Rae-diate

Entering college at ONU, I knew I would have a small class of people who were in my major from the size of the school and the nature of my “unique” major, musical theatre. Because of this, I hoped deep down that I would be able to get close with my class over the course of four years. Freshman year me had no idea that “close” would be a large understatement for the bond I would create with the people I proudly call MT19. What started as a built-in group of friends has grown into a true family. I know describing a group of friends as a family is sometimes sappy or overused but the bond I feel with the members of MT19 is unlike any other friendship I could have imagined. With them, I have the fiercest support system I’ve ever experienced; we relentlessly encourage each other, whether that be giving each other standing ovations for every performance, helping each other create, practice and pick material, accompanying each other to auditions, or simply praising each other for being a

      In Katie Delahaye Paine’s book, “Measure What Matters,” it gives many tools for how to evaluate your organization’s public relations and online presence. Chapter 13 is dedicated to specifying how these tools are applicable to non-profit organizations. I find this chapter especially helpful for me because arts administration is mostly about non-profits. Chances are, if you’re working in arts management, you’ll be managing a non-profit and it is definitely different from managing a for-profit business. I have taken a whole class for my arts administration minor specifically about non-profit management. Through that class and all my other arts administration classes one of the biggest things I’ve learned is the importance of maintaining a positive, interactive relationship with your audience. Non-profits truly rely on their audience to stay up and running; their audience is also their donors, their main source of support. They have to constantly be making sure their audience is hap

This past weekend the ONU Theatre Arts Department opened and closed our spring musical “Sweet Charity.” I was in the cast of Sweet Charity and I had a blast dancing, singing and playing onstage all weekend, but I also had a ton of fun behind the scenes! The backstage area of any show is a world within itself full of laughter, moments of bonding and the not-so-glamorous process of preparing for your next entrance. Sometimes my favorite memories of the show happen backstage. For this production our director Courtney Kattengell wanted us to share some of our backstage moments with our potential audience as a kind of marketing for the show. The way she wanted to try this was with Instagram stories. From everything I’ve learned in this class I realized how good of an idea this was, since the biggest appeal to instagram stories is it gives your customers or audience a behind the scenes look which draws them into you more. Recently we’ve been experimenting with promotional videos and there

            My younger brother is in an all-boys college a cappella group called the Originals, an award winning group full of talented vocalists. Music is his passion and he strives to be a leader in anything he is involved in. He recently took on the position of social media manager for his group. When I asked him about his experience, he had a lot to say! “As social media manager, I am in charge of making sure that our group has a strong online presence. In order to maintain an active fanbase and attempt to keep our name present and relevant in the collegiate and contemporary a cappella scene, social media is incredibly important. Our main forms of social media are Facebook and Instagram (follow us @cmuoriginals for dope music), and I use both of those to update our followers and the a cappella community on the ongoings of our group. This includes all sorts of events in our group, from members' birthdays to gigs to performances to national competitions. There are low-key