Back around 1999, I spent many hours behind a couch playing a hand-puppet dog in the staged-reading of a play called Monkey by Nicola Hardwood.  My crouch-mate (ouch) was Anne McCaw, who was the the dog's "mother" and Punch to my Judy.  The play was a wild ride, and the experience cemented my and Anne's interest in creating a puppet play together, so we dutifully pulled together a rag-tag team of friends in the SFSU theatre department to help us develop this play.

That's when I first met Nicole, who took every character tidbit we scraped together and turned them into fully-fledged beings (she was such a great physical performer that we didn't want to hide her behind a puppet).  I learned a lot about the value of committing to your performing choices from Nicole during that process.  Unfortunately, the play eventually gave way to personal and world events, but I've wanted to work again with Nicole ever since.  In fact, I was about to ask her to participate in last year's Balé Tech show at the SF Fringe, but she was scooped by my friend and SFSU playwriting alum Jen Kollmer for Hit the Muscle.

So thanks, Anne, for introducing me to Nicole.  This show is for Anne too, who'll know why.