4/12/04: 9:16 am Howdy folks

We've been back a week now... it was an adventure, I don't mind telling you! We made the trip in just over seven days. Overall there were no mishaps (though we did take a wrong turn going through the Navaho reservation in Arizona and ended up near the Grand Canyon - added some time, but the scenery was breathtaking). I wasn't as lucky as I'd hoped in getting an internet connection while on the trip, so I wasn't able to post a daily journal as planned. We did keep a trip journal, however, that Trish is typing up. Once she's got that typed up, I'll post it and some photos for you all.

As you might expect, this past week was pretty full. I had a lot of computer work waiting for me (and still do, as a matter of fact), the house needed to be gotten back into shape (I should have taken a photo of the lawn - it was a jungle out there :) ), and there's plenty of work to be done for Mt. Hood Rep. So, I'm back on the hamster wheel again... I'll post more soon!

Oh, you may notice that the "buddy counter" got reset again... we'd neglected to put the large stump we were using to block the gate to the outside world back when we mowed the lawn... so he snuck out. To make matters worse, we'd taken his halter with his dog tags off, so he didn't even have his phone number with him for people to call if they found him. We had a heart breaking couple of hours... we drove the neighborhood looking for him (our neighbors a couple of houses up the street let us know that he'd crashed their barbeque and had eaten all the scraps they'd left on the table), looked in the usual haunts, and gave up. We were ready to call the animal shelters this morning when we heard a scratch on our screen door - there he was, fat and dirty, looking utterly pleased with himself. Grrrrrr... but the important thing is that he came back to us safe, so we couldn't be too mad at him.

Anyhoo... I'm off to an appointment. More to come!

3/26/04: 7:52 AM (cst) Columbus, TX Hey everyone!

We're on the road!

3/15/04: 6:07 pm (est) Greetings from sunny Orlando Florida! Well, it's not actually all that sunny at the moment... we're having the first bit of rain I've seen since I've been here. We're expecting the sun to return tomorrow.

What am I doing in Orlando, you may ask? Well, you probably saw my mention in an earlier post about an upcoming cross-country trip. The first leg has begun a little earlier than expected. See, my brother-in-law Pete has been going through a tough patch of late... he lost his job last year. His brother Rich died. He's had two bouts of pneumonia, and now his marriage is ending. He's not been having what you might consider the easiest of times.

So, after his last hospitalization he decided to relocate to Portland. In one of those good-comes-out-of-bad kind of moments, he realized while he was up here helping to settle Rich's affiars just how much he had missed his family, and how much he wanted to be closer to them. Since Trish and I have the most flexability in our schedules, we volunteered to help him pack his stuff up and drive it up to Portland from Florida.

We had planned on leaving next week, but things started to get a little sour down here and it was apparent that he needed some moral support. Here's another good-comes-from-bad moment: I haven't had anything much happening theatrically in Portland, and work's been relatively slow, so I was able to make time in my schedule to come down early. Thank you American Express and Delta frequent flier miles :).

One seven hour plane flight later and here I am! The past couple of days have been hot... and Pete and I have gotten a lot of stuff taken care of. We're starting the packing process today... then Trish comes into town next Tuesday. We'll take another day to let her get her bearings... and then we're hitting the road to Portland.

The trip itself is going to be pretty cool... we'll be going along the gulf-coast states for a while to avoid winter weather (Pete just got out of the hospital with pneumonia, after all), then we'll cut up through Texas, have a brief stop-over in Chaparral (the town in New Mexico I spent some of my formative years in), a stop in Trish and Pete's home-town of Pococatello Idaho, and we should be home by the first week in April. I've brought my laptop and our digital camera along... as the trip progresses I'll post some photos.

That's my life at the moment... hope yours is going well. talk to you soon...

3/3/04: 4:39 pm A friend sent me this email today, and I felt that I should post it so that everyone could have the chance to make their voices heard on the same-sex marriage issue:

It's a hell of a day for human rights here in Portland. Makes me glad to say I live in this city.

3/3/04: 9:07 am Here's another bit of news... some people know that one of America's favorite playwrights, Neil Simon, has had kidney problems for years... seems his friend and publicist Bill Evans donated one to him, and he and Simon are recovering from surgery now. Who knows... maybe we'll be able to get another few pulitzer prize winning plays out of him? You can read the CNN story here.

3/2/04: 9:58 pm Hey folks... great news!!! Multnomah County (the county that Portland is in) is going to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses! Check out KATU.com for more info! Congrats, Katie (and everyone else who's been with me in supporting this)!

Oh, yeah... sometime soon, remind me to tell you about my upcoming cross-country trip.

2/26/04: 8:57 am Ok... I'm back. Some of you sent emails asking about the OHSU gig I left for yesterday... This is part of my glamorous life as an actor. Trish and I get paid to act like patients with various and sundry diseases by Oregon Health Sciences University as part of the standardized patient program. Basically, the medical students come in and take health histories on me or do exams (nothing invasive, just basic stuff to assess a given condition), and I tell them about the experience from the patient's perspective. High art, eh? Working in my chosen field? Well... yeah, sorta. Almost more important to me, however, is my contribution to these future doctors education.

See, I've been in a lot of doctors offices and ER's with Trish over the years, and there's an unfortunate trend in modern medicine to look at a patient as a disease instead of as a person. There are plenty of doctors out there who are more mechanic than healer, who couldn't care less about how the patient is feeling or the quality of his or her care; they're just trying to clear a room or get one more credit with their supervising physician or to agrandize themselves through their position or whatever. If I can serve to get these students thinking about the people behind the chart, then hopefully they'll be a little more empathic when they actually get into practice.

There's a long road to hoe, though... You can always tell the students who get into medicine because they think it'll make them rich from the ones who do it because want to help people. We're there to try to remind them that medicine is still a healing "art" as much as it is a science; that the bond between the patient and practicioner is fundamental to the patient's long-term health. And, in some cases, we have to remind the teaching doctors of this. Just yesterday, Trish played a patient who went into the "clinic" for a back injury. The students did what they were supposed to... examined her, took her history, that kind of thing. When she asked for something to help control her pain, however, almost every student assumed that she was drug-seeking; faking her injury just to get narcotics.

Now, I'm not saying that doesn't happen... but damn it, sometimes people go into a clinic because they're in pain, and sometimes they need that pain controlled. Remember the landmark patient's bill of rights? If OHSU is teaching their students to immediately suspect any patient who asks for pain control, they're doing a disservice to their students and to the patients they'll one day treat! And it's important that we, as "patients" in this program, let both the students and the teachers know when we see a problem.

Anyway, that's what we do at OHSU.

2/25/04: 11:02 am You're right. I did it again. I promised you a story and then I didn't deliver for almost a month. Sigh... I wish I could tell you that there was some herculean labor that stood in my way... but damn it all, it was just life. Not that life's easy right now (when is it, right?), but I should have posted this before now.

Anyway, that's the past... what's happening in the present? Well... a few things.

Trish is currently performing in Fahrenheit 451, co-produced by Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre Company and Mt. Hood Community College, sponsored by the Multnomah County Library's Everybody Reads program.

And there's more... lots more. I can't put it up here now, though... I have to run to a gig at OHSU. More soon.

1/30/04: 9:47 am Yeah, that's right... Buddy's "excape counter" has been reset again, and you know what that means. Not to worry, we got him back about an hour after we found that he'd gone... I'll try and post the whole story tomorrow. It's been a VERY exhausting week, and I'm already late for work (again).

I will say that if you haven't seen Trish's show at Bump In The Road Theatre, (Old Age Ain't) No Place For Sissies, try and get down to Concordia and see it. It's actually selling pretty well, so tickets might be a little tough to get by the closing weekend (then again, it's theatre... you never know, really...)

Check back tomorrow!

1/16/04: 9:14 am You know, I bought Norton Antispam the other day, and it's doing a pretty good job of keeping spam out of my "inbox." Now, if I could only find a program to answer my email for me, I'd be doing great!

So sorry to not be in touch with a lot of you in a timely manner. The snow has thawed (finally - it took an entire week!), and vacation is most definitely over!! Between work, the duplex (we put an ad in the paper this week, so we should start getting calls this weekend) and Mt. Hood Rep, I'm back to pulling 16 hour days. And I haven't even started this year's tax process!

I can't complain too much, though... it's Trish who's doing the REAL running. She's rehearsing three plays at the moment, plus serving as Associate Artistic Director for Mt. Hood Rep, teaching at NCNM and dealing with running their TB surveilance program. And I think I'm busy? HA!!!!!

A few important dates you should probably know about, if you're interested...

• Next Friday, January 23: Trish opens (Old Age Ain't) No Place For Sissies, an original work with Bump In The Road Theatre. It's a play written by a group of local playwrights dealing with the challenges of old age and caregiving. A good cast, and Trish says its developing nicely. If you can get out to see it, you should.
• Wednesday, January 28: Tobias Andersen and I will be doing a special reading of his and Ray Bradbury's adaptation of The Illustrated Man at the Central Library in downtown Portland (801 S.W. 10th Avenue). It's in conjunction with the Multnomah County Library's Everybody Reads program. Tobias will be reading the play, and I'll be doing sound and reading the stage directions. Oh, crap... that means I've gotta start working on the sound, doesn't it? YIKES!!!
• Also in conjunction with the Everybody Reads program, Mt. Hood Rep and Mt. Hood Community College are co-producing Fahrenheit 451 at the Mt. Hood Community College Main Theatre. Our friend Tobias (again) is playing Fire Chief Beatty, and our lovely Trish is playing Mrs. Hudson (no, Dad, not that one - this is a woman who loves her books so much that she decides to burn with them!). That show opens on Friday February 20.
• Last but not least, Trish is doing a two week run of a staged reading of Romulus Linney's Gint with Profile Theatre. The show doesn't open until April 27th, so you've got lots of time if you want to go see it; Trish has already done a read-through of the script, however, WITH the playwright (he came to town to see the production of his newest play, Klonsky and Schwartz). This promises to be an incredible play.

Ok, I'm on the run... time to get to an appointment. Sorry I couldn't write more.. can't wait to get the duplex rented and for things to slow down a bit... ah, who am I kidding. Once that's off my plate, I'll be trying to get cast in something!

Hope you're all doing well...

1/6/04: 9:25 am And I thought that last week was snowy? Check THIS out:

Can't complain... I had a full day of work yesterday, now I get a snow day. That'll ease me into the work-week, huh? I'm gonna go play some Everquest and stay warm :).

See ya...

1/4/04: 8:22 am Hey everyone, happy new year!

Yeah, so as usual I've been pretty lazy about posting updates on the page... sadly, I don't really have much of an excuse. I'd love to tell you that I've been running madly, dealing with some great artistic project but, to be honest, Trish and I have just been taking a fairly protracted holiday break. Just what we needed.

Which is not to say that there hasn't been work to be done during the holiday season... quite the opposite, actually. As you might expect, Trish and I need to get the side of our duplex that Rich was living in rented soon. We've been spending some time over there getting the place cleaned up; my parents and brother were good enough to come down the weekend before Christmas to help with that, and we managed to make quite a dent in things. Trish and I just spent all day yesterday painting upstairs; and we've got a carpet cleaner coming on Wednesday. With luck we should be able to have it move-in ready by the end of the week (we've already put the word out; we may have to show it while it's still "in-progress," but that won't be so bad).

My buddy Kert LaBelle came down the Monday before Christas, too, and we had a very nice time just hanging out. Took him to Powells City of Books, as all good Portland hosts should, we went to see Return Of The King, and generally had a good time. Tuesday the 23rd we had a little road trip when I took him up to Seattle to catch his flight; it was a nice reminder of many hours spent in the car on the way to his villiage up in Alaska back when he and I were both in College. Ahhhh... memories, sweet memories :)

Then the holidays came and... to be frank, we did very little of anything. Trish's son Jesse and his girlfriend Jessie came over and coooked us Christmas dinner on the big day... and that was pretty much the extent of our socializing. The rest of the time was spent laying around reading books (you must read The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child!!! An awesome book! I also rather enjoyed Under My Skin by Jaye Maiman - Yeah, it's a lesbian murder mystery. So what? You wanna make something of it?), playing video games (the new version of Everquest Online Adventures, Frontiers, is out. Some new features, and a new continent! Also, XIII is a very stylish conspiracy-type game, and Wolverine's Revenge... heck, you get to be Wolverine! Enough said there...) and generally getting caught up with some much needed r&r. We didn't even go out New Years Eve (we were going to go to a party, but decided at the last minute to stay home) which, as it turned out, it was a good idea - we got three inches of snow that night!

I don't know if you've been following the weather in part of the world (and really, unless you live here, why would you?), but it's been frickin' cold!!!! We've had more snow in the past couple of weeks than we've had in six years (at least down in the Willamette valley). Heck, I feel like I'm still in Alaska (though, to be frank, it was warmer in Anchorage. We didn't have the wind). Anyway... want to see what the weather's like in Portland right now? Check this out.

So, here it is... the first Monday of 2004... and I have to go back to real life. Ugh. Time to start making appointments, getting my calendar in order, getting the dreaded tax info together (double-UGH!)... all that stuff. Before the new year starts coming at us swinging, however, I wanted to take a brief moment to fill you in, and wish you all a very very happy new year. And hey, this is an election year, so we've got lots to look forward to in 2004 right? One hopes... Hope you're all starting the new year out well!

12/4/03: 10:20 am Oh my god I'm tired.

Hey, did you have a good Thanksgiving? I sure hope so. We spent ours in the hospital. See, it appears that our life is never ever going to be easy... Trish's brother Pete came up the week that Rich died to help with settling his affairs, dealing with the creamation, etc. Understand that Rich and Pete weren't twins... I think they're 18 months apart or something along those lines. They've spent almost their entire lives together, though. They've lived together in various cities, talked on the phone every day... they're as close to twins as you can be without actually having sprung from the same egg.

Anyway... you can understand that Pete was pretty torn up over Rich passing. He was holding up all right, though... until Thanksgiving. That morning he woke up with chest pain (this is a very frightening thing for someone in Trish's family... their father died at an early age after having had several heart attacks. Trish's sister Mary Lou has had bypass surgery, and Trish has even had a minor heart attack in the past - not that she was aware of it. That's another story, though...). We took him to the Emergency room, and after a battery of tests they admitted him not for a heart condition, but for pneumonia. Hey, he's been living in Florida for the past ten years... between Oregon's colder weather and the stress of Rich dieing, it's kind of understandable.

After a couple of days, they released him... then, a couple of days later, we had to take him back as the chest pain was worse. They released him again with some oral antibiotics and some painkillers, but they did very little good. So, he's back in the hospital again right now. Like I say, nothing in our lives will ever ever be easy :)

So, needless to say... we're exhausted. Aside from Pete's hospitalization(s), we've had to start returning to real life: I've got several web site projects that are overdue, Trish has had to work at the school all week this week, we've still got to get the duplex cleaned out and re-rented (hey, anyone looking for a place to live at the first of the year? Drop us a line!), several of my clients have had major emergencies, Trish starts rehearsal next week for her next show (Bump In The Road Theatre's (Old Age Ain't) No Place For Sissies, and of course I still have one more week of The Gift of Speech yet to go.

I think I need to sleep for a week... maybe I'll get to do that next year sometime.

Anyway... thanks for all our thoughts and prayers for us over this past couple of weeks. Know that we appreciate and love you all... we'll persevere. As I've told a couple of people recently, "if it was easy, then the movie they're going to make of our life would be pretty boring, wouldn't it?"

Hope you're all doing well...

11/26/03: 9:00 am Howdy folks! We're doing a little better as the week is going forward... we still miss Rich, and god knows there's plenty of work to be done yet in getting his affairs in order, but we're working through things. Thanks again for all your kind thoughts as we work through this difficult period in our lives.

By the way, if you're looking for something to do with your family this weekend (or next), come check out The Gift Of Speech at the downtown Doubletree Hotel. As you can see from the photo on the left I'm reaching deeply into my acting range to play a (talking) dog... Seriously, it's a good show, and great for families who are looking for a little holiday entertainment. The premise of the play is based around a Christian legend... that animals were allowed to speak for a moment on the eve of Jesus' birth, and that on midnight of each December 24 after that they can talk for just a moment. The cast is great, and includes Sarah Dresser, Cam Sisco, Joe Healy and Kristin Brown. There's singing, dancing, love, growling, and even a giant chicken!!! How can you go wrong?

It's going to be a wonderful show, and I hope you can all stop by and take it in. It's a cheap ticket, too... here's the details from the offical press release:

Hope we see you there, and that everyone has a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Love to you all...

11/19/03: 9:50 am Well, THIS was unexpected... we were getting ready for a little family gathering in the kitchen on a typical rainy Oregon day, and Trish's sister Mary Lou pointed out the window at this.

Just goes to show... you never know what the weather will bring.

Thanks to all of you who've sent your good wishes to us in the wake of Rich's death... we're managing as best we can, but thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts.

11/17/03: 11:45 pm Hey all. I'm afraid I have some bad news to impart... for those who we've not told directly, Trish's brother Rich passed away over the weekend. We're still waiting on the medical examiners report, but we're expecting that the cause of his death was related to his diabetes and the liver transplant he had a number of years ago.

Needless to say, we're a bit shaken up at this point... we've got family around the house as we try and figure out where to go next. All of your good wishes are very appreciated, though. Don't be surprised if we're not quick to return calls or email... we've got a lot of stuff on our plates at the moment.

Love to you all...

10/30/03: 10:17 am Happy Richard Brinsley Sherridan's Birthday, everyone! Oh, sure, you know who Mr. Sheridan is... he's a restoration playwright. He's the one who created that wonderful Mrs. Malaprop in one of his most famous plays, The Rivals.

Yeah, ok, so if you're not a theatre nerd, maybe you don't know who he is... but if you want to find out more about him, click here. He's got a fascinating story behind him; it'd make a great movie. In fact, he has shown up as a character in a few period movies, but no one's made a movie specifically about him yet. Are you listening, Hollywood development people? Hmmm? Hmmm?

Anyway, now that Trish has started to kick her flu bug, I'm picking it up. It's coming at a good time, though... work is pretty slow. My phone hasn't been ringing much this week and I've got a major web project due, so if I have to be sick, this is the time to do it.

Had my first rehearsal last night for The Gift of Speech (that was interesting... bouncing around barking like a dog while I'm running a low-grade fever is always a fun experience :) ). We've got a GREAT cast; Sarah Dresser is always wonderful, and Kristin Brown is a lot of fun, too. Add to that Cam Sisco and Joe Healey... we're gonna have a ball! The script is a lot of fun, too... if you have kids and are looking for something to do over the holiday season (it opens November 28 and runs for two weekends, with double-shows on Saturdays), be sure to bring them over!

Ok... back to bed. Love to all of you. Stay healthy!

10/27/03: 10:48 am Poor Trish... she's picked up some kind of flu bug. She's laying in bed right now all stuffed up, feverish, and in the grip of an ucky body ache.

Which is a real pity, because we had a pretty darned nice weekend from an "old married couple of homebodies" perspective. The Bathroom we've been renovating for four months is almost completely done now; We just need to have our shower doors put on the new tub, the new toilet installed, and the lights put in. And the tile has to be sealed. But other than that, it's finished (finally), so when people come over they don't have to walk through the pit that is our bedroom to go wee wee.

I finally took some time this weekend and cleaned the old empty boxes out of the garage and organized things a little so we could take the seats out of the van (you were right, Mom... I finally figured it out) and store them in there. Why did we take the seats out? Well, our good friend David Meyers told us about this antiques warehouse in Yamhill called RD Steve's, so we made some room in the van in case we ended up hauling something back.

My god but you should see this place... it's enormous. They get containers every other week from Europe, and they've got wall-to-wall furniture in what looks to be an old grain storage warehouse. And the prices... some of these pieces were as little as $75.00!!!! We ended up hauling a vanity and a tall dresser home; both of which were almost 60% less than we would have found them anywhere else. The place is a real find! I owe David big-time for telling us about it.

Anyway... I need to get to work. Hope you're all doing well...

10/24/03: 7:34 am See? I told you I'd be posting more... Can you believe I'm up this early? It's this damn web project I'm working on. Deadline's looming, so it was a little harder to go back to bed to feed the dogs this morning.

In any case, one of the things that happens during the autumnal season is that we start to think about our friends and family, and wonder what's been going on with them.

For those of you UAA grads who are reading this, you might want to check out our good buddy Dawson Moore's web site... he's made quite a move of late. If you're unaware, do you yourself a favor and check it out.

Also in UAA grad news... I received this from stunt-master Kit Davlin the other day:

So, anyway, if you're in the Los Angeles area, be sure to check Kit out!

And go see the play, too...

Other news: Trish's good friend from Sanantonio Christopher Wilson (AKA Wilson Christopher in another life) has formed his own record company and has released his first solo wide-release. It's great music (and he's a lovely guy, even though I only met him once...)! Check him out at Cattle Call Records.

10/23/03: 4:30 pm Hooray! It's finally fall!

I guess I'm kinda weird... I've always been an autumn kinda person. Something about the blanket of clouds over everything and the dark oranges and reds just seems to put me at ease. Even when things are going crazy, there's a certain peace I seem to achieve in the fall.

Of course, I wouldn't have been saying this a couple of days ago... we had the oddest fall weather out here: Overcast and cloudy but in the 70's. It was like walking around in a steam-bath! I can't complain, though... at least I don't live near my parents in Washington. They haven't been flooded out themselves (they're pretty far from the water) but the roads have been a little treacherous.

So, been a little while since I posted anything. I wish I could say that life had been so busy that I haven't even had time to cut my toenails... but to be frank, life's just been kinda normal. Granted, normal for us means that our days are full with work, our evenings are full with theatre, our weekends are full with the house and the duplex... you get the picture.

Here's a quick run-down

• Trish is working all week this week at NCNM on their TB Surveillance Program... this means that she has to be at the school 8 hours a day to give inject the TB tests and then to read them 48 to 72 hours later. As always, there are complications...
• Mt. Hood Rep just put on its first reading in its Readers Theatre Season. One of my jobs as Operations Director is coordinate the Readers Theatre performances, and of course Trish had to say a few words as associate Artistic Director. Our next reading is Brighton Beach Memoirs, directed by Tricia Pancio-Armour; if you haven't already signed up for Mt. Hood Rep's e-newsletter The Aside you really should. It'll keep you "in the loop" about current projects.
• Trish's readings with Bump In The Road Theatre went very well. The audience for the staged reading of Hannah Free absolutely loved Trish as the fiesty 90-year old title character. If you ever get a chance to read this play, do. And think of Trish doing the lines. You'll be able to see why it's such a good fit.
• Theatrically, we're pretty busy. I've had a couple of murder mysteries this month with Wild Bills' Murder For Sale (got a company party coming up this holiday season? Give them a jingle!! It's loads of fun). Trish is beginning to put the cast together for this year's Community Christmas Carol out at Mt. Hood Rep, and I'm starting rehearsals for a new play next week called The Gift of Speech. It's a fun little children's play by local playwright Ellen West that's going to play at the Downtown Doubletree Inn November 28th through December 7. I'll post more details about that later, but you can see some publicity photos now by clicking here. I should warn you, though... The Gift of Speech is about an old Christmas legend that at midnight on Christmas eve animals can talk. I play a talking dog. You're already scared, aren't you? Wait until you see the photos...

As always, I hope you're all doing well...

9/22/03: 11:39 am
Hey everyone... long time no see, huh?

It's a funny thing... when I first started this web log, I figured I'd keep it as an online diary; make a post every day or two and keep people updated on Trish and my life. Of course, as happens with pen-and-paper diaries, life can get too busy and you don't get around to making entries. Then, when enough events pile up it becomes this herculean effort to get it all down on paper (or up on the web, in this particular case), and you put it off until you "have time..." which, of course, you never do.

So, ENOUGH! It's way past time I updated you on our comings-and-goings... if I get this stuff up today, I can start with a clean slate for future posts. In fact, you'll notice that I've "cleaned the slate" in more than a metaphorical sense; I've archived our old posts to an archive page that you can find by clicking the link on the left.

Forgive me for the "nutshell" summaries of the past two months... but it's been busy!!!

Mt. Hood Rep's American Classics Theatre Festival was a huge success. In fact, the photo at the beginning of this post was taken on opening night of the play Trish directed, Talley's Folly. We managed to almost double our audience from last year's festival, and we saw a lot of new faces from outside our normal audience-base in the seats. It was a marathon, though... mounting three shows at once produced some delimmas.

Because the set for Born Yesterday was so complicated, the crew fell behind in building it and consequently Trish ended up building most of her set for Talley's Folly. This isn't exactly Trish's forte' you understand... sure, we built the furnace for The Anger In Ernest and Ernestine, but taking on an entire set is a different matter. This was no ordinary set, either: we had to create a falling-down victorian boathouse in a little 75 seat black-box studio. One of our funders, Boyd's Coffee, was good enough to donate close to 100 pallettes to use for the floor of the boat-house; it fell to Trish and whowever happened to be available to arrange them, cut them to fit, and anchor them together. She's still got some wounds from that experience.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy with my own jobs: PR, the web site, sound design for both Talley's Folly and Born Yesterday, and helping out in the box office. By the time we closed the festival, I think that Trish and I had probably spent an average of 60 hours a week at the theatre or working on Mt. Hood Stuff at home.

It all paid off, though... aside from almost doubling our festival audience from last year, we received an Oregonian critic's choice notice for both Born Yesterday and Talley's Folly, and for the first time in the company's history we were considered for Portland's annual Drammy awards. I also go an official title with the company; I'm now the Operations Director.... ooooooooooo! What's that mean? Well, it means I do a whole lot of work for the company that doesn't fall into any other category :)

Want to see some stills from Talley's Folly? Click here.

Ok, enough of what's been happening... what's coming up? To start with, Mt. Hood Rep's new season of Readers Theatre is coming up, with Trish both acting and directing. I'd strongly suggest that you subscribe to their online newsletter, The Aside so you can keep track of what's happening out there. You can sign up at the web site, http://www.mthoodrep.org.

I'm going to be playing a talking dog (I know, not exactly a stretch for me) in an original work by local playwright Ellen West called The Gift of Speech. The play is based on a legend saying that animals gain the gift of speech at midnight on Christmas eve. It's going to play for two weekends at the Downtown Doubletree hotel, starting Friday November 28.

Trish is going to participage in Bump In The Road Theatre's Elderfest on Sunday, Oct. 12 at Concordia University (Click Here for a map). She'll be reading the title role in Hanna Free by Claudia Allen, and she'll also be reading some parts in Bump's new play about aging called (Old Age Ain't) No Place For Sissies. We'll have more information on both of these as we get closer to the dates.

Oh, and keep your firngers crossed for us... we just auditioned for Edward II at Triangle Productions yesterday. We'd both LOVE to be in this show... it's directed by a VERY good director, Andy Alcala, and is a very exciting project. It'd go up in February... if we get cast. We're sure hoping we will.

So... life continues on. Even by "nutshelling" this update, it's probably still taken more time out of your life than you had to spare. More updates coming soon... Put your email address in the box at the top of the page and you'll get informed whenever I post an update.

Ok... got to get to some client work now... hope you're all doing well...