to the minute reports on how we thought the set looked, actors voices sounded and general thoughts on what we were seeing. It was incredible to see how the AT&T PAC is utilizing an amazing resource like social media. Now that was fine and dandy, but it got much better. During intermission, I was told that we had been given seats in the house…5th row orchestra seats. As we rushed down the beautifully constructed stairs of the Winspear in the spirit of Valjean, we found ourselves up close and personal to stage and when “Do you hear the people sing” was performed I found myself in awe with chills because of the beautiful acoustics that the Winspear provides.
My experience with the AT&T PAC ‘Review Crew’ was unbelievable. The classic tale of Les Mis has forever been captured on stage and also on Twitter. I encourage everyone to get out and see a show at the AT&T PAC soon! Just make sure you tweet about it! Thank you so much to Jencey, the AT&T PAC ‘Review Crew’ and Winspear Opera house for letting me tweet “One Day More”.
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