Wittenberg - The Play's the Thing to See in Columbia, MD

Last evening we did something unusual for us - went to see a play. We're more a symphony concert couple, but Phil saw a write-up and it sounded interesting, so we decided to check it out.

Short review: Fantastic! If you are in the Baltimore area, make it a point to see Wittenberg at Rep Stage in Columbia at Howard Community College. Four characters - one a real historical figure, the other three strictly fictional but known to us all. Martin Luther, Dr. Faustus, Hamlet, and the Eternal Feminine all at the University of Wittenberg in Germany, 1517. Sounds kind of heavy, doesn't it? Not at all!

The four actors were great, especially Seth Reichgott who played Dr. John Faustus, and Michael Stebbins who played Rev. Martin Luther. Intelligent dialog with clever references to lines from Hamlet, impassioned discussions of faith vs. questioning of everything, laugh out loud schtick, and the occasional ukulele bit by Faustus. I'm not nearly doing it justice, so you need to see it for yourself.

The play by David Davalos is relatively new having premiered in Philadelphia last year where it won the Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play. It has been produced a few times and I expect it will show up in more local productions. When one comes near you, go see it. You'll find yourself writing a blog like this the next day.

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Vacation's Over - Now It's Time for PR

It was a lovely respite - 10 days on the lake in New Hampshire with beautiful days and deep, dark nights with loons calling across the water. If I hadn't been working on a project near to my heart, I would have relaxed more, but I knew it would be like that. It was a blessing of sorts that there's no Internet at the cabin, that we had to take our laptops to the local library to get and send email. Boy, does that focus your reading and writing!

But now we're home and getting into the rapid speed-up of the fall and winter. Now it is time for me to be like Marti, the AR guru of The Art of Marketing You. I've been watching and learning from him and the others on AR who say Blog! Tweet! Facebook! And so I'm starting to blog more. And I tweet as @McFrugal (of the Clan McFrugal, of course). And I'm on Facebook not once but twice. First, for myself and keeping up with family and friends. But now also as The Cat Lover's Book of Days for the book that comes out in October. With the help of a savvy young PR professional, there's even a fan page for the book now.

And that's where I learned another important lesson. You don't have to do it all yourself! I'm one of those who has never found it easy to delegate. I "knew" a fan page would be important. I figured I could do it myself, could understand the technology, and save some money. Wrong! I might have been able to figure it out, but probably not in time to be of any value. So through a referral I found someone who did it in a couple of days and continues to help with press releases and more.

There will always be more that needs doing than I can get done by myself. It takes me a while, but I'm learning from friends like Margaret Rome who find people like tech gurus to deal with the things that need doing, and that would otherwise take away from her incredible productivity. That's my new watchword: Outsource.

Now if only I could outsource sleeping, think how much more I could get done!!!