Julia Morrison

Sarah Deck is our new Director of Patron Services and Rentals for The Grand Opera House. Check out her perspective on what it’s like to give service to a historic institution:

For better or worse, patrons are what make the job interesting. If you’ve ever worked in the service industry, than you know exactly what I mean. When I was college student, I worked in the box office at The Grand as a Box Office Clerk. I answered the phones during my shifts, meaning I was interacting with our patrons directly on a regular basis.

On this particular day, I received a phone call from an older man looking to buy tickets to see Gregg Allman play. As I helped him pick out his seats, this kind man regaled me with his tales of the past. He told me about how he had also went to Mercer University, lived next door to Gregg when he was younger, saw the Allman Brothers play at a small club downtown where he talked with the band, and so on.

Before he got off the phone, he told me how much he appreciated me taking the time to listen to him. He said that it was important to tell these stories to keep Macon’s history alive. I couldn’t have agreed more! As a lifelong Maconite (and Allman Brothers fan) it was such a special treat for me to take his phone call and learn his history.

For the first time since I had started working at the Grand, I felt like I was a part of something larger than myself.

Just by answering that call and being willing to listen, I was able to create a great experience for this patron. We made a connection that truly made me love working at The Grand Opera House and interacting with patrons. Nearly six years later, my love for The Grand and our patrons has only grown as I have moved up from Box Office Clerk all the way to the incoming Director of Patron Services and Rentals.

As I settle into my new position, I hope to continue to create amazing patron experiences for each person who walks through the door. If there is anything I can do to help make your experience GRAND don’t hesitate to let me know!

She does more than sell tickets. Want to plan a special event – like a birthday private movie screening, a historic downtown wedding reception, or the perfect community concert? Contact Sarah here to stop dreaming and start doing.

When you serve Broadway fans and Broadway has been shut down, how do you solve a problem like Maria a global pandemic?

We don’t have all the answers, but we’ve started trying with Broadway Does Southern Rock. This was our first fire escape concert that utilized our parking lot as audience seating, with “pod” squares drawn out for social distancing. The show was a Broadway-style cabaret with community performers that adapted Southern Rock songs. Why Southern Rock? This genre was born in Macon, Georgia and The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Wet Willie (who were all represented in the song choices) all recorded at Capricorn Records downtown, which has been recently restored as Mercer Music at Capricorn.

I serve as the director of marketing for The Grand and Mercer University’s other arts programs, but my background and education has previously been as a director and producer of grassroots ensemble theatre. I have taken on this role for our cabaret concerts, dipping back into the life of running auditions and rehearsals with the performers. None of this would be possible without McKinley Starks, a pianist who formed the Bite-Sized Broadway series with me earlier in the year and served as music director for the show.

It takes a lot to turn an indoor venue outdoors, and in fact, many indoor venues don’t quite have the space to do it. We were assisted by several factors that were assets we didn’t know we had.

Executive Director Joe Patti stands on our multi-level fire escape as we plan the outdoor stage.

1. Though we are in the heart of downtown Macon, the building is attached to a large parking lot built for city employees (we share our space with the Bibb County courthouse). This lot is available to the public on weekends.
2. We have an epic fire escape on the side of our historic building. This is a really sculptural area with multiple levels and staircases – it literally looks like it was created by a set designer.
3. All of this space is adjacent to the theatre. So we can run out lights, sound, power, and there are doors that bring you directly in the building to a backstage area.

With all this, there is still a lot of maneuvering that takes place and Bob Mavity, our technical director, had to figure out an appropriate setup that would allow for sound (on a metal fire escape, not so easy of a task) to reach out into the parking lot and lighting choices that would be fun while allowing you to see a performer that is far away and high up.

The plan maintained social distance through seating pods – these made sure that people felt comfortable with the distance while getting the seat of their choice. In these pods, you could enjoy yourself how you chose – whether that was with takeout from a local restaurant or your favorite lounge chair.

You could also choose to sit further away on the fringes, instead of a pod. This ensured that your comfort level was met if you wanted to distance even MORE than the pods allowed. On the left is an example of a group that did this, along with a drink in the new clear plastic cups that allow us to drink outdoors in downtown Macon thanks to Newtown Macon.

Nikki Vincent, who normally handles patron services and rentals indoors (in air conditioned environments!), made a volunteer setup that scanned the perimeter to make sure that everyone knew where to go to get in and out of the concert. This flow allowed the space to be maintained and to preserve the event for ticket holders.

It was casual, but still felt like “togetherness” – you could see and hear the crowd while still being with your group.

The results were a lot of fun – for us and for our patrons. The event sold out on the morning of the performance. When asked about their experience…

For a brand new program that took place in an entirely different production environment than our staff is used to, this encouragement has been great to hear. We want to continue being able to serve the community in difficult times – to search for rainbows, as The Marshall Tucker Band says.

Right now, we aren’t sure how long the pandemic will last or what shows will be available. So we’ve been sticking to programs that showcase local stars – your friends and neighbors – and in the safest capacity available. You can read our safety plan here. Our next show has eight of the most interesting Macon residents in town appearing safely (one at a time) onstage telling stories for a live podcast recording. You will hear from a man who played backup with Otis Redding, one of your county elected commissioners, the architect of the College Hill neighborhood revitalization in Macon, a woman who claims to have the best front porch in town, and even more. Buy tickets now.

By opening our doors in whatever ways we can, we want to honor our mission as a vibrant community assembly resource. Now is a time of isolation, so we are hoping to provide connection – however we can reach you.

Is there a way The Grand can serve your needs in 2020 that we haven’t thought of yet? Comment below to let us know.

Back in January, we hosted DRUMLine Live! at The Grand. But… the party didn’t end in the theatre. Watch this Grand Memory from after the show, when the dancing beat led all the way out to Mulberry Street! Getting the crowd laughing, clapping along, and even impromptu drum lessons for kids by the band capped off a fantastic evening.

Congratulations to Chloe Shelton of Macon, GA for winning our Grand Mini-Commissions submission. In the tough times we’ve been facing, Chloe’s video gave a huge amount of sunshine and hope for brighter days. Here’s a little more about our winner:

Chloe is 12 years old and just finished the 5th grade. During the shelter-in-place, we watched several Broadway favorites and she fell in love with the music of The King and I, humming, singing, and whistling the tunes for days.

We’ll be sending Chloe’s family her prize soon. Have a great weekend!

Since the two months of the COVID-19 emergency have hit The Grand, we’ve missed seeing you here. After our recent performance of Alash Ensemble featuring Shodekeh, I had a patron come up to me in a local brewery afterwards, itching to talk about the performance. Our GrandKids were walking out of the house trying to imitate the throat-singing pitch with their voices. These are the moments that make The Grand special, and the essence of the electrical energy of live performance.

And so when the change into staying safer at home occurred, we were faced with a question – with the doors to the theatre closed, how do we best serve our audiences? To answer that question, we went back to the core of who we are – our mission as an organization.

Our mission is “to nurture an appreciation of the Arts in all citizens of Central Georgia, especially its youngest citizens, through attracting the presentation of quality productions as well as an immersion into a treasured architectural artifact that reflects 133 years of Macon’s history.”

Can that be accomplished while preserving social distancing?

It isn’t the same as being in our historic halls and watching an artist practice their craft firsthand, but we believe we have taken these months to try and create experiences that live up to what Maconites expect from The Grand. Most importantly, we didn’t just want to move stuff online. We wanted to use this time as an opportunity to create value for our patrons.

1. Nurturing an appreciation of the arts in the citizens of Central Georgia:

For this, instead of looking outwards to great performers across the nation, we looked inwards to the great performers living next door — literally. Knowing how much our audiences love musical theatre, we teamed up with talented citizens here in Middle Georgia ranging from seventh graders to retirees, professional musicians to small business owners, college students to professors for Bite-Sized Broadway.

With miniature performances from home or on The Grand stage, your friends and family rocked the house and reached more folks around the area than any show in our space could hold – because of the short and engaging format and since our patrons were the stars, Bite-Sized Broadway videos have reached over 15,000 viewers. Some of these folks are outside Central Georgia and can’t attend The Grand in person. Others may not have heard of us or knew we presented performances until seeing their loved one on their feed. A different kind of impact, to be sure, but an important impact.

2. Especially its youngest citizens, through attracting the presentation of quality productions:

One of our proudest features as a venue is being extremely family oriented and seeing the performing arts as a foundation for children’s development. Our GrandKids program is a major highlight of our work at The Grand. In order to engage our youth and reward our youngest fans, we’ve decided to turn the idea of performing arts centers “commissioning” artists on its head and solicit commissions from kids for prizes! You can find out more about The Grand’s Mini-Commissions here.

For me, the cornerstone of this experience is arts cultivation – we are looking to not just show art to our audiences, but to create a thriving arts ecosystem in Central Georgia. This is one of the tenets of the exciting Macon Cultural Plan. Giving our youngest creators a voice helps to increase the breadth and depth of their participation down the line, and centers the arts at the core of their identities.

3. An immersion into a treasured architectural artifact that reflects 133 years of Macon’s history:

Behind these walls are hidden traps set by Harry Houdini, where Gregg Allman found his home, and vestiges of darker times in Macon’s history. There are stories everywhere within The Grand — but how do we tell them when we’re here and you’re at home? Bob Mavity has over a quarter of a century’s worth of experience giving tours of this building. He knows it forwards, backwards, sideways, and up and down many spiral staircases. And we’ve heard from so many people who once lived in town and are homesick. So we created a super in-depth Virtual Tour of The Grand, including spaces that can’t be accessed by the public! Several parts of our cool (and occasionally creepy) building aren’t quite safe to show in person.

So in many ways, this particular experience would only be able to be possible with social distancing. We are going to release a follow up to this video with bonus content. Amongst the 2,200 viewers, I received a message from a former volunteer who had moved away from Macon and said they felt like the video was a reminder of home, as well as from a technician on one of our tours who learned a new fact about John Tesh from our concert. So the video didn’t just reach people’s feeds, it made an impact.

Even though we’ve been working hard to figure out the best ways to keep you safe while gathering together, we’ve been trying to still reach you and make The Grand a part of your life. In my next blog, I’ll show just how many folks we’ve reached near and far, and our final video tidbits.

While not all news coming out right now is good news, we hope you are well and safe, and that these activities can provide just a bit of the jolt to the senses that gathering together to share our stories, poems, dances, and beats normally does. Part of the appreciation of the arts is the ability to change the course of our quotidian existence, transcending the daily grind into sharp colors and sounds that are all the more meaningful during challenging moments in history.

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”
― Bertolt Brecht