Yes, it is. Our new website is nearly launched, and I’ve just learned how to post entries in this web log, thanks to my son. I’d actually started writing entries back in October–hence the existence of “archives” here–but had nothing to post them in. This week, we have a meeting with our web designer Irene Harper, who’ll attempt to teach us how to make basic changes to keep things up to date on the site, with Eli’s help, and give us a crash course in Dreamweaver.

An intense month. Working very hard on the scenario for Search for the Lost City for Company One in Boston, where rehearsal begins Feb. 4th, with an opening March 4th, and finally concluding with them that the scenario isn’t right for what they want to do. So we’re shelving it–will undoubtedly write that play another time–and instead starting from a standing start at the first rehearsal. The up-side is that they have eight very good actors, and lots of enthusiasm. The scary part is the time: we’ve done full-scale, improvisationally created shows in four weeks or even less, but only as collections of short scenes, not the full-length plot-driven piece they envision, and so we’re trying to leaven their confidence that we can do miracles. Miracles happen in a thunderclap in the movies, but in reality they take time.

So Boston in February will be very 24/7. We’re very excited about it and will be keeping a journal of the work, very possibly producing a documentary on the working process for the April edition of Hitchhiking. And work goes forward for Foothill Theatre in Nevada City, with a staged reading scheduled for May, the play now with the working title Wild Bill’s Shadow.

Most of January, though, has been taken up with the infrastructure. The Eye is trying to do a vast number of projects, and we just don’t have the means. Two chickens can’t carry what a team of donkeys can. But we’re actually making some forward progress in laying the foundation. Our Board is becoming active. We’ve launched another round of contacts with radio stations to expand carriage of the series. The National Endowment has renewed its support, and we’re planning a fundraising campaign around that. The website is launching at last. And our friend Shaun worked till about 1:30 AM the other night at last getting the computer networking fixed in our office. Two people, five computers. (Don’t ask!)

And our daughter Johanna, who’s lived in Italy for about the last five years, visited for two weeks, and so the whole family was again together around the same table for the first time in two years. Joyous.
–CB