2007: Year in Review (and a glance ahead)

The biggest headlines are from my personal life: I got engaged, and I moved from Washington, D.C. to Chicago. But 2007 was decent for me as a playwright as well.

My play "A Skewed Nude" was presented at The Great Plains Theatre Conference, which I attended. It was my first playwriting conference. "Nude" also won the award for best unpublished script at the Maryland Community Theatre Festival in January. (The play previous won at the 2004 Pittsburgh New Works Festival.) The publicity from the Maryland conference resulted in a subsequent performance by the Newtowne Players in Leonardstown, Md. That production is significant in that it was the first time I was unable to attend a production of one of my plays. I also missed a production of a few of my monologues that were performed as a part of "Practice Monologamy" at Carlow College in Pittsburgh in March.

A few new pieces premiered this year. My full-length "Necromony, USA" premiered at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh) in February. My one-act "Claire's Departure" premiered at the Pittsburgh New Works Festival in September. "Typist," another full-length, had a reading at Pittsburgh Playwright's Theatre in March and was a semi-finalist in several competitions (always a bridesmaid never a full production?).

Note that most of my playwriting successes were early in the year before I got distracted by adjusting to a new city and planning a wedding.

Speaking of weddings, we attended four this year: two in Pittsburgh, one in D.C., and one in Connecticut.

Moving to Chicago gave me the opportunity to reconnect with friends with whom I grown apart or completely lost touch. Of course, these are likely trade offs for people in D.C. I'm already losing track of, but it's still nice to get back together with good people from my past. And Chicago, as expected, has brought wonderful new people into my life as well. I think I'm going to like it here.

So what excitement lies ahead in 2008? Much of that remains to be seen. Most notably I'm getting married. As for theatre, this is the first year since I started seriously writing in 2003 that I have not had at least one production lined up before the year began. That's to be suspected since I didn't do a lot of writing or submitting in the latter part of 2007. Still, it's a bit scary. I'll have a few monologues in a benefit planned for May, which I am excited about, but it still doesn't feel as significant as full play or even a one-act. Hopefully, though I can get a few things going in the next 12 months. Only time will tell.

Regardless, I am excited for the prospects and opportunities of this new year.