Look, I'm getting on in years. The memory's not quite what it used to be. I know 2007 was a pretty good year for me, but even I have to go into the archives to remember everything that went on. It's actually nice, because it means I have a lot to remember. And a lot to remember means that as I close out my fourth year as a producing playwright, it's still going better than I'd ever imagined it would.

The year opened with the premiere performance of "Still Life with Elephant" at Acme Theater's New Works Winter Fest. This was a particularly nice production for me because we kept it all within the Circle. Stacey directed, and we hand-picked our friends Richard Carey, Chris Tilden and Kelley Tilden. Richard was hysterical as Elephant, and even managed, Lord knows how, to produce his own elephantine headgear, trunk and all. Chris and Kelley brought great comic timing to the piece as well. It was my second consecutive Acme appearance; that fest has become one that I target every year.

February hit like an explosion in a Shanahan factory, scattering bits of my work all over the map. The Mansfield Music & Arts Society put up an evening of three of my short pieces--"Worst Possible Time for Writer's Block," "Brushstroke," and the flagship short show, "Bob's Date." It was a nice night of theater. My favorite memory is of a very good version of Confidence--with the cutest friggin' speech impediment you'll ever hear. "Pwease, Emotion. Don't wisten to Memowy." The kid rocked. "Brushstroke" was also done as a script-in-hand reading, along with several other short plays, by Theater One in Middleboro, MA.

At the same time, "Brushstroke" was going up at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA, as part of a taping for a television pilot. It appeared there along with work by my friends Chris Lockheardt, Rob Mattson and William Donnelly, along with plays by Jami Brandli and Jack Neary. Vincent Siders, who premiered the role at the 2006 Marathon, played beautifully opposite Peter Heydu. Sadly, the taping of the piece didn't come out as well as hoped and the piece didn't make the finished pilot. But it did expose the work to a very large (e.g., several hundred people) audience. I was just happy to be considered along with other people whom I consider to be some of the best local playwrights working at the moment.

In Delaware, my friend the talented Kristyn Leigh Robinson put up a version of "Waiting for the End of the World" which she ended up taking to a regional theater fest. While the show ran afoul of some questionable adjudicating, the DVD I received showed a well-done performance from actors and a director who clearly "got it." Outside of my own beloved premiere of this work, this version is my favorite.

February also brought word that the Walpole Footlighters had agreed to produce Dinner for Several as part of their 2008 season. This let me haul the script ot of the closet, blow the dust off it, and clean it up a bit. The wife is at the helm, and I've continued, as of this writing, to make needed changes so that the version that hits the stage in February 2008 (see? February!) is the best possible.

But enough about February. In March I got back into the acting thing by agreeing to appear in Curtain Call's production of three short plays by Chris Lockheardt. It gave me the chance to be in one of my favorite shows of his, "Luke Meets Charlene in a Really Nice Bar," and to play opposite the lovely and talented Margaret Kelly. We took this show to EMACT and had a ball with it.

In April I learned that I'd made it into the Boston Theater Marathon for the second year in a row. Image Theater of Lowell, MA, picked up "That Thing" for me, and under the guidance of Fran Weinberg it came to life with actors Kippy Goldfarb and Dale Place giving a great read of the piece. That was quite a long day for me--that morning I'd driven six hours back from Philadelphia where I'd been at a Steve Roach concert (it's okay, he's never heard of you, either). I stopped in briefly at home, then raced into town to catch the show. And well worth the race!

Also in April, "Owen & George Play Chess" was selected to be part of the Asphalt Jungle Shorts, a very interesting moving fest in Kitchener, Ontario. I was very excited by this because I love O&G and wish it would get more play--it does quite well when it's on its feet. But the director wanted to cut it down to five minutes, which would have radically and unpleasantly changed the thing, so I reluctantly pulled it back.

Cedar Lane Stage said yes to "Worst Possible Time for Writer's Block" in April. The show went up in late summer, I think, but I never heard anything about it! Glad it got some stage time, though!

April rounded itself out in interesting fashion when I was asked to let "Brushstroke" be performed again as part of a Young Playwrights' seminar at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. (I owe Lockheardt for that one!) At the last minute I had to step in and read the role of Timothy because one of the actors didn't show. It was the only chance I've had to experience the deep emotion of his lines firsthand. It was quite intense!

In June the playwriting "career" took an interesting leap when "Brushstroke"--a play I'd never expected people to really get or get into--was selected to be published in the Smith & Kraus anthology, Best 10-Minute Plays of 2007, 2 Actors. This book comes out later this winter and will mark my first appearance in an anthology. But as you'll read shortly, it would not be my last!

In July, "Brushstroke" proved itself again when it was selected as part of the Chester Horn Short Play Festival in NYC. This let the wife and I make what we hope will be an annual pilgrimage. We drive to Connecticut, take the train to the city, hop a cab to the theater, then walk back up to 57th and 7th and nosh on a big-ass deli sandwich so we can be in a food coma for the train ride back!

Things began to slow down just slightly at the end of the summer. In August I finally got the chance to put together a version of "Grievance" that wouldn't have me gnashing my teeth. To do so I had to play God, which is not a terribly tough assignment to deal with--an assignment made easier by being able to play across from the very talented Bill Houldcroft, who stepped into the show eleven days before it opened. We knocked the balls off that thing and laid down the definitive version to date. Yes, I'm a little proud of us, and justly so.

In September the good folks of the Paw Paw Village Players in Paw Paw Village, MI, accepted "Dance in Venice," which I'd been considering my only dog, for their short fest in October. It would be the show's premiere, and it would come away voted as the best piece in the fest thanks to fine direction by Jane Starr and the talents of Roger Henderson and Marianna Poggione.. (A nice little check came my way for this one!)

Studio 400 at the Little Theatrer in Pensacola, FL, accepted "That Thing" for a 2008 fest in September. I felt sort of bad for them. They put out a call for scripts and, thanks to the Playwrightbinge, they found themselves with more scripts than they expected--several times over. After a few rounds of staged readings, they narrowed the field and my lovely old friends Linda and Carl Edgerton had themselves one more go-round lined up.

At the end of the month, as I said, the wife and I were Big Apple bound. Bill Brown and Patrick Michael Wickham turned in an excellent version of "Brushstroke" there, with Mr. Brown handling directorial duties as well. Well worth the long trip, as the Chester Horn always is--as is the traditional post-fest huge deli sandwich. Although the two-and-a-half-hour car ride home leaves a lot to be desired.

October kicked off in a non-theatrical way as my son Jack and I got to see ourselves, at long last, in The Dungeon of Dr. Dreck by my good friend Mike Legge. It's been a point of real pride for my boy to show his friends his 45 seconds of screentime!

Out in Michigan, the Paw Paw Village Players put up an audience-wowing premiere rendition of "Dance In Venice," a play I had been losing faith in. Later I'd get a DVD copy of the show which made it clear why the audience had voted it as their favorite. A very lovely job.

A lackluster turnout, numbers-wise, for the Dinner for Several auditions worried me, but the level of talent that got selected as the cast for the February run thrilled me.

"That Thing" got a revival in a night of staged readings at Image Theater's Naughty Readings in Lowell in November. Also in November I got word that "That Thing" would join "Brushstroke" in my admittedly small list of published work, getting the nod for includion in Best 10-Minute Plays of 2008, 2 Actors. As theater life began to slow down in Shanahanville, that was pretty much the last hit, outside of the New Years' Eve debut of "Tall Order" with TheatreRats in NYC.

Of the last four years, 2007 was probably my least productive since I started playwriting. Writing-wise I accomplished very little, which saddens me. Luckily I'm now in a spot where I have ample material to throw out to festivals--provided they don't toss that bullshit "no previous performance" condition on it--so I can at least keep getting the word out on the stuff I managed to find inside when I was a productive playwright. I know that inspiration comes in waves, and that I often either compromised my writing time or simply disrespected it. I hope to rectify that in 2008. It's been too much of a gift to squander. I once told a writing class that knowing you can write and then not doing so is akin to discovering you've got wings and deciding not to fly.

In 2008, I hope to take my own advice and rediscover my wings.

..js..