Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Twitter version:

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grie..."

Apparently, social media has its limits. But sending out 140-character snippets of literature online and by text message can be very useful in other forms of the arts, as local organizations are quickly discovering.

This morning, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre hosts what will be a first for the venerable group -- a news conference for bloggers.

"We'd been noticing how important social media has become and we thought we'd give that a try," said Mandy Wilson, PBT director of marketing and communications.

Earlier this week, five of the 20 or so invited bloggers had RSVP'd to attend. "We definitely want to engage all of our patrons, but social media is predominantly used by a younger generation. That generation is not reading newspapers as much as our older patrons, and this is kind of a way to reach them," she said.

Social media allows followers, fans and friends the chance to find up-to-the-minute information on shows, special events, ticket giveaways and links to websites of interest. Some organizations, such as the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, maintain online blogs -- www.creationrex.com, a "dino" blog -- that are just plain fun.

(Online, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offers blogs about the arts at www.post-gazette.com/blogs, as well as a community blog for local theaters called pgTHEATERnow.)

When PBT opens "Swan Lake" next week, dancer Kristen Rusnak will really be on her toes. Not only will Ms. Rusnak, a member of the corps de ballet, be performing in the classic, she will be tweeting during rehearsals, too.

Ms. Rusnak, 25, is retiring after this season, and hopes her tweets at KRSTN_PGHballet will allow her to give patrons a backstage glimpse at a dancer's life.

"This is my last performance of 'Swan Lake,' so I'll be tweeting how it's going, and how retiring is affecting me," she said. Although chronicling her moment-to-moment life "isn't really me," she said, laughing, "I'm going to jump into it with both feet."

Dancers are no strangers to Twitter; a number of New York City Ballet members share bits of information about injuries, who's doing well that night -- some apparently tweet from the wings during performances -- as well as everyday stuff.

Maria Kochetkova, principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet known by the Twitter handle "balletrusse," tweets often and already has signed up as one of Ms. Rusnak's 18 "followers."

"For now, we are just focusing on a few dancers for 'Swan Lake,' but we really want to kick off [using social media] next season," said Shayne Souleret, PBT development and marketing coordinator.

Many arts groups in theater and music have been using social media for several years, be it through Facebook or MySpace. The ballet, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Pittsburgh Opera are relative latecomers, with the age of its subscribers skewing older than your average Facebook friend.

"But I think there is some awareness [of social media among older patrons]," said Debra Bell, director of marketing and communications for the Pittsburgh Opera, where the average age in the audience is 56.

"I communicate with my 70-year-old aunt on Facebook."

Miss Bell said social media is just "one layer" of Pittsburgh Opera's strategy to attract a new generation of fans. It is appealing to young professional groups in the city through events like happy hours before certain shows.

"We want people to think 'You're inviting us not only to be dazzled at the show, but to meet other social-minded people,' " she said.

Next up: the possible live-time Twitter of shows by staff members backstage.

Miss Bell said she had Twitter in mind 18 months ago when she arrived in Pittsburgh but didn't have a tech-savvy staff in place yet: "I needed someone who could actually feed the beast and use it effectively to get people interested."

To that end, public relations manager Kesha Pate is charged with updating PittsburghOpera on Twitter, which has 888 followers.

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where the average patron is 55, boasts 1,358 followers (pghsymphony). Yu-Ling Cheng, vice president of audience development and sales, said the PSO has been successful in establishing "sincere" give-and-take feedback through its online forum.

"It's a good way to get a mix of opinions," she said.

As with any social media that can be hacked, there is always a risk of misinformation getting out, or commentary running toward the negative.

"I guess that's always a concern, and I know a lot of for-profit companies have begun to monitor their employees' social networks ... but I think the good outweighs the risks," Ms. Cheng said.

For the PSO, use of Facebook and Twitter has been particularly invigorating: when Ben Folds visited as guest artist in February, a pair of front-row tickets were up for grabs. Marketing manager Trish Imbrogno tweeted clues to a location in the days leading up to the concert, and the final tweet resulted in a footrace outside a South Side bar.

"That was really fun," Ms. Cheng said. "And it's an example of 'it's not just Ben Folds coming to Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.' We made it more than that."

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