many things

Looking ahead to January and Lordy, we're going to be busy.

We've all had those stretches where you check to see if the phone is actually on and wonder if you've insulted everyone somehow and figure it's finally time to get out of the business and go back to St. Louis and sell shoes, so it's good when the gigs come fast and furious.

We get back into town on the 4th, do the APAP conference thing on the 13th and 14th, rehearse for the nEW Festival in Philly that week, open Time to Dance on the 18th, fly to Edinburgh on the 19th to meet with the International Festival people and talk about Overlord, come back on the 22nd, fly to Chicago on the 24th for the Fatboy opening at A Red Orchid Theater, come back home on the 26th and then start the Overlord workshop at the Ohio the following week. All that plus a consulting gig that caps out on January 31st. Me and the missus will be dancing as fast as we can.

Congratulations to the fine folks chosen for People of the Year by the other fine folks at nytheater.com. I know a lot of them, this being a fairly small fishbowl of a town, don't know some, congrats all.

And I'd just like to randomly say that I've recently come across two excellent young playwrights. Eric Sanders I've written about before, he wrote Ixomia which played as part of the Crown Point Festival a month or so ago. Beautiful, crazy, disciplined work. And my old buddy Danny O'Brien just turned me on to his wife's work. Julie Shavers some of you may know. She had a hit at the Fringe last year or two years ago with Go Robot Go. Her new one is Silver Bullet Trailer. Man alive. Can't adequately describe her voice, only read each play once, but she is funny, assured and very brave.

These kids give me hope. And it's hard to do this stuff without hope. So, thanks, Eric and Julie. Write if you get work.