Opera at the Carolina and Coffee - February Review

It is a pleasure to be actively involved in the Greensboro Arts community! I love it! 

Since becoming a part of the Greensboro Opera Board in the fall of 2016 I have had the fun of experiencing Gypsies (Carmen) and Hair (The Barber of Seville) and Japanese Lanterns (Madame Butterfly); and now Sweeties and Witches (Hansel and Gretel). 

As a member of the Opera Board I have had the pleasure of serving on the special events committee all three years. The special events committee is a wonderful group of creative people that devote their time and energy to planning numerous events throughout the year including the EMF collaborations each summer, meet the artist receptions for each opera, our main fundraiser, the fall gala and the event we are currently working on, our annual end of year meeting.  Fun, fans, feasting, fantastic! 

Flashback: On Monday February 4, the Special Events Committee, in conjunction with the Opera Board's Education Committee hosted an early morning reception at the Carolina Theater to honor Opera at the Carolina sponsors and to introduce and announce the winner of this year's Barbara Peter's Write Your Own Opera award, Neveah White. Neveah is a fifth grader from Brown Summit Elementary School.  She wrote the winning script, The Showdown which was transformed into an opera by David Holley, Greensboro Opera's General and Artistic Director, and UNCG faculty member Alexander Rutty. 

For more information see: Opera at the Carolina

The Showdown is a play about overcoming bullying and building teamwork. The Showdown premiered the morning of February 4th, followed by excerpts from Hansel and Gretel, this year's  Greensboro Opera's spring opera. The Showdown will be performed again at this years Greensboro Bound festival at Scuppernongs Books in May of 2019. Greensboro Bound 2019

The coffee for this year's Opera at the Carolina reception was provided by The Philosopher's Bean. Yes, Chris and I were able to provide the coffee for this year and last year's event! Yay! The new 2 kilogram Besca roaster helped us in getting the beans roasted to perfection, but we still need to come up with a more efficient way of brewing large amounts of supremely delicious coffee. Coffee urn pour-over tastes pretty good but it's messy and takes a lot of time. (This too shall pass.)

People at the reception really liked the coffee. Some even LOVED the coffee, which seems to be the usual response when people taste Chris' coffee. We also had some wonderful cheerleaders and sales ladies there making sure that everyone at this even knew who brought the coffee and where they could get some.  Yum! Thanks ladies!
Peace, Ronda