last night i made the trek from hyde park up to evanston to see the opening of Everything is Illuminated at Next Theatre (go see it, btw! beautiful work — the design, most of the acting, and the language, of course). i hadn’t been to Next in at least 3 years so it was predictably nostalgic — where i started my production management career upon first moving to Chicago. on the drive up i did the math and realized that the end of this season will mark TEN YEARS that i’ve been working as a production manager. wait, what? when did that happen? when did i stop being entry-level? B is always telling me that i’m a really good production manager, and while i make no claims to be infallible, i know that he’s right — i AM really good at this. but it suddenly occurred to me that i had i bloody well be good at it if i’ve been doing this for ten years! zoinks. i did a quick count and i think that, with this current production starting tech tomorrow, i’ve produced 51 shows. guess it’s time i stop being insecure, right?

on a related note, i’ve decided that my as-yet-to-be-written memoir about being a production manager will be titled “Is It Going to Be Like That?”