Oprah in the House

Photo: http://it-is-revealed.blogspot.com

Jennifer Evanick

Staff Writer

 

To receive a ticket, attendees had to go through an application process. If picked from the lottery drawing, the lucky person was given a free ticket to the first live taping to Oprah’s Lifeclass: the Tour. 50,000 applications were submitted.

Two shows took place at the Peabody Opera House that day. The first, guest speaker T.D. Jakes was taped for a later airing on “Oprah’s Lifeclass,” on the OWN network. Later that night, guest speaker Iyanla Vanzant spoke for a live taping with Oprah.

With the Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah wanted to produce a platform from which people will watch the several programs and feel empowered in that one can always push to do better and be better.

Although OWN has struggled since its launch in January 2011, including having to let go of the Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show, it is still standing strong, giving the positive impression to individuals across America that it is possible to “liberate yourself” and “learn how to own yourself.”

As the show started, the crowd went completely mad. In Oprah’s words when opening the show, “All my life I have known this moment would arrive. I used ‘Oprah’ to create a platform from which I could say to people that no matter where you are in your life, you can do better, be better.”

Oprah had a laid-back, positive attitude, and she sparkled, literally. It was an honor to be in her presence. Oprah’s way of using social media during the show was brilliant. She encouraged everybody in audience and at home to have their phones out in order to post Facebook comments and on Twitter. Backstage, a group of bloggers sat efficiently working to find meaningful tweets to post on the live feed boards that made up the background of the set on stage. Along with the constant updates on the screens, six webcasts were shown via Skype, including individuals from Australia and India to Chicago, asking for input along the way. One of the webcasts even included a group of female prisoners whom Vanzant used as an example to emphasize PAIN. Vanzdant expressed that PAIN stood for “Pay Attention Inward Now,” helping the inmates to overcome the pain of their crimes while still owning up to what they had committed.

Throughout the entire show and even during commercial breaks, Oprah was cheerful and pleasant while cracking jokes with ease including a joke about eating too much at the Sweetiepies restaurant the day before.

Oprah and her team decided to make St. Louis their first stop on her “Lifeclass” road tour due to her popular television series on OWN called “Welcome to Sweetiepies.” The cast got a surprise visit by Oprah and Gale King. “Welcome to Sweetiepies” is a show based on a true soul food restaurant in STL where the main owner of the restaurant is Miss Robbie. Back in the day, Robbie was a back-up singer for Ike and Tina Turner. Since finding a welcoming restaurant in the ‘60s could be difficult for African-Americans, Miss Robbie frequently ended up cooking for the group while on the road, using her mother’s recipes. The newest series of “Welcome to Sweetiepies” began on March 31 and can be seen on the OWN network.

It is a high recommendation to tune in on Monday nights at 7 p.m. on the OWN network to catch Oprah’s “Lifeclass: the Tour.” A new guest speaker will capture your attention every week teaching individuals that in every walk of life, there is an intention and a purpos

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.