We are happy to welcome Melissa Brice as the newest member of our team. Melissa joined Canary in September as a PR & Marketing Assistant, and she’s already worked on some of our biggest campaigns and has been a valuable addition to our staff.

Melissa is a graduate of Albright College in Reading, PA where she completed a duel major in Theatre/Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations & Marketing, and was awarded the Shirk Scholarship, Department of Theatre Award, and inducted as a lifetime member of the Jacob Albright Scholars, in addition to earning multiple Irene Ryan Nominations as well as graduating magna cum laude.

Melissa has previously worked in public relations for the Wyomissing Area School District and did event planning for Albright College. She also has several years of in-depth volunteer work experience with Reading-based non-profit organizations including Years of Tears, a Reading area victim-advocacy organization, and Kids Count Club, a challenged youth mentor program.

In addition to Public Relations and volunteer experience, Melissa has been a major contributor and integral force to the nationally-recognized Domino Players Theatre Company as a main-stage director, actress, and production team member under the study of Jeffrey Lentz. She has also served on the Executive Board for the company as Treasurer. Her fondest work includes: Lucy in The Threepenny Opera, Pitti-Sing in The Mikado, Cathy in The Last Five Years, Matt Damon in Matt & Ben, originating the role of Lydia in the World Premiere of You Are Here, and acting as a director for the productions Tick, Tick, Boom!, Shelebration, and Words, Words, Words.

Other fun facts:

• Recently married June 27, 2009 to Justin Trupp
• Studied voice lessons for 8 years
• Favorite Music: The Format, Jason Mraz, Johnny Cash, Damian Rice, Robert Plant, Nina Simone, The White Stripes, Lifehouse, Broadway Musicals….I could kind of go on forever…. It’s easier to ask what I don’t like. Answer: death metal and songs with poor grammar.
• Has performed in both Disney World and Disney Land
• Favorite plays are Matt & Ben, Becky Shaw, and Waiting for Godot.
• Favorite Musical: The Last Five Years
• Favorite Movie: Hamlet 2, The Birdcage, Funny Girl, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and The Hangover.
• TV: Boy Meets World, Glee, The Office, Clone High, How I Met Your Mother
• Siblings: Two brothers, 20 and 18.

The best thing about working at Canary: I’m at my best when working as a part of a team on something that I am passionate about, so the team, the environment, and the clients we represent provide the opportunity for me to learn and work to my highest potential.

Google Chrome lets you search lots of sites from the address bar in addition to Google.com by default. For example if you type “youtube” and hit tab you can limit a search to only youtube. I wanted to search drupal.org more quickly so I did a little hunting around for how to add my own list of frequently used sites to the list. Here’s the step-by-step for the mac version. I’m sure PC is very similar.

1. Open the Options panel by choosing “Preferences” from the Chrome menu, or by hitting “command-,”
2. Next to “Default Search”, choose Manage. This brings up the Search Engines management window.
3. Click the “+” on the bottom left to add your site. Below are the options I used to add Drupal.org

Name: drupal.org
Keyword: dr
URL: http://drupal.org/search/apachesolr_search/%s

Easy!

It’s official, the inaugural year of the Philadelphia-wide Philagrafika 2010 international print festival (a Canary PR client!), which celebrates the vital role of print in contemporary art, has made an imprint on The New York Times’ art critic Ken Johnson!

In Johnson’s review, which hit newsstands today, he calls the works presented in the festival’s core exhibition, The Graphic Unconscious, “provocative,” “entertaining,” and “fantastic.”

In his review, Johnson reflects, “Is printmaking dead, or is it reborn? Is it a meaningful category at all anymore for contemporary artists who revel in mechanically produced imagery of all kinds and fearlessly use and misuse whatever tools are at hand? If you think these questions matter — and there are good reasons to think they do — you need to plan a trip to Philadelphia.”

You can read Ken Johnson’s full New York Times review, here.

And, take a look at the accompanying Philagrafika 2010 photo gallery, here.

To check out the festival for yourself, Philagrafika 2010 runs through April 11 throughout Philadelphia. For participating venues and a full calendar of festival events, please visit: www.philagrafika2010.org.