Monday, December 31, 2012

2012 review

So I posted some goals for 2012 last year - did I meet them? Let's see:

  • A production of the full-length JULIA & BUDDY
FAIL - thanks to the employment rollercoaster of 2012 I was not able to do this. But on the positive side, by the end of 2012 I had a new full-time permanent job that I like much much better than the job I held from 2008 - 2012.
  • PALMYRA NJ - not only first draft but revised, finalized play
FAIL - and there's no excuse for this - I had time, in-between looking for a new job.
  • Full-length MISTRESS ILSA, Full-length SODOM & GOMORRAH: THE ONE MAN SHOW
FAIL and FAIL.  I did however make some headway on my play about Catherine the Great, which was one of my goals, although I'm nowhere near finished, and I started a play about Ben Franklin, which wasn't a goal but at least I wasn't just goofing off on Facebook all year.
  • More video projects
  WIN - I definitely met this goal. Thanks to being unemployed for part of 2012 I was able to not only interview Carl Forsman, the founder of Keen Company for the NYCPlaywrights' web site (and got a pair of comps in exchange), but I did some pretty ambitious stuff with the NYCPlaywrights Play of the Month videos: I added special effects to the March video; used archival footage (and did voice acting) for the October video; and made, basically three 10-minute movies in February (on the N train), May (in Union Square), and September (my apartment.) 
  • Increase NYCPlaywrights web traffic.
WIN - maybe because of the videos, but there were 99,870 visits to the site in 2011 and 165,454 in 2012. And income from Google ads increased 104%. And then there were the banner ads...
In spite of my theater-related fails I did get something done - I had a new production of MISTRESS ILSA with a revised script.

For 2013 my goals are:
  • World premiere of the full-length JULIA & BUDDY, finally
  • Get at least one of my many half-finished full-length plays up to production-worthy status. At this point it's either BEN FRANKLIN or MISTRESS ILSA. Or CATHERINE THE GREAT.
  • Invest in better video equipment to make better videos.
Three is enough for one year, I think.