1. Print it out and
2. GET A LIFE!

JANUARY: Ah this new "year" started out kinda slow. There were no major New Year's parties but I did manage have some New Year's Eve fun at a small party of a few friends where I was the only single person OH what joy. Anyway at that party we were playing one of those charades/ pictionary/ yuppie type games, I think it was called Cranium, then I went to yet another party and got there just as the last few people were leaving, oh well. For the rest of the month I was kinda worn out because I was in rehearsals for Of Mice And Men up at Silver Spring Stage and their bowling alley concrete eye sore ceiling support post.

FEBRUARY: Ah the pain in the butt rehearsals for Of Mice yadda yadda continued on to infinity (we'd been rehearsing since late November or something yuck, with a break for the holidays) and into the Performances in the later part of the month. I was the stage manager and hated 99% of it. Having an average looking "Curley's Wife" and an average looking props mistress helped some, but not much since both were already in a relationship (sigh). NO NOT with each other! I've said it before and I said it after the first show I did with SSS NEVER A@#$%* AGAIN they do five friggin weeks of performances too many! So far I've turned down two tech offers from them since then.

MARCH: I had to bail out of the SSS show before their final week because I was needed to run spot light for SSTG's production of Starting Here Starting Now which for a show that had only three performers in it and is a "Review" brought out big houses. The director had a lot to do with that plus the fact that these three performers are part of the cream of the crop in this area's community theatre singers/actors. It turned out to be the final SSTG show in the Kenmont Swim club, as many of you now know SSTG's new home is the Kensington Armory which is a much better theatre friendly space. Also to add more insomnia we held auditions for The Foreigner and started a stressful (for me anyway) six-week rehearsal schedule.

APRIL: Well my Birthday came and went with little celebration… Well OK the word leaked out and The Foreigner Cast gave me a card and some cake the next night. Thanks Bill! The last weekend saw the opening of The Foreigner and I had to take off work for tech week. My buddy (and sound designer for the show) TJ Maher said that I'm the only person he knew who would take off work to WORK on their vacation. If I hadn't of done it I would have had to be checked into either the nut farm or the funeral home. I still should be checked into both.

MAY: We closed The Foreigner with mixed feelings, it was a successful run, but the logistics of being the first show in a new space plus a couple of other headaches added to what would be a stressful year. Reread the first section again in case you missed that part of the stress, Chess was most of the rest of the stress.

JUNE: OK I lied there was a little rest in June, but there were plenty of pre-production meetings for Chess and prep cleaning/ painting/ building done at the Armory.

JULY: The planning starts paying off Chess Auditions were held and we knew that we would have a very strong cast. SSTG gets another feather in its cap; Sweeny Todd won the Ruby Griffith Award for Second Runner-Up for Best Musical.

AUGUST: The Chess meetings never ended the stress started building especially since I had no idea what was going to be done about sound equipment, and I still only had a very vague idea of what sounds & effects were going to be needed.

SEPTEMBER: The weekend just before the now infamous 911 events, I ran lights at Asbury Methodist Village for a musical review show directed by Rosie Dyer for her Church Potomac United Methodist. I flew from the seat of my pants because there was no complete written lighting design and the lights set up at Asbury at the time had very little logical pattern as to which ones lit what area of the stage. But Rosie was happy and impressed with the outcome. Soooo.

OCTOBER: After all the planning and all the sweat building and painting etc. Chess opens up. About a week and a half before opening I was finally able to get around to purchasing some sound equipment for the group and the show.

NOVEMBER: Chess closed on a VERY successful run. With the help of a larger auditorium and a huge cast of thousands… OK just 30 something, I think some attendance records were broken. Well at work we moved from the convenient hustle and bustle of Crystal City, VA to the run down re-beautification projects of Da Hood of SE DC on the lovely banks of the Anacostia River (12th and M to be exact). Alannis Morrisette would be Ironically happy to see a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW 4 (5) story office building plopped right down in the middle of a run down highway off-ramp cloverleaf. Next to a tired worn down but still used Military Operations Headquarters. OK so it's just the Damn US Navy Yard but you get the idea. Anyway now all of our offices that were spread out across 4 or 5 blocks of prime Arlington, VA real estate called Crystal City are crammed into two almost spacious floors of the aptly named office building complex Maritime Plaza Building One. The location REALY SUCKS, I hate having to transfer to a bus from the subway, I don't drive because I don't want to deal with the stress of combating "rush" time period traffic into and out of DC, and parking is very limited, but the Hi-Tech security "Swipe" cards are kind of fun. Hmmmm I wonder what we'll do during power failures? Around the beginning of Thanksgiving week, my laptop which I use as my main internet and almost everything else home computer had a MAJOR SYSTEM CRASH which looks like it's going to require doing what is called a FULL RESTORE which means wiping out anything that is currently on the computer, which means about a years worth of emails some of which are still reference worthy will be wiped clean, along with my email address book. I think I can save some of my graphics, photos and Word files so long as I can find them in DOS. Restoring also means reinstalling my home copy of MSOffice, AOL, downloaded games, and everything else that wasn't pre-loaded into the computer. I still haven't had time to do any of that saving/repair work. If I was a swearing man (and an Atheist) I'd say the GD word right around now followed by more colorful four letter words. But even bigger news than that my Sister Adrienne was on the East Coast for Thanksgiving (She lives in CaliFornia) and was able to hob knob with family located in this area. She along with my Mother and My Uncle went to New York for a couple of days to see a couple of B'Way shows that some of her friends are in. One of her friends/ex-apartment mates Robin Baxter is in the chorus of Mamma Mia, and locally was in the original cast of Shear Madness. Adrienne's friend Steve Blanchard is currently THE BEAST in Beauty and The Beast. He also has played Gaston making him the first, and so far only, actor to have played both roles. She also saw her friend, another ex-apartment mate, Gerry McCarthy who is also known as "The Flower lady" of Battalion 9. The Washington Post did an article on her on Dec. 14 it can be checked out at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35734-2001Dec13.html

DECEMBER: The last of Crystal City folks moved into this new building so we're all one big happy CSC AME family again. For the most part the move has gone well, but as far as computer connections and telephone voicemail is concerned, well I won't go into that, it will only get me ticked off more than I have been as of late. Job What #$%#**n' Job? Ah have the computer where's the tin cans and string?

Plans for 2002:

• What plans? Who the *#%@ has plans? All of my recent plans anyway have gone out the window.