After much deliberation, we’re delighted to announce that our very favorite tweet belonged to @Naturalnorm, who wrote: “#Onegin meets and Friends Tatiana. She spams him. Outraged, Onegin deletes Lensky. Tatiana unFriends Onegin.” Congratulations to @Naturalnorm, who wins a free ‘SF Ballet Sampler’ Mini-Package offering tickets to three fantastic performances!

However, the quality of submissions was so high that we felt we simply had to offer runner-up prizes to six others. The following Twitter followers all win a pair of tickets to Program 2 or Program 3 performed by SF Ballet:

It’s no mean feat, but until Monday Jan. 30 we’re offering an exclusive ticket discount to our Twitter fans who rise to our ‘Tweet the Plot’ challenge.

Your mission: read our Onegin synopsis, and then tweet @sfballet with your description of the story in 140 characters or less. (Rhymes, wit and heart are all encouraged.) If we like it, we’ll send you a code for a 30% ticket discount on selected Onegin performances*.

What’s more, our very favorite tweet will also earn its author a special prize: a free ‘SF Ballet Sampler’ Mini-Package offering tickets for three exciting performances in our 2012 Season!

Remember, you must be following us on Twitter (@sfballet) to enter, and all tweets must:

• Be addressed to @sfballet (or we won’t see them)
• Contain the hashtag #Onegin to be entered
• Recognizably relate to the plot of Onegin

If you could write a letter to your first love, what would it say?

Please note: This feature is now closed to submissions.

San Francisco Ballet’s Onegin (Jan. 27-Feb. 3, 2012) is the story of a young woman who pours out her heart in a letter to her first love—with powerful consequences. We’ve all had a first love, so now SF Ballet wants to hear from you!

Tell us: if you wrote a letter to your ‘first love’ now, what would you write? It could be your childhood sweetheart, or the ‘one that got away.’ It might be a beloved family pet, a movie star—or even a personal passion, like ballet itself. Funny or sad, light-hearted or heartfelt; send us your letters via the anonymous comment form below, and we’ll feature them in a special “Letter to My First Love” Tumblr gallery as they come in (closing date Feb 3, 2012 at 5pm PST). We’ll also print our favorite letter in our Backstage subscribers magazine.

A few guidelines:

• Length: your letter could be just a few words, or much longer, but we want to read them all  so please keep your submissions to 250 words maximum.
• Names: all submissions can be submitted anonymously via the comment form below—you don’t need to complete the ‘name’, ‘email’ or ‘website’ fields (and even if you do this info won’t accompany your letter on our Tumblr gallery). You might decide you want to include your name within your letter – it’s up to you! – but whatever you choose, remember not to include anyone else’s real name(s), or we won’t be able to feature your letter.
• Content: bear in mind that our social media audience includes many younger fans, and we won’t be able to feature any letters containing profanity or offensive language. By submitting your letter you’re giving SF Ballet the right to edit content for reasons of length or style!

Need some inspiration? Read Tatiana’s letter to Onegin, as written by Pushkin…

Follow @sfballet on Twitter and enter our contest tomorrow to win two tickets to Nutcracker! In celebration of SF Ballet’s “Nutcracker Guide to Our City,” we are offering an exclusive pair of tickets to the performance of Nutcracker on Dec 16 as part of a special Twitter contest.

At 1pm PST tomorrow (Thurs Dec 8), we’ll be posing a special quiz question as @sfballet, and the first Twitter user to tweet @sfballet the correct answer will be the lucky winner of the two tickets. The quiz question will be based on one of the historic San Francisco locations that inspired Nutcracker’s beautiful sets, and the answer itself will be contained somewhere in the Guide to Our City.

Good luck!

Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/sfballet

Don’t have a Twitter account? Get started at: twitter.com/signup

(T&Cs can be found at http://www.sfballet.org/promorules)

SF Ballet Soloist Garen Scribner with his 5-year old rescue hound mix Pilot (photo by Quinn Wharton)

Corps de Ballet Member Sean Orza, with Hope (on the left) and Lulu (on the right.)

Principal Dancer Tiit Helimets, with his cats Glory and Hallie (they're enemies!)

Corps de Ballet Member Kristina Lind and her pup, Tina!

Corps de Ballet Dancer Luke Willis with pet fish, Fred.

Hamburg Ballet Director and Chief Choreographer John Neumeier applauds the opening night cast of the U.S. premiere of his The Little Mermaid. (©Chris Hardy)

San Francisco Ballet in Neumeier's The Little Mermaid. (© Erik Tomasson)

Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith rehearsing Neumeier's The Little Mermaid which opens this Saturday, March 20 (© Erik Tomasson)

Principal Dancer Sarah Van Patten rehearsing John Neumeier's The Little Mermaid which premieres on March 20. (© Erik Tomasson)

Principal Dancer Lorena Feijoo in Forsythe's in the middle, somewhat elevated, featured on Program 4 which opens tonight.