FEBRUARY: Wow February already? January sped by in like 2 weeks. I started up my Blog at Blogger.com, I needed a blog that I could update from any computer not just my home laptop, and quickly. Big news for KAT was Kiss of the Spiderwoman won 5 of the WATCH awards it was up for, they were Best Direction, Best Music Direction (tied), Best Lighting (tied), Best Choreography and Outstanding Lead Actor Award for Andy Isquierdo (Valentin). Oh and at the video party for Company there was a gift exchange (I think because the show is about a birthday). The gift exchange was called a White Elephant gift exchange similar to a Yankee Gift Exchange which is the sort of thing that SSTG has at it's annual Twelfth Night party. I got a box of chocolate covered dried blueberries with a blueberry candy coating, too rich to eat more than a handful at any one time. I almost expected to get a rock at this party, some of the folks are that weird.

MARCH: lets see Assassins at KAT opens up, what I'm doing for the show? I helped with auditions back in January as I said, and I worked the box office on the second friday night. I mostly took the ticket info down which was the number of people if they were town residents, or members of the theatre or WATCH Judges, kids or seniors or what-nots. Once or twice I worked the "cash drawer" when the box office manager stepped away for a few minutes to check on the satus of something. Opening weekend drew lots of folks, opening night was close to a sellout with about 100 people and three reviewers, The Washington Post, The Montgomery Sentinel, and Potomac Stages (a local online threatre reviewing site). Lets see auditions for Montgomery Playhouse's production of Little Shop of Horrors...ding dang they got the rights pulled on them a week before the auditions were going to take place.

APRIL: wow! KATs production of Assassins drew record crowds, the last 3 or 4 nights were complete sell outs. Oh the beginning of this month brought some sad news for my family. My Grandmother Neva Edminston Goldthorpe passed away on Monday 03 April, 2006. She was One-Hundred and One (101) and the last of my grandparents. That made my birthday the next day really surreal. On brighter notes: I saw Shenandoah at Ford's Theatre with Scott Bakula in the lead role; then, toward the end of the month I spent a week in Florida visiting my pals TJ, His wife Ellen and Keith.

MAY: When I got back from my Vacation, I really, really hated going back to work. I caught the opening night performance of SSTG's production of A Hotel on Marvin Gardens. A fun little non-musical play about the annual game of Monopoly that a group of four people who run a magazine have. The KAT production of Nine opened up at the end of this month. I didn't know much about it except the general description of it, it is much better than I thought it would be. Lets see I read the controversial book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. WOW! Factual errors and Christian Historical errors aside it is a good suspence/treasure hunt/murder mystery story. Oh and by the way its FICTION!. Of course there are going to be factual errors and historical errors it was written as and intended to be a fictional novel. Dispite what the first page says about the Opus Dei and Priory of Sion being real secret organizations deep within the Catholic Church, and claiming that all the facts and history are true, it is just a fictional story a Novel. I also started tracking my book collection at a site I found bibliophil.org, actually it was recommended on the forum boards over at dvdspot.com as being a great resource for tracking a book collection. The only real drawback is for older books, older editions of current books, and out-of-print books with no ISBN number, there either is no entry and often no picture of the cover. This is mostly because the database uses the information available through Amazon.com so that members can purchase books they see others as having read, or purchased.

JUNE: KAT's production of Nine, is doing well artisticly, but financially will probabaly just break-even.

JULY: Nine ended up making a small profit, Yay, KAT. I was almost Charlie Brown for a production of Snoopy: The Musical. Long story short, the actor originally cast dropped out, and they needed a replacement. I said OK went to a rehearsal, in the meantime the next rehearsal (which I had a prior conflict and missed) a friend of a cast member showed up, I thought he had done the role before and was more familiar with the show than I was, (turns out he had done the role in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown not Snoopy: The Musical) so I decided it would be easier for him to review than for me to learn-a-new. Plus there was a solo that I was concerned about that is written for a Tenor voice which I have not, I'm a Baritone. Meanwhile, I missed a payment to the webspace service provider to my website, and first they suspended the account then 7 days later they cancel the account, however, 4 hours later my payment goes through. Instead of being considered a renewal, the payment is treated like a brand new account so anything I had online is gone, fortunately I have the stuff backed-up on floppy discs but unfortunately I have to re-upload all them to the server. I'm still not through reloading stuff. UGH.

AUGUST: Haven't done much. KAT had auditions for Urinetown, I was going to audition but decided not to a few days before. Pretty slow month.

SEPTEMBER:KATs 5th Annual fund raising Gala was a pretty fun night.

OCTOBER: Wow september flew by and now it is almost mid October. KAT is rehearsing Pee-Town as they nicknamed Urinetown, I guess I'll see a performance or two. I haven't helped much in other areas. Oh Well. Sandy Spring Theatre Group is reviving Bully for two weeks, bully bully. Well for those who are close enough to have heard, and got shocked, I had a medical condition near the end of October. I was in the hospital for a week. Long story very short, I had 3 blocked arteries and had bypass surgery for it. After all you need bypasses.

NOVEMBER: Not much this month, but recovering from surgery, missed Urinetown, missed SSTG's One-Acts and a few other things. For Thanksgiving did the traditional going to my cousins in Centerville, VA. Good to see everyone, including the newborn and toddler type rug-rat cousins (first cousins once removed = the sons and daughters of a first cousin).

DECEMBER: Getting better, there are still a few bad days, but most are pretty good, except getting up in the morning. I went to a holiday party/cookie exchange which was fun. Great to see some folks I hadn't seen since January. The host has this type of party every year, it had been a few years since I've attended one of those. Had to take my car in for maintenance, ugh! Always a big pain in wallet that empties the bank accounts and maxes-out the credit cards.

Miscellaneous: You can read my previous Years in Review (2000 - 2005) at my website at klandersen.com/yearinreview.html. This years will be available there soon. my old geocities site also has them but they have a different look to them. I think has up to 2005 but I'm not sure.

Plans for 2007:

• Try to keep this silly tradition going.

Kirk