The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Welcome to The Charleston Marketing Podcast, the podcast that dives deep into the world of marketing, with a specific focus on the vibrant city of Charleston. Join us as we explore the strategies, trends, and success stories that shape the marketing landscape in this historic and captivating coastal city.
Each episode of The Charleston Marketing Podcast brings you exclusive interviews with local marketing experts, industry thought leaders and Charleston entrepreneurs who have harnessed the power of effective marketing in the Lowcountry and beyond. From strategic communication, social media, PR, digital strategy and everything in between, we uncover valuable insights and actionable tips for our listeners.
The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Leah Edwards: Reviving Charleston's Opera Scene and Cultivating Community Engagement
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Step into the spotlight with us as we welcome the remarkable Leah Edwards, a dynamic stage artist whose career spans Broadway, off-Broadway, the New York Philharmonic, and Carnegie Hall. Leah takes us on a journey through her vibrant career, sharing her transition from the stage to arts administration as the co-founder of Holy City Arts and Lyric Opera. Her humorous anecdotes and genuine passion for the arts offer a refreshing perspective on the world of performing arts and the creation of thriving opera communities.
From her unique beginnings in Virginia to her mastery as a professional pianist by 16, Leah's story is a tapestry of creativity and dedication. With the steadfast support of her parents, Leah's journey underscores the timeless allure of opera and musical theater, drawing parallels with cultural icons of the past. We explore Charleston’s surprising lack of an opera scene and Leah's innovative initiatives to change that, such as "Bagel Sundays" and driveway concerts that challenge misconceptions and foster a love for opera.
Celebrate the magic of live music with us as Leah recounts her dream of establishing a cultural landmark in Charleston, inspired by iconic venues like Lincoln Center and Santa Fe Opera. The narrative touches on community engagement, supporting local arts organizations, and the transformative power of live performances, especially during challenging times. This episode is a heartfelt tribute to the enduring joy of live music and the vision of a vibrant, inclusive arts community.
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Darius Kelly, Kim Russo
Produced and edited: rūmbo Advertising
Photographer: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
Outreach: Lauren Ellis
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Voiceover by: Ellison Karesh
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary
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Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association and broadcasting from our home at Charleston Radio Group. Thanks to CRG, we're able to talk with the movers and shakers of Charleston, from economy to art, from hospitality to tech and everything in between. These leaders have made a home here in the Lowcountry. They live here, they work here, they make change here. Why?
Speaker 2:Let's talk about it. Hello and welcome to the charleston marketing podcast. Powered by the charleston american marketing association, we are recording live in the charleston radio group studios. Big supporters of cama I hope we're live we are right now.
Speaker 2:I gotta give a big shout out to Charleston's favorite DJ. Dj Jerry Feels Good with the beats at the beginning of the mix. Thanks to all our supporters. What's up, guys, I'm Stephanie. I am the founder of Stephanie Barrow Consulting, a digital marketing strategy agency located here in Charleston, and I am your CAMA past president. Thanks for joining us. I am joined here by my fellow co-host and dear friend, mike Compton.
Speaker 3:Oh, dear friends, you are friends. That's so nice. You're welcome, Mike Compton here, president of Roomba Advertising GoRoombacom and your incoming president for the Charleston American Marketing Association. Thanks for joining us. What We've got a treat for you guys. Yes, I'm very excited, Not even going to lie to you. Who do we have today, steph, do you want to do the bio or do I want to do the?
Speaker 2:bio. You could do this bio. Okay, you know her better than me. That way, I'm just excited, so I have a hard time containing my joy.
Speaker 3:Leah Edwards is here, say hello, leah.
Speaker 2:Hi, hi, hello, hello, hello Hello.
Speaker 3:That wasn't weird at all. Hey, you know what Steph? Read her bio for us, will you?
Speaker 2:I want to do the bio because I'm really excited that she's here.
Speaker 3:You're better at it than.
Speaker 1:I am.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not, but I'll go for it, let's do this. A stage artist from the age of four, she made her Broadway debut and, off-broadway, regularly joins the company of encores, series and New series at New York City Center. Leah can be seen in the Emmy-nominated production of Carousel with a New York filmonic, has appeared in a musical guest as a Prairie Home companion and recorded the most recent cast album of George and Ira Gershwin's.
Speaker 3:Lady, be no Ira, george and Ira. Is it George and Ira? Come on, it could be Ira.
Speaker 2:You got this. Now she's been presented in concert at Carnegie Hall oh my gosh, that's so crazy and with the New York City Ballet Orchestra and, nationally, with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
Speaker 3:I know she's a rock star, literally a rock star.
Speaker 2:Yes, she's an award-winning pianist. She's appeared as a guest artist at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Enjoy the honor of performing at the Musical Ambassador of the Chinese Consul Wow Festival. Enjoyed the honor of performing at the musical ambassador of the Chinese concert.
Speaker 3:WOW, and her presentation of not going to say that word. Prokofiev's, prokofiev's, prokofiev's, prokofiev's. Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2:Third Piano Concerto was a featured segment on the National Public Radio. Now embracing her fate as an arts administrator, she is the co-founder and general director of Halo Halo City Arts and Lyric.
Speaker 3:Opera Holy City. Arts and Lyric.
Speaker 2:Opera, you just do it over.
Speaker 3:No, you did a great job, thanks. Leia is a rock star Hi.
Speaker 2:Leia, she is a rock star.
Speaker 4:Hi, mike, welcome to the show, thank you. Thanks for having me. I would love to be a literal rock star.
Speaker 3:Well, you don't see yourself as a rock star. I saw you as a rock star when you were on stage, during Lyrics and Opera. Oh no, I mixed that. Singers and stanzas Singers and stanzas yeah, yeah, yeah, that show. Thanks, that was a really good show.
Speaker 4:I mean, I like that other people see me as a rock star. I would, if I were you.
Speaker 3:We love the music industry, we love the arts industry.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love the music industry and I absolutely love Broadway, off-broadway, all of the things, so you have to tell me a little bit about that life I just want to hear about all things Broadway and how you got your start. Well, Stephanie, now preface this, I get excited, you can't get into it yet, because you don't like opera. No, I don't like opera. So to be fair, let's just be fair to Stephanie right now. I have seen what opera in my life what opera.
Speaker 2:And my dear husband who's listening to this because he's such an avid listener.
Speaker 1:He's the best.
Speaker 2:He took me last year for my birthday. I was turning 43. I was already feeling a little bit old, right, I was already feeling old. We would have gone out, had some champagne and some good meals and I was already feeling kind of old. And he surprised me with this big Christmas thing, because he knows I absolutely love, love, love Christmas. He took me to see Sarah Brightman. So I don't know if you're familiar with Sarah Brightman, because I was not familiar with sarah brightman, um, but she's an opera singer and I think she's like world famous right she's um.
Speaker 4:Yes, she's married to andrew lloyd weber oh dear yes, fan the phantom.
Speaker 2:Phantom of the opera lord lord weber okay so and so when I get out there, she has this like presence about her, where she's just like I'm, just look at me and she literally had like a halo type thing happening over her.
Speaker 2:It was very large and it was very gold and I looked around the audience and everyone in the room probably had 30 to 40 years of life on me and I was like do you feel like this is my audience? I looked at my husband. We, we did not even make it through the whole thing. Sorry, sarah Brightman no, no, no.
Speaker 3:Be sorry to your husband, don't be sorry to Sarah Brightman, yeah that's fair.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, we always. I I have I'm not even sure where to start with that, because I there are so many.
Speaker 1:I have a couple soap boxes okay that I think I'm going to A couple, yeah, anyways.
Speaker 4:Like I'm standing on about 12 of them right now. No, I think my first soapbox, because I love. Did I try that you tried that. No, no, no, I do. I think it's amazing. Okay, thank you, we appreciate that. I have a soapbox about opera and musical theater. Okay, Is everyone ready for it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like this. Please do. This is why we're here this is a good topic.
Speaker 4:Here's the reason that opera and musical theater are the same. Do you know what the word opera means in Italian? No, it means a work of music, theater.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 4:Okay, in italian no it means a work of music, theater, interesting, okay. And after world war one we stopped using all foreign words in america. We're like, we're done using foreign words. We're gonna use, right like we the, the thing, the welcome plant that we have here that everyone else like in all the other romance languages the word is anana, here we call it pineapple okay, interesting no same thing with eggplant. Like every other english language dialect british, australian everybody calls that purple vegetable um aubergine okay but in america we call it eggplant.
Speaker 4:And it all happened right then because we just were like we're gonna find an american identity, and so there are very few american, uh, european, words that we still use. And opera met that same fate and as broadway was exploding at the that time or turn of the century, broadway was the first place to have. The reason it's called the Great White Way is because we were the first ones to put we.
Speaker 4:I'm saying like I was there at the turn of the century doing that Halo's at least 100 years old, no it. That that's what drew attention to Broadway, to those musical pieces, but even then it was not what it is today. It was like cabaret shows in all the meanings of that word, and vaudeville, and that was Ziegfeld, follies and all of the dance, and it was just these huge collaborative stage shows that we then started calling music theater and so that there isn't actually a difference. It's just the evolution, like if you listen to Mozart. Okay, Daily.
Speaker 4:And you listen to Wagner, oh you're awesome. Those are not but right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:It's the same thing, okay, because then that's. They're not the same art form, but they're called because they all were, you know, european, whatever. Like Wagner exploded. Mozart would have been so offended by what Wagner did on a stage. Oh and sorry.
Speaker 1:Wagner.
Speaker 4:But then it moved right along that's what we were saying before Like then we are now at Hamilton, right, I mean, I guess.
Speaker 2:Hamilton is 10 years old now, but still it's crazy. Right? Don't even talk about Hamilton, but we're doing. Do you like Hamilton? I love Hamilton. Do I like?
Speaker 3:Do you guys like Hamilton? I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 2:What? Oh my God, it's brilliant.
Speaker 4:I love Hamilton. I'm curious what are your like barriers when you think opera or when someone says opera? What do you? What are your words?
Speaker 2:Like I think of someone singing in another language that I don't understand and that it is beautiful and it sounds wonderful, but I have no idea what they're saying to me. And so then and I also associate it with retired people I try to be as politically correct as possible. I just, you know, I love all kinds of music and I go to a lot of the so far events, like the ones downtown, and I like um all the different, like supporting the local artists and stuff.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm so excited to learn more about yeah because when I was before we were in the green you know the quote unquote green room, we were watching some youtube videos and I was like, okay, this is not, this is not what I'm thinking, it is so this is not at all, so. So that's why I'm like, I've been very like geeked out ever since I saw these YouTube videos, because you know this is exciting.
Speaker 4:What did you see?
Speaker 2:I was watching some of your performances. I love that. Yeah, we were watching it and I, like you, know the aspect of like the spoken word at some of the just, I feel like it was not at all in my mind to have the stereotypical opera singer performance would be where it's kind of stuffy and prim and proper, um, and didn't really like move my soul. And then I watched some of your stuff and I was like completely blown away.
Speaker 3:So you've converted me yay, you've heard it here first. Well, yeah, you haven't been converted yet well, I like her energy so that's her energy. So that's helpful. That's one thing Exactly. That is helpful. It's helpful. Leah, where are you from?
Speaker 4:Richmond Virginia.
Speaker 3:Yay, oh, I was going to say Stephanie, where are you from?
Speaker 2:I'm from Yorktown, virginia which is not far from Richmond Virginia. That's right, I'm outnumbered here.
Speaker 3:What was Virginia like growing up? You were saying that you were July 4th. Talk about that. What happened on July 4th? So on this day, You're giving us a history lesson already, huh.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you see in 1776, the America declared Coming up on 250 years.
Speaker 3:What was the other thing? Oh me, I was born.
Speaker 4:I was born, yes, your birthday and. I did wait. My mother makes fun of me for it, but she is sort of still annoyed. But she's getting over it that I waited for the fireworks. I was born in Fairfax actually Okay cool. And at Fairfax Hospital, which you can see, my mom could see the mall fireworks, the big DC fireworks DC. And I waited. I was born at 9.07 or something silly because I was like hello me, fireworks. That is really an epic story.
Speaker 2:Made my entrance right yeah.
Speaker 4:Exactly. And ever since, since that's what I you know what?
Speaker 3:no, I've been doing. What have you been doing?
Speaker 4:oh well, very briefly, uh time, you know, I feel like I put a timeline up. Uh, four years old, I started as a gymnast. Um, quickly, my mom decided that having a childhood would be better than maybe training for the? O. So I then moved into ballet, danced with the Richmond Ballet, and then was doing that professionally with them by 10. When I was seven, I started playing the piano, and so then by 16, I really grew up as a pianist.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 4:Oh, and so then I started playing professionally. That was the Gilmore Festival in my bio that you guys read and at 16. And then I went to school, actually at Interlochen Arts Academy. I was at camp there for a while and a couple years, and then they also have a year-round boarding school. That is just all artists all the time. Wow, that is neat it was awesome. Where is this? In northern Michigan.
Speaker 3:Oh hey.
Speaker 4:Right outside Traverse City.
Speaker 2:I love how supportive your family was of all these different endeavors. That is really cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, most supportive parents ever, that is for sure.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, took me to all the what did they?
Speaker 4:do. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but by profession was a special needs teacher and educator and my dad was senior executive service in the United States Army.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you for your service. Are they still around? Yeah, yeah, yes, shout out to my parents. They just celebrated. They come to everything. That's amazing, and they still live in Richmond.
Speaker 4:Hopefully, listening to this, they are. They come to everything that's amazing and they still live in Richmond.
Speaker 3:Hopefully listening to this. They are probably listening to this Do they know how to get podcasts yes, Do they know how to get podcasts? They're those parents. No, they're very hip.
Speaker 4:They just celebrated their 50th anniversary, which seems to be coming up a lot, Because I did another interview and then at the end of the interview was like and shout out to Leia's parents for their 50th. I was like, okay.
Speaker 1:It's a big year here, it is right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's all. And the funny not that this has anything to do with what we're talking about, but just because I love to my mother decided when they got married that she didn't want to do forever. That was too long, so she said she'd do 50 years.
Speaker 3:So so she said she'd do 50 years. So this was a big one. This is a big one. Is he shaking? Is your dad kind of nervous about this? No, no.
Speaker 4:It was the first.
Speaker 3:It was their anniversary.
Speaker 1:And he made it.
Speaker 4:And they re-upped for another 50. Aww, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:I don't know Another 50. That sounds like a long time. That's huge.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 4:They just got back from their anniversary vacation, that's good.
Speaker 3:So they were not in performers, they weren't.
Speaker 4:Nope.
Speaker 3:As you were coming out, so but they did take us to.
Speaker 4:They are the reason that I am a performer. I went to see Carmen when I was seven years old, oh, yeah, yeah. Interestingly enough, that was so. I was also, like I was born an old person, so it's not weird to me that I ended up in classical arts all of my life. Yeah, which, just to your point, seems to be a 65 and up art form. Yes, which is part of why I'm trying to 65 is not old, I'm talking.
Speaker 2:Sarah Brightman was like the retirement bus cave where they dropped those people off and it was the situation.
Speaker 4:Well, but so again back to sort of same soapbox about opera versus musical theater. Opera was born of in 1597 or whenever. That date is probably right. Please don't fact check me on that.
Speaker 1:But it's something like that.
Speaker 4:That it was the popular music of the time. It has always been the popular music. And what happened? You know why? Currently, the, the generation that is still classical people that go um it is the majority. Um, it's because that was the popular music. Okay, right. I mean it's the. Judy Garland was not just on the radio.
Speaker 2:She was all on the stage.
Speaker 4:She was all on the TV. You know the movies Right, Like how hot were movies. And if you look during all through the Great Depression and all of the, you know in the 30s and 40s and that's when what was on the stage? Because live stage theater is so much more expensive to produce than Hollywood stage theater, so that it everything just like picked up during the Great Depression and went to Hollywood, but then all of that stuff was on the Hollywood screen, which made it that much more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that I like Sinatra and that kind of stuff. I see the throwback. Huge fan of Sinatra, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm a bit of an old soul myself, so I kind of get that. So then what happens? So did you go to college? I?
Speaker 4:did conservatory at Eastman School of Music as a pianist oh okay. And then I was. I've always been a collaborative artist. For my summers I lived for chamber music as a pianist.
Speaker 3:Chamber music Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Is that a?
Speaker 4:phrase.
Speaker 3:Help me out here, okay.
Speaker 4:Awesome Yay.
Speaker 3:Thank you, we'll start at zero here. Okay, I love that. I mean of phrase help me out here, okay, awesome. Yay, I thank you, we'll start at zero here.
Speaker 4:Okay, I love that. I mean, this is like it's the. My biggest soapbox is that? That's the thing. Is that, as an industry, all the industries, like we all study all of our lives, from the time where some of us are four, um, and you know it's, but like I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't read music in the same way that I, like everybody, you don't remember when you read, when you learned to read other than like you know what yeah, and that's I mean.
Speaker 4:For me. I don't really remember a time that I didn't read music or know any of these terms or whatever. So it's, it's my language. But as an industry, if I mean like astrophysicists sure don't, we all are like, well, it's astrophysics, why? Why would I know the terms? And it's like the same thing that we've done as musicians or artists or stage people.
Speaker 2:That's just embedded in who you are.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it's our job to explain it to people who haven't done that. Right right, right right, and it's really fun. We are very, very nerdy and if you ask us, at least all people I like to hang out right, if you ask us we want to talk about it.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't know that. It was founded in charleston, right. What was wasn't opera founded right? I didn't know that well so what birthplace of opera?
Speaker 4:it was the birthplace of opera in north america. Okay, and I love that. I'm I. I please don't check all my like some of my history facts no, but that is.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're fact checking.
Speaker 4:I did not know that in 1736, so I did. This is one of those things. I didn't know that, right, like I do this as a profession and my husband and I moved here to because we're stage people and we're independent contractors. We can work from anywhere, we go wherever we're going. Anyways, we can base from anywhere, right, and we came here for sunshine and palm trees and like, okay, you know, circa doing that at 2015 yeah, yeah we're the pre pre-pandemic people I'm 2019, so I get that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2014 yeah it's yeah, so you you just you.
Speaker 3:Your happenstance came to Charleston because you love it so much.
Speaker 4:We'd never been here. I needed to get out of New York.
Speaker 3:What were you doing in New York? I did my master's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did my master's Dimitri's from there.
Speaker 3:Dimitri's the husband, by the way. Hi Dimitri, hi Dimitri, hi Dimitri.
Speaker 2:See you next time.
Speaker 1:In.
Speaker 4:New York currently. Yeah, and so we did. I just needed to live in a. I need space. Yeah, I need space and there wasn't any there at that time. I used to live in New York. I understand that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but so we moved here just to like. But basically, when we are not in a job, when we're not in rehearsals or doing performances, we have downtime, so there's not like. Our career is very weird in that a gig is anywhere from, you know, six to eight weeks Right, and or sometimes, if you're working with orchestras, it's a week. You go somewhere, you show up, you rehearse, you sing a concert or two and then you come back.
Speaker 3:Like a rock star. Like a rock star, like a rock star.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you sing a concert or two and then you come back like a rock star, like a rock star, but then you have downtime. Unless you're taylor swift, she has no downtime, um, but yeah, it's that. Uh, so it's, it's just sort of a um.
Speaker 4:I mean, you have to love that lifestyle there is nothing nine to five or you know, stable in any way, shape or form. Um, which is, as a thrill seeker, I love um, but yeah, so we. I, just I, I wanted to move here so that I could walk out on my back deck and like have a cup of coffee at whatever hour I felt like it, not fight traffic, not, you know anyway.
Speaker 3:And so, and you know, my birdies sing so you're an opera, you're an opera singer and you just happen to show up to the birthplace of opera. What is your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Because I've only lived here I guess 10 years here now and I used to live in Nashville and I used to work in the music scene. What's your take on the music scene here in Charleston? When you first arrived, were you like, I'm going to shake things up, I'm going to bring a new medium? What did you think?
Speaker 3:Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We no, you didn't want to shake things up. No, oh, it just so happens that you're shaking things up right now?
Speaker 4:Yes, I hope so.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, all right, and.
Speaker 4:I yeah, no, we came to hide. I mean, it is legit, we came to not do this.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 4:Because there is not.
Speaker 2:A scene for that here.
Speaker 4:There's not a scene for that here. There is a gorgeously robust arts education system in this town and from like pre-K through high school, we've got all these great companies that are education based and we've got award winning bands.
Speaker 2:That's true, we have some Grammy. You know, darius, what's the band with Carlton Singleton? Yeah, ranky Tanky, ranky Tanky there you go.
Speaker 4:But even they were like they formed Yep A. They're amazing.
Speaker 1:I guess yes yes.
Speaker 4:But, they formed at College of Charleston as like friends.
Speaker 2:And they've been together forever Making some music.
Speaker 3:And that's you know I mean talk about rock stars, for sure yeah, um, and but that's it.
Speaker 4:It's not there, wasn't, there's not a wasn't a professional outlet and so to. So it's basically we trained you in this thing that you're not really good at, whether it's instrumental or um, uh, you know vocal or theater or whatever. And then it's instrumental or vocal or theater or whatever, and then it's like cool, go get a real job.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, no.
Speaker 4:Or go out Right, go forth and do that.
Speaker 3:What was it like that first time you decided to do that? I mean, or were you just performing your entire life and just never had that kind of time? I can't imagine just shutting off that?
Speaker 4:No, I've never had. I like to call them real jobs.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:I've never had a real job. There you go. My closest real job was I worked in the admissions after I wasn't really ready to leave Interlochen yet. But I couldn't be a camper after I graduated and I had no interest in being a counselor, and so I worked in admissions. Interesting and that was my closest thing to 9 to 5.
Speaker 3:Other than that. You've been performing for dollars your entire career.
Speaker 2:It's my whole life Corporate gigs, weddings, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:No, like on a stage, like a legit. That's amazing. I'm actually really living this rock star life.
Speaker 3:You're welcome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:I've enlightened you that you're a rock star, that I'm a rock star. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, of course no, I mean that's yeah I make my living by performing on a stage for other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is so huge, yeah I feel like when I used to work with artists, I have a lot of friends who are like wannabe actors and they do commercials and stuff. I'm like, if you can make a living right not to be a celebrity make a living doing off what you love, you You've made it, yeah, you've made it as an artist and that's so huge that you've been doing that your entire life. Yeah, that is cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:So you're here in Charleston and one of the things you guys just said that there's no opera scene here in Charleston. So my entrepreneur radars go up and say okay, there's room for me to make a scene here and build a community. When? When did that click for you? Because that's what you're doing. So we haven't gotten into that yet, but I'd like you to talk about halo this isn't about me.
Speaker 4:It is, though.
Speaker 3:It is, uh, yeah, um we uh, dimitri moved here into charleston happens to be the birthplace of opera. And then now what happens?
Speaker 4:well, so first of all, uh, I didn't actually find that out until after we had started halo I love that you're like fun fact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my mission is directly tied to my city and weirder than that, we did a once.
Speaker 4:We were. I'm sorry, pin, in the question you just asked me, but when we got there we had actually done on the quarter of Church and Broad, which is where Shepherd's Tavern was. That is the first place we went. We're like let's just go downtown and ask people, just like I said, what is opera to?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 4:I love that. We had a friend of ours who's a videographer and and he stood behind us and we were, you know. I mean this was like in pandemic times and we're masked and we're the weird people with a camera being like excuse me, do you have a second? Is it okay if we ask you what you, if we say the word opera? What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3:But it was more like this oh shit man.
Speaker 4:I know, the mask was on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's what that was.
Speaker 2:Right In case you didn't understand that joke he's got dad jokes for days.
Speaker 4:Came from the phantom of the mask. No, wrong part of the face. Anyway, we, yeah, no, I mean, that was the original information that we started getting, original information that we started getting. Nice, um, what was the feedback? Well, from people, it's really interesting. Okay, everyone, you know every, everything from, because I again going back to the, I'm the problem.
Speaker 4:I've loved this art form since I was seven, right, yes, um, people are like it's a girl thing. Huh, I was like I think that that Franco Carelli would be very offended, or like literally any man in this field would not maybe call it a girl thing, or maybe they'd be excited by that. I don't really know, but it was. You know, anything from roses and velvet to, I mean, it's all the stuff that it, you know, snotty and elitist and gold and you know not for me, and scary and foreign and all the things. And I was like this is so fun because I combat that so hard. I literally fell in love with Carmen because and it's funny always when you say opera, people go immediately to singing Right, it's the's yes opera is sung like, singing like this, yeah, yeah, see, and like the horns and the stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, um, she was proper. No, nobody holding my hand, so bad for you like nobody's, that's a church thing, right yeah, this is not an opera I've never seen an opera singer, unless you're sarah brightman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, proper, yeah for the listeners.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, because it's a radio. Um no, and I just it. It wasn't like everything on the stage. I remember, and carmen carmen for those of you that don't yeah, what's, carmen, help me out plot spoiler okay, carmen is an amazing french opera by a composer named bise, and it is sex and romance and bullfighting and it's about um. It's set in Spain, in Seville, and Carmen is I politically correct what she's called a gypsy throughout the whole thing.
Speaker 4:So she's a band of right right vagrants. And she is. I mean, she works in a cigarette factory, Okay, and she's the bad girl, right, she's the one starting all the fights, yeah, but always, I mean like they did you know, yeah, but then. So then she always flirts with the officers and then she starts a fight and beats up this other woman and all the. It's like this amazing cat fight in the first 10 minutes of the opera I like it already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sign me up. Yes, is carmen elector in this? No, oh, never mind. But did you see the beyonce? Beyonce did a carmen situation no I missed that okay, everybody look it up we don't need to, I mean, but it's.
Speaker 4:That's the thing, it is storytelling. This opera is the very sexiest. It is full of dance, it is full of gambling, tarot, card reading, bullfighting.
Speaker 1:All the dark things Escamilla.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's that All the things that we watch and that we're totally addicted to in Hollywood films. That's like opera is the OG Hollywood drama and then again plot spoiler everyone the duet at the end. So she, carmen, was the tenor.
Speaker 2:Of course she does. Of course she does. She's a badass.
Speaker 4:Dude, I'm trying to think like any of the Tori Dorek. Carmen is one of those tunes. Okay, you know all the tunes from Carmen and no one knows that it's Carmen.
Speaker 2:I'm listening to this on the way home today yeah.
Speaker 4:It's super sexy All of it, and all the castanets and all of the. It's just.
Speaker 3:I love castanets.
Speaker 2:I love. He's going to give you my favorite we're going to have a date night. Mike, you and I are going to go to the next one, so this is okay.
Speaker 4:But, also going back to your question that you asked, because this all has to do with Carmen or really what we're talking about. We ended up, very long story short, demetri and I ended up doing a concert with the Charleston Symphony. It was called Masquerade, speaking of Phantom of the, and we, in planning the, we don't just like stand and sing. It's not a thing that we do, and so when we were talking through the event with them, it was a Pops concert and so I was like great, and it was their last one of the season.
Speaker 2:I like the Charleston Pops concert and so I was like great, and it was their last one of the season.
Speaker 4:I like the Charles and Pops events, yeah, and so we made a signature cocktail and we made sure that there was a step and repeat and we're like, just tell the audience to come in masks and wear I mean it was like a dress up event and it was so fun. And then it ended up being and so then it was just like literally me and Dimitri singing for two hours oh so fun. And it was some operas. I mean everything from like Madam Butterfly to we did Do Re Mi and I from Sound of Music oh yeah, I know that one.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, okay so this is what so we had everybody knows that right yes yes, so I took, I sang the first verse and then I took the, I took the microphone out into the house and everybody like I just wandered the Gilead and and they were all into it.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:And then, like you know, if I put them, everybody who I put the microphone in their face, everybody was like great let's you know was totally in, and it just created this moment of it's a shared experience.
Speaker 4:Right, this is the magic of theater. And anyway, that was a concert, that was all we were supposed to do, and then we go back to living our best life. But but it was their highest grossing concert of the season, and so everybody started coming up to us and being like so this? And we're like, nope. Thank you so much, much appreciated.
Speaker 3:Thank you, that was fun.
Speaker 4:We'll do this again maybe. Other than that, this is not what we do, Sure. That being said, all of our neighbors we live in this amazing little section of our neighborhood.
Speaker 3:And we're still in COVID time, right now Two cul-de-sacs.
Speaker 4:Well this was pre-COVID time Pre-COVID.
Speaker 3:Still, this was March 2019. I don't want to spoil it, okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, but all of our neighbors. We looked down. We had this ridiculous shtick that we were doing that we opened with the School of the Arts. Chorus did Masquerade, which is the number from Phantom of the Opera. The masquerade the number from Phantom of the Opera, the masquerade, I don't know the words. And then we came out. Dimitri came out as the Phantom. We did All I Ask of you, or whatever. Dimitri does not sing the Phantom, by the way. It is a baritone role, he is a tenor. It is very funny.
Speaker 2:It's sort of a baritone role. It doesn't matter, this is where it gets. This is Stephanie now singing it's oh yeah, this is stephanie.
Speaker 4:now, okay, I cannot write who was the original christine in phantom right. Okay, so it starts to. It morphs, it morphs, she's, she's. She was the original, she was the original christine.
Speaker 3:It was written for her voice.
Speaker 4:Okay, interesting anyways, anyway. So, um, so that we came out and and so we signed. We had this silly mask, right?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:The phantom kind, not the COVID kind, and we had autographed it because self-indulgent artists and this was this thing that was going to be a takeaway, we were going to hand it to somebody in the front row, right, I love this. And we looked down and it was literally our neighbors, like some people that had never, that are born and raised here, never been to the Gilead, never been to live classical music A lot of people in our neighborhood, because we kept, we were hiding. Everyone was like I mean, are you really opera singers? Are you really going away to do a job?
Speaker 2:Or are you spies Right? Oh, going away to do a job. Or are you spies right, oh god? And so we were neighbors and they were just, yeah, being nosy. Yeah, the definition of a nosy neighbor.
Speaker 4:No, no, but like they would take care of our houses if we were gone during hurricane season. Or our houses like we have 35 in the same place um, you know and and like our yard and our, you know it was just people keeping an eye on it, yep, anyway, so it was them. And then they had such an amazing time at this concert, right, and they came after to the door and they were like y'all are just so regular at home and you're so glamorous on a stage.
Speaker 3:And I was like I've never been more complimented in my life, sweet so.
Speaker 4:But then they started coming over and they're like this is this thing, the stigma around opera. And the word is that they said if this is, you know, the aforementioned like walking out with the do-re-mi and it's a part of you, invited me in. They say, and now I want more Like if this is what I knew opera was, I would have invested in it a long time ago. I love that. And so then we started Bagel Sundays. Okay, and people would come over to our house.
Speaker 3:What are you doing for Bagel Sundays?
Speaker 4:We would put out a bagel spread and we said we'll give you food. You listen to opera and everyone was like I'm all in Were you singing this opera, or you? Just no, no, we have them. We have like a thousand lps of like the good opera. Also, hearing bad opera can turn you off forever. But what I always say to that too is like if you read a bad book, do you never read a book again?
Speaker 4:sure it's so silly to me, yeah, when people are like you know, and that was the first thing, right when we said you were like one opera and I'm out, and I was like no, no, I.
Speaker 2:I just didn't think it was for me until I started watching your youtube videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, one fan at a time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, are you still doing the bagels and opera?
Speaker 4:we. I would like to reinstate it because that. So that's what started all of this right is that it's an environment that, like, we'll feed you and you get to ask questions.
Speaker 3:Are there locks? Do you get lock?
Speaker 4:like capers. Yeah, yeah, do you get locks.
Speaker 2:All right, we do locks cream cheese. This is the bar guys. We're calling New York and there's yeah right, we'll get you a sponsor.
Speaker 4:I would love that and because then we put on, we ask if there's anything anyone wants to listen to, and everyone looks at us like we have six heads, like what would I even say to this question?
Speaker 3:Don't worry me. I would say don't worry me Right.
Speaker 4:So, and that's, you know, happy to Rodgers and Hammerstein, as much an opera as you know any sort of Verdi.
Speaker 4:You've definitely changed my mind a little bit because I love musicals and you're right, like Hamilton is kind of like a rock opera it is almost three hours completely sung through yeah, and it's in the vernacular of the now yeah, so that everyone in the audience can understand it, and its plot is about history that everyone should know and doesn't. And so they leave there with more history, with people who look like them on the stage, with music that they can repeat.
Speaker 2:Alexander Hamilton. Okay, oh yeah, I mean I sing it in the head all the time yes, it's a problem. Yes, no, I love it it is an opera.
Speaker 3:You're not there yet, steph, you have to go. You have to go see her shows. I know I've seen Hamilton and I'm going to see her show.
Speaker 2:She's gave me the pamphlet. I got it in my purse. I'm going. I already looked at the dates. I'm like I weren't in town this time. We're in town this time. All right, husband, we're going Well and that's the thing.
Speaker 3:And then he'd be like wait, last time I took you to an opera you.
Speaker 4:I heard somebody describe us and our performances as vibing. So, I'm all in now, no no, you were.
Speaker 2:It was very cool, thanks. Yeah, we actually have a good friend, rhonda, who I think I should hook you up with, who does like spoken word and stuff. Yeah. She's very cool. She was on our podcast like a year ago and I'll have to hook you up with her because I think that would mesh really well.
Speaker 4:Very talented poet.
Speaker 2:Very talented poet. We love the music.
Speaker 3:This is where I'm putting you on the spot right.
Speaker 4:Like you came to see Singers and Stanzas.
Speaker 3:Singers and Stanzas, which was a fantastic show.
Speaker 1:I had all the emotions. Are you kidding me? I brought my kids too. I brought the eight-year-olds.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, they were bored AF brought them I don't think my girls would be bored no, your girls probably wouldn't be bored because yeah, it looked fantastic.
Speaker 3:On stage, all of the different poets came out and it was they would deliver their poem right and then it was sung by super good opera singer.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell you, you're not the only one that sings no, no, no she brings in people from all over the country, like nationally renowned.
Speaker 4:how do you get your people over the country?
Speaker 2:Like nationally renowned people. How do you get your people? And we use local people. She's nationally renowned. I know that she's connected. Well, so the you just you're text chaining. Yes, Leah's the definition of the sneaky cool people in Charleston. Sneaky cool. She's going to coin this. Yeah, I saying so, so you just, you go and you so. For someone like me I've never been to one I'm expecting to get like all dolled up right, you go.
Speaker 2:No, I know I'm just saying what I, what my vision of my night to look like, you know. So what does it look like? What can I want?
Speaker 4:someone expected they've never been before. Okay, it's hold on, because a few just going back a teeny tiny bit singers and stanzas wasn't like that.
Speaker 3:It was a very come as. You are comfortable, vibe yeah, I thought, and it was at what? What dock street theater I love, which was really cool, yeah 1736 um so built in 1736 no, I, I am a gigantic nerd.
Speaker 4:The second I found out that charleston had sucked us here to be.
Speaker 3:Charleston did it. You're saying that it did. It's the serendipity, right Like we made this weird.
Speaker 4:what is opera video on the corner of Church and Broad of all of the places to stand in this town?
Speaker 3:No kidding.
Speaker 4:To have done it there. And then someone was like well, you know that's where you know opera premiered in North America. I was like, did not know that.
Speaker 4:Oh no, my brain hurts, yeah yeah. 1735, a British. It's called a ballad opera. This is when everything started developing. This is when the Brits started to make fun of European opera and what was happening, okay, and so they brought this. They made a new art form. That, basically, is what morphed into American musical theater and what all of that is now. When it came to America, it was still opera, but it was taking familiar tunes that everybody knew. A lot of them were drinking songs and putting new words to them so that it told a different story, but it was still tunes that resonated with everyone. That is the form that is ballad opera, and they all weren't foreign speaking songs?
Speaker 4:No, because we came here. Charleston was called Little London in a very derogatory way by northerners because we were the first stop in America, Again with the we, because I've been around a long time we're Charlestonians, now we're communists. I know we are Totally. I think after you've been here for 10 years you can.
Speaker 3:Uh-uh, no, no, no, I think it's like 10 centuries, Generations, generations.
Speaker 4:In New York if you've been there for the whole country, good old New Yorkers, the whole country, no. So that's we, and also like just the reason that we started with Holy City Arts and Lyric Opera is so that it could say Halo to be perfectly legitimate. Because, why, because, why?
Speaker 3:Holy City is the nickname right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Holy City is what Charleston's nickname is and there are all kinds of reasons for that, but, um that anyone has their own opinion about why we're called the holy city. Um, I thought it was because all right.
Speaker 3:I got one opinion. You're ready for one?
Speaker 2:I was told by my my tour guide when I first moved here that it was because the tallest building downtown can't be taller than the tallest steeple and then there was a lot of religions that coming. Yes, yes all the churches, yes, but that's what I was told it was called holy city because of the steeples yeah, and it can't. It can't be any. No, no building can come along and be taller than the tallest steeple and that's a richmond thing too it is. Oh, go ahead, richmond I kind of like it.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure it is anymore, because downtown richmond is clearly taller than the tallest yeah.
Speaker 3:That city is banging now I like my Tampa skyline and, you know, like this little skyline.
Speaker 2:But it grew on me to not have a skyline and to know that it's never going to be like that. I think it will never be tall. Yeah, I do, I think it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's pretty special. 41 is pretty special. To me too is pretty special to me too, the 41 traffic.
Speaker 1:Keep it two lanes. Let's just stay two lanes.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's not, I'm being sincere.
Speaker 3:I want it to stay like that.
Speaker 4:I don't want it to build up, but now you're one of those people that's like you stay out of traffic.
Speaker 3:At first I was my early coming of years, I was like we need to widen this.
Speaker 2:I need to go places. Matthew can't wait for Clemens Ferry to be fixed. Oh yeah, same with Emily.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we got 20 minutes left, 19 to be exact. We need to talk about Halo. And how that was born, and you were right there, I think.
Speaker 4:I'm ready. We were right there.
Speaker 3:You're doing bagels In opera, and then what happens next?
Speaker 4:And then we incorporated, in September Of 2019, this thing that was going to be a production company, but a friendly production company, right.
Speaker 2:So you were going to own a space type situation.
Speaker 4:We were going to do shows, as you suggested. Our Rolodex is all Grammy and Tony award winning superstars that love Charleston and love us and want to hang out with our kids and have a beer at the pub.
Speaker 2:I would like to hang out with you and your children and hang out at.
Speaker 4:Charleston and have great food and beaches and also get to make great art. Who doesn't want to do that? Sign me up.
Speaker 2:I'm down Anytime we're doing it right now.
Speaker 3:This is art and here we are.
Speaker 4:And here we are, it is, it totally is. Yeah, it's conversation, right. And so what we then the world shut down is the real like let's jump a few months. And and and Demetri and I were singing in our house and our windows suck because we need to get them redone still, and and neighbors walked by. This was like a month into lockdown, yeah. And then so, like beginning of April, and we were singing and neighbors were walking and they turned right in front of our house and stopped and like they were both had this look on their faces that we weren't. It was just sort of confusing and we like I didn't know if the house was on fire, I didn't know if someone, I don't didn't know what was happening. So we walked outside onto the porch and we said is everything OK? And they both started their like tears streaming down their face. And these are bagel sundae friends, right like we just hadn't seen anybody.
Speaker 4:And they said it's just that we can hear you singing from the street and it's like there might be some normalcy again. And so then we just were having it made us cry. And then they were crying, and then it was like well what? Yeah right, very and um. And then they said, well, why don't it? Can you, can we do this on your driveway? Is that a thing you would be willing to?
Speaker 4:do and so we're like, yeah, sure, let me just get my logistics out for doing that. And we called a pianist friend of ours and he was like, yeah, no problem, let me just throw my keyboard in my car and I'll be over Right. And we all joked about this. And he was like, actually, let me call Fox Music and see what they're doing.
Speaker 2:I love them. What was anyone doing?
Speaker 4:Yeah. And they said I mean, yeah, sure, Give me the address and we'll bring a piano. And I said it's going to be in a drive-by. Oh, shout out to Fox Audio and Video. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:They are the best.
Speaker 2:We use them a lot for to plug them. We use them a lot for Spark Awards.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, they help us with our Spark Awards.
Speaker 3:I wonder if they're the same, but go ahead. They are Okay.
Speaker 4:The OG, the OG partners of of OG Halo partners Nice, and they brought the piano and our friend Shi Hong Si came and played. We just sent him some PDFs of music that we were going to do and we at this time had a three-year-old and a three-month-old, so they stayed on the porch and our three-month-old slept through the whole thing and we sang a concert on our driveway like, oh gee, what lucky neighbors in america.
Speaker 4:Driveway concert in america very cool and at the end it was again this everyone just had. It was this moment of catharsis, of like I'm crying, I understand everything. I don't know the language, but I mean mean, some we did in English, but some we didn't Anyway, and it was just everybody stood up like standing ovation, moments of how many people we got in the crowd here. I mean, it was 25 houses oh my gosh. It was just and we were all on a text chain.
Speaker 3:Where are we? Charleston West Ashley? Where are we In Mount Pleasant? Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 4:And we had. It's very funny. We've got some of those photos and it's the panorama. All of our original concerts are all panoramas, because nobody's anywhere near anybody else. That's me Audience spread across like four lawns. It was really funny. And then, you know, we just sort of absorbed that. And somebody said great, same time next week. And we're like I mean sure, what's anyone doing? And so I called a girlfriend in the meantime and was like this weird thing happened. It was so fun and she was like cool. So anyway, why are you not at my house doing this? And so, um, in that six days, of the first one to the second one, um, put another one together in six days well, because there's no shortage of soprano and tenor repertoire.
Speaker 3:I knew that I say that every day, I do.
Speaker 4:You know, dimitri and I have spent the last 20 years of our lives doing opera and musical theater and the soprano and the tenor. Just for your cocktail party conversation, the soprano and the tenor are always the love interest.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:To the point where it's. I forget. I forget who said it, but it's. You know, opera is defined as the soprano and tenor wanting to make love but are interrupted from doing so by the baritone. Oh, and it's like, this is a very snotty, you know, but it. If you say this in a group of opera loving people, they're like isn't that funny. And then they start listing all of of opera-loving people. They're like, oh, isn't that funny? And then they start listing all of the operas where that or they're prevented from doing so by the baritone, and you can list, for example, carmen.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 4:I mean, technically she's a mezzo. Anyway, it's La Boheme and Traviata and all of these things, all of these operas. But that is like the plot. If you boil opera down to that, it is. It is that um good to know.
Speaker 3:Noted that.
Speaker 4:Thank you yeah yeah, you're welcome any other jokes I have all week? Um, so that's what that's. What happened is that we uh one of our neighbors that week called the nbc affiliate here and and uh, pitched it as a good news story. And so the second concert, which was April 22nd or something of 2020, the news came and interviewed us and after the concert and Did they love it? They loved it and then they followed us. They said, well, if you're going to another place, can we follow you?
Speaker 3:And you said no. I said come on, we're just here to hide.
Speaker 4:Oh, oh and no, I mean like that was the thing that is. My soul as an artist is as a communicator, if there is no one to communicate with when you're trapped inside to communicate with when you're trapped inside.
Speaker 2:Oh, my favorite t-shirt says I miss music and live. I miss hugs and live music was my favorite.
Speaker 4:I wore that shirt almost every day every week in the pandemic because I was really longing the community of hearing live music that it makes a difference and it is in any realm even like fourth grade recital, things like there is a pride that you feel in a tiny human trying to make this right. Oh, absolutely sound that like you can't? I just got a phone call that I'm doing a. Um, we sang a national anthem last week at the mount pleasant chamber.
Speaker 3:We sure did and we got an the chamber. Good work. I'm sorry I missed that.
Speaker 4:And we got an email that said somebody heard you guys sing at. We did the anthem.
Speaker 3:That's what's up Perfect.
Speaker 4:Somebody heard you sing the anthem and we have an event next week. I'm so sorry it's such short notice, but we were going to just patch in music and patch in the anthem, but it's so much. She was like no, you have to have it live. And it's moments like that. And so again, fast forwarding and taking the letters O-P-E-R-A away from all conversation. Live art, live performing art makes a difference in the world. It changes everyone's mood for the better for the worse, for the.
Speaker 4:whatever it is, it affects your being in a way that just is not, it's impossible to replicate, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:All these live action.
Speaker 4:Disney things. It gets it out to the masses. It gives more information, which is very important also. It exposes information, which is very important also. It exposes more people to it. But seeing it live is different, Like seeing the Stones in concert, very different than seeing a documentary of the Stones in concert.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 4:And pick a level of that.
Speaker 2:Like it doesn't whatever you can relate to. I was weeping last week at the Imagine Dragons, just like watching my child like face, singing like every lyric and being so proud Like I was like weeping and she's like stop, mom, and I'm like it was a huge, like core moment for her. She'll probably carry with that with her the rest of her life. That's how powerful live music is.
Speaker 3:Yes, Well, you'll carry it. It's a core moment for you 100 I would.
Speaker 2:I cannot wait. I was selling my soul to go again before throw. It was that fun, just as it was just such a shared experience yeah and then you know, just to see someone live, because you hear them and we haven't. You know we have records and we have on streaming and we like all the different things but they're just so good live. There's something so special about live music.
Speaker 4:I just oh, I love what you're doing. I love what you're doing, thank you, and that's you know. The magic is that, I think, as I say the magic about my company is no, it is all the original vision. Is Holy City Arts, right, I mean, it is in 50 years from now. This is where the 50 always comes up. In the 50 years from now, you know, it's Lincoln Center style, right, I mean?
Speaker 3:it is all the art forms.
Speaker 4:Okay, this was never an opera company.
Speaker 3:What's Lincoln Center?
Speaker 4:It's in. This was never an opera company.
Speaker 2:What's Lincoln Center?
Speaker 4:Lincoln Center is at 65th Street and Broadway in New York. It is home to all the things.
Speaker 2:It is a core dance, jazz opera, any type. I've seen everything there, All types of things.
Speaker 4:All types of things. The types of things yes, metropolitan Opera shares its space with American Ballet Theater. Yes, and it's all these different companies that you know, alice Tully Hall is home to the New York Philharmonic when they're not out elsewhere. And then you know, avery I'm sorry, avery Fisher is home to the New York Philharmonic and you know, alice Tully Hall is a recital hall. And all of these spaces where New York City Ballet, new York City Opera, um, the Met, the know, there are all these different outdoor by the fountain, it's the big fountain. If anyone's ever seen beautiful pictures of a big fountain in New York.
Speaker 2:The thing is, if you're going to New York for the weekend, you don't even just go buy a ticket, anything that they have.
Speaker 3:there is going to change your life, so that's kind of the vision here 50 years from now.
Speaker 4:Right, and so you can't just like.
Speaker 3:In Charleston.
Speaker 4:Yes, mixed with Dimitri and I met out at the Santa Fe Opera Okay, I was doing my apprentice work there and he was a principal artist and the lore of that place is John Crosby, who founded Santa Fe Opera. It was family ranch land and he took his shotgun and walked around the ranch land and shot his shotgun into the air to find the best acoustics. He took an acoustician, but he was also a conductor and pianist.
Speaker 4:And he just shot. And he said when he found it and everybody you know agreed there, he said this is where the theater goes and we'll build everything else around it. And so the theater still sits there. It's this exquisite open air theater. The sides are open, it is covered, but the back of the stage there is nothing else like it anywhere in the world. The back of the stage is open and you can just see the mountains behind it and you can see the glow of Los Alamos behind it and you sit there and the. So they start their shows based on the sunset, um. They run June, july and August, so it's a 13-week season and they do five shows in repertory, but which? It is all opera there, um.
Speaker 4:But the entire ranch is now open air rehearsal spaces. They have an amazing cafeteria that has a cantina type space where everyone gathers, community building. It is community. I love it. And every single person on that campus has a role, whether you are an artist on the stage or off. The entire scene shop is there. The wig and makeup shop is there, the. Everyone is at their, the top of their game, and audience members are also welcome to exist, to come and have lunch, to.
Speaker 4:But like between nature and community and the highest level of art possible. It is the most extraordinary place just to feel there's a big lawn in the middle of all of it that you can just like lay, there's a pool, I mean, and it's kids screaming and then, like you know, wagner going on, or Puccini or whatever it is. That is just all in. That sounds fun, it's amazing and everyone should go, and so it's that. That's the essence of what we started here is, we want an open air space, not an amphitheater. Amphitheaters are not, forgive me, everyone who builds amphitheaters they are not proper theaters.
Speaker 2:So are you looking for a place like that now?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and there are examples, I think.
Speaker 2:Remember the bend that kind of like existed for a little while.
Speaker 4:That would be a cool spot for you To do it.
Speaker 2:Hey, susan, did you hear that? Yeah, susan owns it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think she retired, did she?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know who owns it now?
Speaker 4:Okay, if it's not.
Speaker 2:Susan, are you all familiar with the Bend? It's a really cool venue outside in the West Ashley over the water. I don't think anyone's using it now.
Speaker 4:So it's everything that goes in there. They bring in, yeah, and so it's similarly to Rockstar Land. And this is, I think, what's really challenging. Let's say the Stones. I just use them as the ultimate example of rock stars.
Speaker 4:They the amount of time. Their crew is the most phenomenal crew. I mean, I guess probably Taylor Swift's. People are the same, but they bring in Everything. I mean, they bring in her show, it is her show and that's it. And the way theaters obviously like legit theaters. Everything is built for that space and then it comes. If you haven't ever watched how the Metropolitan Opera works backstage, they have four stages that actually go up and down, so that all they have to do is literally shift this stage into place.
Speaker 4:It's already set and they have to do is literally shift this stage into place. It's already set, yeah, and so it's just anyway. It's amazing. But and broadway, I mean same like anything that flies right with with the um, the flying monkeys and they get wicked right now when you say flying yeah, but that's.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's magic. They make stage magic. It is so awesome and so um it. Just what happened with Halo is that we had to start with what we know best, because that's how you start companies, right, we know. You know, I do musical theater professionally and Dimitri does opera professionally, and they are the largest collaborative things. Right, there's orchestras, dancers, artists I mean stage artists and then you have production teams and lighting designers and directors, and all I mean it is sounds expensive it's, it is expensive, yeah, um, but it's.
Speaker 4:It's so many people involved and I think that's, for me, the real the, the challenge with halo is that we're we're adjusting culture at the same time as we're creating all this programming. Yeah, and as a little seven-year-old who looked at a stage and was like, oh my god, what does it take to build this? Yeah, right, right, it is costumes and lighting and sound and artists and everyone has spent and we get this in in sports in america, same thing, same amount of time, same parents driving to those different lessons. Right, it is. But in sports, we get. It sure, baseball is more than the nine people you see on the field. Right, baseball is trainers, it is the concessions guys, it's the janitors, it's the coaches and masseurs.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah all masseuses, um, you know, and, and the general director and the owners, and like nobody expects the commissioner of baseball to play a position, right, and yet in theater we're like, you do all the things, you do it, yep, so it's, it's just so. That is like massive culture shift. Um, that, I think, is not just in charleston, I think that's a massive industry. You know, agreed, we've, we haven't done our job to bring our audience along with us. Yeah, and that's been decades now, and so as like 50s and 60s, 70s, like rise of the Diva happened and people were flying across the world to see Maria Callas very famous, the utmost famous opera singer, people used to fly around the world to see her, not to see the show she's doing, not to see whatever it was, but they would fly to see her. And this is where this icon thing I mean same thing again taylor swift.
Speaker 2:Right, she's people fly around the world to see her 100 and.
Speaker 4:But she's an entertainer and they're going to see her show.
Speaker 2:They're going to see and that.
Speaker 4:But if she, you know, everybody knows after that, like everyone's happy to start hating if she falls off the stage.
Speaker 1:Everybody's going to be like okay, I guess she's done.
Speaker 4:Do you know what I mean? Like it's this weird, the scrutiny that artists have to be under Totally.
Speaker 2:There's no room for error, unfortunately, right.
Speaker 4:We often I love comparing theater to sports because and we do it all the time also soapbox sports, because and we do it all the time also soapbox, but they, you know again baseball like, if you do your job a third of the time, you're amazing right.
Speaker 3:Like a three three three, three batting average is like okay, if we do our job a third of the time, you have no career.
Speaker 4:You're done A hundred percent all the time. And that is you look good, you sound good, you show up on time, you know all. Look good, you sound good, you show up on time.
Speaker 2:You know all your words.
Speaker 3:The pressure has to be intense, yeah, so how do we help you here in Charleston? You even said it so yourself stage theater is costly.
Speaker 2:I think that's interesting to know that you're a non-profit.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And that's what people don't know.
Speaker 3:And you're bringing the stage to a cost-effective crowd. How Right, like how.
Speaker 4:Well, what I do, also going from all of this, about performing arts. We are a human services organization that uses art as a vehicle.
Speaker 4:Right, Right we are. The mission originally with the organization was to engage the entire Lowcountry community through quality art and artists and it was all about performing and you know, from large-scale productions to intimate conversations and all of these things. And as this has really morphed and we can see that what this actually does is create these shared experiences, it creates a jumping off point for conversation. It brings people into a room together who absolutely flat out refuse to be near each other right now. Right, they come to our things. How do they hear about your things? That is a really good question that.
Speaker 1:I would love some marketing assistance. We're working on that, yeah, yeah yeah, we send out press releases.
Speaker 4:We do amazing interviews like this and have friends that are excited in the moment and then blast it out.
Speaker 2:Like this girl will yeah.
Speaker 4:Yay, you know again the aforementioned I was born an old soul. Social medias are really challenging for us, so anyone who would like to volunteer social media work, there, you go.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 4:Who actually can speak to a younger audience. You know, because we want our 65 and up crowd, diehard Verity lovers, to know that that is what they're going to get Right and get brand new songs by Charleston poets set to new music by visiting composers and into the woods, in the literal woods.
Speaker 3:That is pretty cool. What did you do at River Dogs? We did La Traviata.
Speaker 4:Nice and we set it in 1986 on the eve of game six of the Mets Red Sox World Series. Cool, and when you walked into the theater, when you walked into the stadium, Was the theater there it was. We put it on third base and we even had a really fun slogan I got to third base at the opera.
Speaker 1:Oh, my dear.
Speaker 4:That's fun Just to do that, so you know how to market we. That's great but then, okay, but to that point, the the apartments across the street were like, oh, we thought it was a private event so we didn't come, but they sat in their you know, in their on their balconies and listen. It's the way the structure of the show works, is it opens with this party, which, of course, we made a viewing party of the World Series, and we showed that on the Jumbotron.
Speaker 4:We used the Jumbotron for the translation screen as well, as there are all these different moments for videos. But when you walked into the stadium, we played 1986 MTV music videos, and so you walked into the stadium. We played 1986 mtv music videos, and so you walked into the theater into the stadium and it was like, ah, and we had concessions and we worked with their amazing executive chef was like let me do all these fun things that are that's so fun, so it's an immersive experience. It is an immersive I love it, immersive experience.
Speaker 4:And that's where our mission as of a few weeks ago, the revamped mission of the organization which is what makes us say we're a human services organization that uses art as a vehicle is. Our mission is that Halo is dedicated to uniting communities through innovative and inclusive artistic experiences.
Speaker 2:Now for people like me who are listeners and aren't familiar. Where can people hear about your shows? On your website.
Speaker 4:On our website holycityartsorg. Okay, hopefully it's on. Our things should be posted on Explore Charleston.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love Explore Charleston.
Speaker 4:They have been amazing partners as as well about holy city center.
Speaker 3:The holy city center is always yes, christian shout out also an og partner.
Speaker 4:Thank you, christian what about donations?
Speaker 3:what about that money? How can we get that money to you, because you're doing such a great thing for our community?
Speaker 4:thanks, yeah um, you may send us a check at an address I will leave with you guys. It's a legit address. It's not our home address. Is there a way to donate on your website? There is.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4:Go to the donate page. Well, I don't know. You know this is hard. The 65 and up is like. I don't want to donate online.
Speaker 3:Well, we'll walk to you. I'll walk to you and grab the check and then bring it to you.
Speaker 4:Thank, you, we'll courier it over there. No, no, it's good, we accept all forms.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if Mike remembers this, but this episode is going to drop around Giving Tuesday because I want you to be our highlighted nonprofit for Giving Tuesday.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's not October. You wanted to do it in November.
Speaker 2:I would like for them to be theprofit that we highlight for giving tuesday. Okay. If that's okay, I would be so honored.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and as we say that, let's talk about infinite. Wrapping this up, your, your season just started it did so I want to talk about your season.
Speaker 2:I was looking at it you have sweeney, sweeney todd coming five. That's what I thought just turned five.
Speaker 4:We open our season on september 15th with a um, a small recital and just slight pin in the and concert. These are the things. We've started calling it a concert. People didn't like the word recital. We tested it.
Speaker 2:Everyone's like I can say that.
Speaker 4:I think of ballet tutus. Yeah, for sure, yep. And that's what we got either little kid ballet or fourth grade recorder.
Speaker 4:And I was like no, it's none of those things. These are like legit international baritone and pianist who've played with all the famous people and at the White House for three presidents and all the like. That's awesome and you're going to be like as close as we are. It's amazing we're in residency. This is our first year. We are in residency at two locations Battery Gadsden Cultural Center on Sullivan's Island, which at two locations when Battery Gadsden Cultural Center on Sullivan's Island, which is where we did Into the Woods.
Speaker 1:for anyone who saw Into the Woods, it's a decommissioned artillery battery.
Speaker 4:It is outdoors, it is awesome.
Speaker 2:I'm totally going to bet and we're so excited.
Speaker 4:We build sort of a new theatrical space every time. It gives us infinite possibilities and we're so, so excited to be love it partnering with them. And then the other place for the indoor spaces is do you see how we're building the santa fe vision?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah I love it building that. I love that you're going to all different venues all over the city.
Speaker 4:yeah, and, and so we, uh, and saint johannes lutheran church downtown in ansonborough oh, pretty is where, um, we have been doing for the last several years our rehearsals, nice. And then they said, well, let's do a partnership.
Speaker 2:And do you sell tickets at the door or do you mostly sell online?
Speaker 4:We do. Please actually buy things. We're trying to change culture-wise in Charleston. Please actually purchase your tickets ahead of time.
Speaker 2:I didn't know if it sold out.
Speaker 4:It is. No, that would be wonderful. It is not yet, we are not We'll get you there, yeah. Charleston likes to wait till last minute to buy events tickets, except that you're me, and I'm going to say that here first, the arts organizations in this town don't help, because we all panic as producers and we deeply discount when, like a week before, and everyone in this town is used to it and I'm going to say loudly on the air right now this town is used to it and I'm going to say loudly on the air right now change it.
Speaker 4:We have to stop doing yeah, no, because we have created a culture where we set ticket prices and then people are like it doesn't matter, let's wait till the last minute.
Speaker 2:They'll dock them down to 10 bucks which I hate because I really love supporting local artists so true, spend so much money in like ticket master fees and I'm like it's absolutely ridiculous. I have no problem spending money that's going straight to the artists. Yeah, you know that's huge yes Supporting our artists.
Speaker 4:I don't understand why that's a problem.
Speaker 2:That's why we're here Paying artists a real fee.
Speaker 4:That's all. 92% of our programming goes to our artists, right? I'm still also going to put it out there. Our amazing co-founder and artistic director is still not receiving a salary so that we can put shows on and that's a piece of this is that we want this to be a living art form that exists, that was created in this town, that is.
Speaker 2:Well, Charles and jazz started like that and now it's yeah.
Speaker 4:So exactly, I'm excited to see where you're going to go. They're in 20 years, right? Yep, hello, I know I'm excited to see where you're going to go.
Speaker 2:They're in 20 years, right? Yep, hello, excellent, I love them. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, this is too much fun. I know I love it. We have to stop too. I mean, all the fun comes to an end, unfortunately, on the podcast.
Speaker 4:They're giving us an hour and they're kicking us out.
Speaker 2:All right and follow him on Instagram and come to our season-repeating concert on September 15th.
Speaker 3:Well, it's going to be after September 15th. So what's? In October, november, december, I saw Sweeney.
Speaker 4:Todd on the list. Yes, we're doing the Medium by Giancarlo Minotti, which is actually and we have a pre-show with Edgar Allen Poe's the Black Cat. That's cool. So that's going to be indoors for the Black Cat and then outdoors for the Medium, and the medium is a one-act drama. Again, it's a seance and a sort of phony medium, and then she has an experience of her own. And then there is death, murder and destruction, so it's a good Halloween show, October 24th and 26th.
Speaker 2:That sounds cool. Can I bring kids?
Speaker 4:Yes, please, Okay awesome If you're that kind of parent.
Speaker 2:I am, I am, i're that kind of parent. I am, I am, I am that kind of parent. I still say that this is in this world.
Speaker 4:Yes, the theater is for kids.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I love it, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Awesome, we have enough of the scary stuff going on elsewhere, that this come to the theater and I'm like Leah. Thank you for what you're doing out here in the low country in Charleston.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited I've met you. I feel like my day has gotten so much better.
Speaker 3:I knew you'd be surprised. Oh, I know. And now, do you like opera?
Speaker 2:I like her and I like what she's doing. You're open to experiencing new I will be going. I'm always open to experiencing new things, but I'm grateful to be educated.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful to be educated.
Speaker 4:I'm so excited. Come over. We'll restart Bagel Sundays too, Okay.
Speaker 2:I will come over. Please don't invite me, because I will be there.
Speaker 3:We got educated today, that's for sure.
Speaker 4:Yes, we did For sure, and I'm a rock star, so I feel good about it. I love it.
Speaker 2:Thanks you guys, I love it.
Speaker 3:Anytime. All right guys Of course they weren't really kicking us out. To be honest, I know they love us here.
Speaker 2:We're here all the time. Jerry Feels Good and, of course, the American Marketing Association, and if you want to be a sponsor or a guest on our show, please reach out to podcast at charlestonamaorg and we will get back to you. So thank you guys for being here with us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks, charleston, we'll see you next time, Le.
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