And So It Begins

Hey everyone, my name is Mark Armandi and I study at the Curtin Bentley campus.

I started my public relations prac about a month ago but have been crazy busy over the past four weeks so this is my first blog (taking my sweet time I know).

I managed to get a prac position that combines my passion for public relations and my love for acting and the theatre. I got into contact with the Playlovers community theatre group to see if I could get a position with them, however they informed me that the directors of the plays they have running generally sort out their own publicity work. They kindly passed my information onto a few of their directors.
A few days later I received call from director Kevin Langoulant asking me if I would be keen to talk to him and his publicity coordinator Maureen Collett about assisting with the marketing and PR on his upcoming play/operetta “Candide”. That call was music to my ears (no pun intended) and I agreed to meet with them as soon as I could. After meeting with them it was clear that this would be a perfect placement for me.

Candide is a piece of musical theater composed by Leonard Bernstein (more famously known for the music of the classic West Side Story). The play is based on a short novel by Voltaire. If you are into musicals or just classic theater in general I strongly suggest you read a bit about it as it’s very interesting. I have copied a few links for Candide and Leonard Bernstein below if you wish to have a look, I have also put a link to the Playlovers website for anyone interested in the theater.

Candide- http://inkpot.com/classical/berncandide.html OR http://www.leonardbernstein.com/candide.htm

Leonard Bernstein- http://www.leonardbernstein.com/ OR http://www.notablebiographies.com/Be-Br/Bernstein-Leonard.html

Playlovers- http://playlovers.org.au/

For the first few days I was meeting the cast and crew getting to know them and their characters and I started brainstorming new publicity ideas with Kevin and Maureen. God It felt good to be back in the theater!!! The cast were all so nice, and with actors and singers from mid 20’s to 60 years old there was always someone with something interesting to say. I started by just floating around the rehearsals having small chats with the cast about what they do and where they are from and from this I formed a contact list and a bunch of brief actor bios which would later help me with various tasks.

I was given the task of interviewing the cast to come up with potential stories to use in media releases to send to the local papers. It was a lot of fun to put what I have learnt over the past few years to work in the real world, it made me feel so professional to be talking to people and taking notes to then pitch news stories. I am still in regular contact with the cast via email about what they have been up to, trying to get ideas for media releases.

Because I knew I would be writing up media releases I constructed a list of local papers distributed to the surrounding areas of the Playlovers theatre hall (in Floreat) and added descriptions of what the papers focus on and who they are aimed at. Having all this information set out in an easy to read format will help me decide who to send my media releases to and acts as a checklist for who we have targeted.

I have been thrown in the deep end a bit the last few days as I have not met with Kevin or Maureen for about a week. I have still been hard at work but for now I have put the media releases aside and am doing some research into new target markets and how we can get to them. My main ideas have included approaching seniors clubs, choir groups, high schools and acting and singing schools. I have been putting together contact lists of places that fall into these categories that are in the general area as well as ways we can approach them and what we have to offer them. Been a bit full on but still a lot of fun.

For now I am just chipping away at these tasks until I meet with my mentors on Thursday and pitch them my ideas and hopefully get right into the guts of it all.
I would love to hear your feedback and am enjoying reading about what you have been up to so keep it coming.

Until next time,

Mark