What a week it has been for our very own Jaylene Clark! After a whirlwind spoken word performance on Wednesday night at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater, Jaylene took first place in the competition and her performance was met with the only standing ovation of the night! Today, Jaylene was featured in the Uptown section of the Manhattan Daily News as well as in the "In the Papers" segment on NY1! We are so proud of Jaylene and want to see her move on to the Super Top Dog finals round in October where she will have the chance to take home the GRAND prize! We need YOUR help getting her there!

We had 60 people come out on Wednesday to push Jaylene to 1st place, and we need another 60 to come out on February 29th when Jaylene returns to the Apollo stage for the Show-off round! Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.ticketmaster.com.

We really need your support in getting Jaylene to the Super Top Dog Final Slam! Look out for a blog post this weekend from Jaylene about what this win at the Apollo Theater would mean to her!

-HarlemKWProject

WE ARE SO EXCITED TODAY!!!

We are featured in the New York Daily News today, page 43, cover of the Uptown News section! You can view the article on by clicking here. Our lovely feature article is written by the uber talented, Michael J. Feeney. He is a young, African-American journalist living in Harlem! He won the Emerging Journalist award in 2010 from the National Association of Black Journalists. Check him out on Twitter!

One of the things we are so excited about is that we have really been able to tap into social media! This entire play was created based on a Facebook status written by Jaylene Clark. Then we initially made contact with Mike Feeney by tweeting him on Twitter! The next day we happened to meet him in person at the FREE Harlem Business Alliance workshop, "Give the Media What They Want." 

If you have your own business we encourage you to definitely utilize the social media tools! For great advice look up Karen Taylor Bass, PR Expert! She taught the four Harlem Business Alliance workshops on marketing and she was incredible!

Another skill we learned was to always be prepared! Have your clear and succinct business pitch ready at all times and make sure it tells the story behind the story. That's what people want to know. They don't just want to know that you have a play. They want to know what makes the play special and unique. This is especially important when pitching your business to the media.

This is all a learning experience we are just so thankful for everyone who has supported Renaissance in the Belly of a Killer Whale thus far. This is only the beginning!  

We hope to see you in the theatre within these next two weekends! December 2-11!