So you’ve bought your tickets to A Christmas Carol for Mom, Dad, Grandma, Bobby and Susie. But what about little Sally? She’s only four and that’s too young for A Christmas Carol (No children under 6 are allowed into PCS shows).  She really wants to go out and when you leave her home with a sitter, it isn’t pretty.

The answer is here! Two blocks from the Armory is We Village Drop ‘n Go Child Care.  Sally can have a great time with age appropriate fun focused around art and movement based activities. A night out for everyone!

As a special partnership with Portland Center Stage, We Village is offering a theater special. 3 1/2 hours of child care plus dinner for $35. What a deal! Just show them your ticket stub or email confirmation.

Learn all about We Village here.

Each of the ghosts of A Christmas Carol has a rather heady message to impart to Scrooge on Christmas eve.  Looking back at your past brings up painful regret. Looking ahead to a lonely, miserable future is so very grim. But it is the ghost of Christmas Present always resonates the most with me.  The call to look around and see the people that are vulnerable to ignorance, want and hunger is a powerful message.  Even Scrooge can’t come with a reasonable excuse not to help the vulnerable in his community.

So this holiday season, Portland Center Stage is partnering with p;ear. p:ear builds positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth, ages 15 to 24, through education, art and recreation to affirm personal worth and create more meaningful and healthier lives.

Beginning opening night of A Christmas Carol, the Christmas tree in the lobby of the Armory will be decorated with ornaments hand made by the youth of p;ear. Each ornament contains the Christmas wish of a homeless youth.  We are encouraging our entire PCS community to take an ornament from our tree and hang it on their own family’s tree. Then purchase the gift requested and “wrap” it in a new backpack with a pair of new socks.  Gifts need to be delivered to p;ear by December 20.

Find more info about how p;ear services our community’s homeless and transitional youth here

As we immerse ourselves in the world of A Christmas Carol here at Portland Center Stage, we can’t help but be inspired by the spirit of giving that is the central message of this holiday classic. It may seem a bit sentimental, but when I  hear the songs and the scenes being rehearsed in the next room,  I can’t help but try to be less like Scrooge and more like Fred.

When Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning, transformed from his ghostly visitors, the first thing he does is bring food to a hungry family, the Cratchits.  Inspired by this action, Portland Center Stage will be hosting a food drive for the Oregon Food Bank throughout the run of A Christmas Carol.

Aren’t you inspired? Well, in case your inspiration needs a little jump-start, we’re offering 1 free ticket* to A Christmas Carol when you bring in 3 non-perishable food items for the Oregon Food Bank.

*1 Adult ticket per household. No refunds on previously purchased tickets. Not valid with any other offer.  Subject to availability.

Social Media Marketing: Tweeting, Friending and You

You have a Facebook page. You read a lot of blogs. You invested in a great website. You may have even sent a tweet or two. But you want to integrate these and other online tools into your communications efforts to build your audience, deepen your relationships, and even strengthen your brand. The marketing team at Portland Center Stage shares with you some of the techniques and strategies that have made PCS a leader in the use of social media networking, as cited by Oregon Business Magazine. The half day workshop is designed to present the basics and share success stories, as well as harness the power of “crowd sourcing” to benefit all participants with new ideas, regardless of how much experience you have with online marketing.

Update: Yale study ranked PCS as #2 nationally for use of Twitter as a marketing tool by regional theaters.  We’ll outline, step-by-step how we’ve integrated Twitter into our communication plan in the workshop.

November 13
1pm – 5pm
Gerding Theater at the Armory
Cost: $40

Instructors: Cynthia Fuhrman, Director of Marketing and Communications; Trisha Mead, Public Relations Manager; Natalie Gilmore, Promotions Manager; Michael Buchino, Graphic Designer; Patrick Weishampel, Multimedia Designer.

For enrollment, or any other questions, please call Kelsey Tyler
at 503.445.3793 or email him at kelseyt@pcs.org.

One very fun part of Benjamin Franklin’s printing career was the creation of Poor Richard’s Almanack , a collection of little nuggets of wisdom, or aphorisms.  To celebrate Ben Franklin Unplugged, we ran a contest on Twitter to coin your own 21st Century aphorism and tweet it to @pcsghost. Here are some of the results:

@nicolealane An invitation in the inbox is worth two in the mailbox

@clairewillett Early to bed and early to rise makes a man a terrible college roommate.

@BethMcShane Energy and persistence conquer all things….except H1N1

@little_panther Politicians are good for making excuses & seldom good for anything else

@trishamead A penny saved is an inappropriate waste of strip mined natural resources.

Thanks everyone for the tweets! We’ll draw the winners of the Ben Franklin Unplugged tickets on November 1st.