Ake Ome!!!

That's Happy New Year in Japanese, kids...

How are y'all doing???

I'm so excited that it's 2008. This year that just ended was pretty rough, pretty hard work, and I'm glad to have gotten through it.

Whistlestop review of 2007!
(Funny, remember my previous reviews of the year in here? all luscious and fun and wholesome? not so much for this past year. Bullet points are all y'all are gonna get... No real value judgements or particularly rich commentary...)

January
Working on Othello with Second Age.
Workshops for the SEEDS showcase production.

February
Working on Don Carlos with Rough Magic.

March
National Theatre Studio Directors' Course in London. (Amazing! Haha - cracked already...)

April
Japan - a little catchup trip.
Athens - a week of translating and development.
London - Ninagawa's Coriolanus. 4.5 hours long. TWICE.

May
Berlin - SEEDS trip.
Auditions for Caligula.

June
London - a lil' trip for some catchups and an Asian theatre research day.
Milan - trip to visit Sofia and La Scala. Dahlink.

July
Greece. As ever.

August
Spent an intense awesome time building the costumes for Caligula (our SEEDS show) in the empty Rough Magic office with La Tilly. Who rocks la World.
Rehearsals for aforementioned Caligula began.
Also spent a lot of time translating La Marea, for the Theatre Festival.

September
Caligula was performed. My mom was diagnosed with Cancer.
Started work on Philadelphia Here I Come, with Second Age.

October
Philadelphia (and Letterkenny, Ennis, Dublin, Cork and Dun Laoghaire) here we came.

November
Back to Tokyo. For three whole fabulous weeks. Much of which I spent working on a paper for....

December
...a conference I came back to Tokyo for in early December. This was awesome.
Athens - back to Greece for some serious R&R and to finish the translation.
Christmas - hard work.

and then I got sick New Year's Eve. Although the tricky shitty details of the year are not listed here, but if felt with this infection that 2007 was saying "Ha! You may be rid of me, but you damn won't forget me!"

And that's hella true.

Things I'm excited for in 2008:

A whole new range of projects. Not just theatre! Conor goes multi-media!
This will be the year I buy a mac. A hot one.
The US Presidential Election
The SATC movie
New Madonna, Cyndi and others. Maybe a Madonna tour?
Travel to new places. And loved ones, too.

It's funny, I love New Year's Day infinitely more than New Year's eve. If I had my way I'd have the big celebration on Jan 1st, and have a really nice dinner party to welcome the possibilities of what the year will bring :)