Closing Day

Well, we closed the show today, and it was a bittersweet kinda thing. There was little fanfare, since most of the people involved were locals and were going to be seeing each other again soon - some of them in a matter of a few hours! Gavan and a couple of the others were going to the wedding of one of their friends. So very little was said as we all scattered to the wind. I went off and waited for my bus, then headed home.

On a bright note, after I got home and settled in, I turned right around and boarded the bus for Oakland, where I met up with Ron Siebert and Cary Spear & Company for the reading I told you about last Wednesday.

I snapped some shots during the evening, but they're frankly pretty bad, since I wasn't using a flash, and I was a little too close to some of my subjects to really be using that new zoom lens attachment I was using. It reduces or extends the focal length of the camera (I'm not smart enough to know which) and consequently I was sitting a little too close to, for instance, Tony McKay to get a really good picture of him... hence, his hands are blurry and there's a fuzziness to the picture overall that makes it all seem kind of off. I actually get a little motion sick looking at this picture. Maybe I'm just too sensitive.

So here's a picture of Ron Siebert. Again the not using the flash caused me some grief, but I was able to brighten the photo a little using PhotoShop, and also took care of a little of the blurriness that way. All in all, I'm less than pleased with the results of this particular evening's photography, but what the hell, I got some half-decent snaps of some of my friends, even if they're not perfect.

As I mentioned, that's Ron to the left, there. I met him probably three years ago when I did Henceforward for Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theater, which is the same show on which I got to know his wife better. I had met Cary around town, but didn't really get to know her better. Check out the picture to the right. Is she every inch the Irish colleen or what? I happen to think she's an absolutely beautiful woman - of course it doesn't hurt that I also think she's one of the kindest and sweetest people ever to draw breath.

Also at the reading was Don Wadsworth, another person I've known for years. Don's a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. And he's been a dialect coach around Pittsburgh (and nationally for that matter) for years. I enjoy him a lot, but don't get to see a whole lot of him.

Of course Holli Hamilton was there, along with her boyfriend, the delightful and talented Jarrod Fry. They're two of my favorite folks. I met Holli through Jarrod, of course, who I met through other friends when he was working with them. Then I actually got to work with Holli on Charlie Brown, and I'll hopefully have the pleasure of working with Jarrod at some point.