Cross Promotion

A sign of a good Kennedy Center Friend isn't whether you can smile when some old lady asks you where the Opera House is. It's marketing. Marketing, marketing, marketing.

Here are some of my golden ideas. These ones are free. For more, you'll have to accept my application. Let's see Irving Kelly come up with these gems.

• A concert where Copland's Third Symphony is sung by I Fagiolini and the Blind Boys of Alabama. We could advertise it as Third I Blind.

• A joint performance by Marvin Hamlisch and the Suspicious Cheese Lords. "Come enjoy Ham and Cheese!"

• People might not see Allen Toussaint or Sondheim's Company. But Touss's Company might confuse them just enough to show up expecting some sort of John Ritter tribute.

• We'd be foolish not to capitalize on the controversy created by the Chinese Olympic women's gymnastics team. People would flock to hear the songs of The Sound of Music belted out by the cast of Legally Blonde the Musical. We'd call it "I am 16, Legally." (note: this would also keep away perverts, who tend to lack proper decorum anyhow.)