Why am I at the computer?

I'm not packed yet! The sweater I want to wear isn't dry! I need coffee! And the next time I sleep will probably be tomorrow morning.

Ah, overnight flights. They get you there in time for a fresh new day when you're still wilted old you. We're departing at 7:05pm tonight from Newark. At least most of the team is. I booked the next flight because by the time I could buy my ticket, the price had gone up too much. But I'll see if I can get onto the earlier flight as a standby. We can hope that there aren't too many people flying to Ireland on a Saturday night.

The reason we're doing it this way is twofold: the festival provides housing for the company, starting TOMORROW night. And tomorrow is our load-in (which they call "get-in") and tech. In two theatres! So we'll hit the ground running at around 7am Dublin time (2 or 3 am US time). The actors/directors/artistic directors will most probably go directly to the venues. There's a panel at noon I'd like to attend on gay theatre.

It was two years ago that we were in Ireland on a long weekend that I found out that there was such a thing as the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival and went to check it out. I attended the panel on gay theatre, and I introduced myself to some of the organizers, and swung by the box office, and managed to see a show or two, including Emma Donoghue's "I Know my Own Heart," and to chat with Nic Patricca, who had a play, "Oh Holy Allen Ginsberg" in the festival that ended up winning a prize for best play.

(If those two plays sound familiar, it's because we read them this year at the Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwriting Series at TOSOS2). I came away from Dublin two years ago determined to find a way to get something of mine in the festival, and thanks to at least a hundred people (you never do anything solo in the theatre, not even solo shows!) we are leaving tonight.

And I am not packed.