BIG MARKETING CAMPAIGN BEGINS AFTER AN ACT OF KINDNESS

A GREAT DAY GETS EVEN BETTER

Don't ask me what made me do it, maybe I was a little "Mad Hatter" --but I noticed that yesterday was the anniversary of the opening of "Godspell" on Broadway. Now it wasn't a milestone anniversary -- like twenty-five years or fifty years. It happened in 1976. But something told me to write my old friend Stephen Schwartz. Believe it or not through Disney-ASCAP workshops over the years and all the ASCAP meetings I have attended, I have actually talked to him more times than at least two of my sisters. So I wrote him an email congrating him on the anniversary and telling him how I had been there (as a very young man) in the audience in NYC on my first visit there. Money supplied by my mother's passing the year before. Now I knew that he was knee-deep in writing his new opera and probably wouldn't answer the email or maybe it wouldn't have been acknowledged at all. But he did! And it turns out, that opera has been taking a lot out of him. And he answered my e mail and said that the reminder had "simply made and brightened his day" and he wanted to know how my projects were coming along. Was there anything he could do? I wrote back and mentioned the Barter Theatre kind of stalling on "Little Bit of Broadway". The next thing I know, I am getting a call from the Barter Theatre -- and they're apologizing for taking so long in their response-- and then added "we've just had a call from Stephen Schwartz-- and he told us to give any show I wrote some "serious attention". Wow-- now that made my day. And the Barter wants to do it in March of 2010 and will get back to me ASAP. Wow! They were amazed at how much the show had changed since they first received it in August of 2008. I then determined I was going to make a huge marketing effort in ALL the musicals, I am involved with-- starting with "The Traveling Companion" I heard from Seattle's 5th Avenue theatre and they commented that the songs were beautiful-- and very memorable. They wanted bios -- so I sent them and they also said the CD was lovely. And so I joined a marketing firm and we are starting with an E Mail campaign that promotes all of the shows-- even "Skylark" -- this campaign is so easy. You just create a data base of fifty to one hundred names with their website addresses-- not www. and then you create a great graphic post card and put it as part of the E mail. You create graphics for the e mail just in case their HTML won't accept a published graphic. I then send an automatic send and tomorrow morning at 9AM PDT-- this incredibly neat e mail goes automatically-- all at the same time-- to the recipients telling them about Creative Horizons and the musical of the moment plus a link to the website. It mentions those who are involved with ASCAP designations-- even if they only helped with it! This will save me at least $150 in postage. For those without websites, I will mail the designed postcard. The cost of this amazing service is FREE for the first month and $4.99 a month after that. I can rotate the musical I want to promote as much as possible. It's amazing. Then I came so close to winning a lottery this morning --four numbers equaled $234.00-- and no tax on that amount-- and then I received an unexpected royalty check for $125.98 for a song I wrote back in 1980! So I have been busy. And then I decided to write an e mail to the guy who quit my show and started all the trouble that happened at HFC. And I just said "I want you to know, I hold no grudges-- you did what you had to do". I felt very good about this. I sometimes open my mouth and say things when I should remain silent and I apologize to everyone including dear Tim whom I should have been a lot more sensitive with-- But I went to church on Sunday and asked God to forgive me and suddenly the good things just started happening. I was amused that the last big lottery was won in Tim's favorite town of Santa Cruz-- probably at a market he has stopped to get a cold drink. Maybe that is an omen. That was thirty-nine million dollars. Then I won my own "little lottery" and I was able to pay my overdue power bill and cable. I have been so busy these last three days-- wow! Oh speaking of "Mad Hatter" ideas-- they are going to do a musical version of --now hold on your hats-- "Caligula" Caligula with book, music and lyrics by Eric Svejcar. The musical, according to press notes, "is placed in an ancient rock-and-roll theatre somewhere between the years 41 and 1973 (or perhaps both simultaneously). This particular ancient theatre just happens to somehow have electricity, a bitchin' sound system, a light show, a rock band, and costumes more in the world of Ziggy Stardust than Julius Caesar. History's most notorious tyrant takes the audience on a musical journey of murder, sensuality, heartbreak, world domination, immortality, and absurdly unmitigated ego." Producers are Rich Affannato in association with Meri Krassner. Caligula, with Morton, was previously seen in the 2004 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

Oh my sweet God! I think the world is a "Mad Hatter"