To Leigh's question about being contacted by telemarketers for donations or subscriptions, I hate telemarketers calls and usually screen calls with Caller ID / Caller Name, because I have difficulty saying no once I have answered the phone. However, in April of 2001 I received a very welcome call from the telemarketing group working for Kennedy Center, enquiring as to my interest in the 2001-02 Ballet program. We had previously had a ballet subscription, with splendid seats, from 1991-96, but after that the Kennedy Center Ballet program deteriorated to the extent that we decided to not to renew. With Michael Kaiser just having assumed the Presidency of KC and the announcement that the Kirov and Bolshoi were participating in the 01-02 season we had considered subscribing once again but thought that with all the publicity good seats would be hard to get. I believe that I was speaking with a KC volunteer because she was courteous and knowledgeable and there wasn't the hard sell as with the ABT effort mentioned in previous messages above. I told the telemarketer where our seats had been and asked if it would be possible to have them again. She said that she couldn't promise but that there was a good possibility that seats were available in that area. We subscribed. The tickets arrived in October and we have the exact same seats as before. Perhaps that says more about how badly KC needed subscribers than my powers of persuasion. Whatever the reason we are very pleased.
