After Party

Last night we all made a brief appearence at the reception after opening, and then high-tailed it to Tuscany for copious adult beverages. There, we ran into some of the folks from Dog & Pony's Loose Lips Sink Ships and Unseam'd Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. A veritable theater night out.

I was delighted to see Brian Czarniecki at Tuscany, since I've not seen him - is this possible? - since the evening of our candle party oh-so-many months ago. I don't think that can be right, since it seems to me I've seen him since then; but regardless, it's always a great pleasure to see Brian and his other ½, Fred. Here's a picture of Brian with Dennis Palko - I most recently saw in Dog & Pony Productions Peep! fundraiser. Dennis, if I'm remembering correctly is one of the founders of Gemini Theater in Pittsburgh, which has gained a lot of attention over the last couple of years for it's childrens' productions. This may not be the best photo to be posting to ensure Dennis' continued good reputation, but what the hell. Actually, if you talk to Lissa Brennan and Laura Smiley, you'd know that I have much more tasteless photos I could be posting. But that's for another time.

Tuscany has become the sort of unofficial post-show hang out for actors who work at City Theater, so this next guy is a kinda beloved figure with us: Matt the bartender. Nice guy, in the extreme, and according to Lissa Brennan, the only guy in the city who can make a decent gimlet. There may be people who might wanna argue that point, but I'm sure not gonna take it up with her. She can kick my ass. Of course, just about anyone can kick my ass, so that's not saying all that much. In any case, Matt's a bit of a cutie, isn't he?

One of the other myriad pleasures of the evening out was the chance to meet Colleen Delany's boyfriend, Trevor Combs (I hope I'm spelling that right, Trevor!). Talk about fascinating! If I'm remembering this correctly, Trevor and some pals have recently launched their own high-performance bike parts company - meaning they design and build bike parts that don't self-destruct when crazy people try to ride their mountain bikes off a wall or down a cliff. How cool is that?!? When I meet people like Trevor, I feel hopelessly slacker-esque. So in addition to being a pretty damn cool guy, he's also a go-getter. Lucky Colleen!!! That's Jim Critchfield, of course, to Trevor's right. Have you noticed that Jim seems to have a thing with displaying his beer a la a commercial product endorsement every time I take a picture of him? Maybe it's just me.

So here's a delightful picture of Lissa Brennan - I caught her right in the middle of a rather serious guffaw. She thought she looked drunk when she saw this picture, but I didn't think that at all! I happen to think it's a very cute picture of her. She and Jay are terminally cute together.

And here's one last picture from the evening - this time with Lissa (okay, maybe this time she looks drunk), Dennis Palko again, and Laura Smiley, who's one of the founders of Unseam'd Shakespeare - yet another of the many smallish theater companies in Pittsburgh who're growing and using more and more Equity actors (yea for us!). They're currently producing The Comedy of Errors in the Lester Hamburg Studio Theater - the City's black box space - so they're next door to us. Which reminds me... I promised to e-mail her the photos that I wouldn't post above. ;o)