BravoBravo! and My Farewell Letter

The time has come again -- that time is the fabulous BravoBravo! event hosted by the Detroit Opera House. With funding cuts threatening the existence of Metro Detroit's arts organizations, a group of 30 young professionals are taking the lead on filling the funding gaps left by state and corporate sponsorship budget cuts.

On June 5th, 2009 from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., BravoBravo! will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. BravoBravo! co-chair, Carmen Bell Ross, said "Raising money for the arts has never been so important and BravoBravo! makes it easy for the average person our age to make a difference while having fun doing it."

Last year, the event sold out with a record crowd of 2,000 young professionals partying for a cause. BravoBravo! reveals the best sights, sounds, and tastes of Detroit all in one place. The event offers five indoor areas and an outdoor tent for taking in local music acts, lounging, and noshing on food from Detroit's best restaurants and bars.

Guests will see that the theatre's main floor is covered with a platformed joined to the stage to create a large lounge area for mingling and dancing. This is the one event where the gorgeous theatre is transformed into a posh night club.
The event will host 40 different restaurants and bars including Small Plates Detroit, Crave Restaurant & Sushi Bar, The Majestic Cafe, Chen Chow Brasserie, The Century Grill, Opus One, Jacoby's German Biergarden, Union Street Saloon, Slows Bar B Q, 24 Grille, Angelina Italian Bistro, Good Girls Go To Paris Crepes, and Wolfgang Puck.
The event is also hosted by WXYZ's Erin Nicole. In the ten year history, BravoBravo! is pleased to announce its first mainstream national entertainment, The Cherry Poppin' Daddies sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe.
Other local acts include DJ Captn 20, The John Arnold Trio, Malik Alston & the Linwood Ensemble and DJ Frank Raines from Funk Night Detroit. Internationally known Chuck Flask, John Johr and a surprise guest presented by Paxahau and Movement Festival will also be there.
Tickets are available at motopera.org or bravobravo.org.

And now the second part of this posting...


As summer is starting and Winter is ending, so is my semester-long internship at the Detroit Opera House. I not only saw it as a way to a free education and learning professional skills outside the classroom, but also as a way of networking, learning about the non-profit industry of Public Relations and Marketing, and experiencing my field in the real world with unfortunate realities, such as a non-profit surviving in this economy.
For those interested in what I did at the Detroit Opera House as the Public Relations and Marketing intern, here's a little bit about my semester-long experience. I wrote press releases with the amazing Rebekah Johnson guiding and teaching me to becoming a better writer, a created press kits and got the "hands-on" aspect of PR, I searched through magazines and newspapers daily or weekly and found clippings where the DOH was mentioned, I maintained this wonderful blog, interviewed world-famous artists such as Amanda Squiteiri, Stephen Lord, and others, along with helping out simple tasks like making program inserts, entering award contests, updating artists archives, entering events and updating press contacts.

Not only did I get to learn, but I got to go to almost every show during the Winter season for free. I also learned about strategies to be taken in a struggling economy. It makes me feel good knowing that I got to help out a non-profit (or so I hope) during these rough times. It felt good to be part of such a great cause- knowing that audiences are learning with me about opera or enjoying what they already know, that children come to see shows and hopefully are inspired and will one day become artists or supporters in the future.

I'm also glad my dance skills could come of use to my supervisor, Rebekah, at times along with my mad French skills when we were editing the copy of Bravo for Carmen.
Yes, I've had a great semester here at the Detroit Opera House and I hope another intern can benefit from this experience as much as I have. I have learned so much in these past five months and am forever grateful for the opportunity they awarded me. Thanks and farewell!