Love and sexual awakening… at Tarragon Theatre

by Aislinn Rose

I recently started working as the Community Manager for a project called The Conversation About Love. This interactive experiment revolves around an online art gallery based on the themes of Sarah Polley’s new film, Take This Waltz. Participants are asked to take a tour around the gallery and join the conversation on the topics of love, fidelity, lust and heartbreak. The conversation has taken on many forms including songs, photos, original artwork and personal anecdotes. In addition to the website, conversationalists can also join in via Facebook and twitter.

As someone with a personal and professional interest in this notion of using social media and other online tools in an effort to build community and develop audiences for your work, I was immediately drawn to the project. The big question posed to me was, “how do you feel about chatting and tweeting about love for the next several months?”

Then along came a facebook invitation to a post-show social for Tarragon Theatre’s production of In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, asking participants to submit “stories of sex, love and all the rest of it”. The stories submitted will be read aloud at the event this Thursday evening, but submissions will remain anonymous to protect the not-so-innocent.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that my first instinct was that this event called for a little live-tweeting. The twist in this case, is that I plan to bring the Take This Waltz-inspired Conversation About Love into the next room, for a joint online conversation about love and sexual awakening.

Want to follow along? Perhaps join in? Here are the facts you need to know:

• You can get $10 tickets to see the show this Thursday, October 13th at 8pm. Click here for all the info you need on buying tickets and submitting your tales of love and/or woe. The social after the show is free.
• Follow the tweets via www.twitter.com/ConvoAboutLove. You don’t need to be a tweeter to keep tabs on the discussion, but if you are, I’d love for you to follow me in this new experiment. Let me know what you think!
• Don’t be shy about submitting your stories. I won’t be tweeting all the sordid details… if you want those you’ll have to join us at the theatre.

Side note: as I finished composing my email to Tarragon suggesting the addition of live-tweeting at their event, I received a message from Tarragon asking if I might like to live-tweet at their event. I’m really excited to see a company like Tarragon embracing these new tools to engage their existing audience in new ways, while reaching out to develop and cultivate a new community of followers and fans.

Hope to see you online or in the theatre on Thursday night!