By Sarah Bergeson
On August 6, Mary Poppins gave its last performance, and the 2016 season at The Theatre in the Park came to a close. Over the relatively short period of time that the productions were playing at the theatre (10 weeks), my supervisor, my colleagues, and I were able to accomplish quite a lot within the realm of social media.
We created and posted more content to Facebook, Twitter, and theatreinthepark.org than had been done in any previous season by going beyond posting the show posters and production stills. We also added two new platforms to our repertoire—Instagram and Twitter—and cultivated a following on each. By the end of the summer, the reach across platforms was higher than it had been in previous seasons.
In my efforts to aid The Theatre in the Park expand its reach online, I picked up some new skills to add to my repertoire. I was taught to control the professional video camera used to shoot B-Roll footage of the productions, and I learned to edit footage in iMovie. I also brushed up my Photoshop skills, which I hadn’t used in several years, in order to create the banners advertising movie nights in the weekly eBlasts sent out to the theatre’s subscribers.
Some of the skill sets I improved upon were less tangible. I continued to put into practice the ideas of consumer research and insights from Spring Quarter’s Marketing course; I was always testing my time management and prioritizing skills when deciding which (and how many) performances and rehearsals to attend each week; and I had hands on experience taking creative ideas, like the Joseph Go project, and implementing them in real-world environments.
Now that the season and the internship are over, I will take the lessons I’ve learned and skills I’ve developed with me as I continue along my path to theme park creative entertainment. My time at The Theatre in the Park has immensely helped me along this journey by giving me the time and autonomy to blend the creative and the tactical via our digital media campaign, and I hope to continue combining these two schools of thought as I go forward.
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