Hana Hou | August 2023
Aloha kākou:
Welcome to the first edition of Hana Hou with Andrew, a new blog that I’ll be curating each month to take you behind the scenes all things HOT.
It’s hard to believe it’s already August, with summer vacations coming to a close, back-to-school sales in their final days, and teachers making last-minute touches to lesson plans and classrooms to welcome keiki for another school year.
Similarly, the team at your Hawaiʻi Opera Theatre is hard at work finalizing plans for the upcoming season of performances and education programs. I firmly believe that opera is the most rewarding artform there is, but it is also the most complex. And thinking about it, that is probably part of the reason opera is so rewarding: it requires many individuals to come together in a shared vision to create a magical experience. That is true for every aspect of what we do, from mainstage performances to in-school residencies to donor events like Opera Ball. Opera takes a village. A very large village.
These last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity throughout the company:
- Production meetings with directors and designers to make sure our mainstage season is the best it can be and demonstrating our commitment to supporting and engaging creators who reflect the diversity of Hawaiʻi
- Internal meetings and outreach to create the best experience possible for you, our valued patrons, in the three new venues we’ll be utilizing while the Blaisdell Concert Hall is closed for renovations – including working with new seating maps for each venue, parking, pre-show lectures, and more
- Putting the finishing touches on the fall season of Studio101, our performing space at Hawaiʻi Opera Plaza, curated by Artistic Director Jamie Offenbach – which begins with a Season Preview event on Wednesday, September 20
- Working with friends on Maui and the Big Island to finalize plans for the tour of An American Dream in October – our first mainstage production to travel since 2017
Planning for our many educational activities:
- Opera Express – a keiki friendly HOT-original adaptation of Puccini’s Turandot called The Curse of Lou-Ling that will tour around Oahu and to neighbor islands
- Residencies – immersive work at seven schools on Oahu that culminate with a performance of an original opera that the keiki wrote with a teaching artist and members of our staff; and
- Orvis Opera Studio and Orvis Young Voices programs – a season of masterclasses, workshops, and performances with high school and adult singers
- Building the volunteer committee for Opera Ball 2024
- Getting our new Director of Marketing & Communications, Megan Leung, up to speed on all things HOT
- Welcoming three new members to HOT’s Board of Directors: Robert K. Daley, Noreen Mullikan, and Veronica Wong
We have a lot of exciting programs planned for you and our community. Did you know we have a calendar of events on our website? It’s a great page to bookmark and review on a regular basis to keep up to date with everything that’s going on at HOT!
Mahalo nui loa for being a part of the Hawaiʻi Opera Theatre ʻohana. We wouldn’t be here without your support!
Much aloha,
Andrew
Question Corner: HOT’s opening opera, An American Dream, began as a personal story-telling project asking the question: “If you had to leave your home today and couldn’t return, what would you take with you, and why is that object – that connection to your past – so important?”
What would your answer be? Let us know below!