This one goes to Eleven!

[PSMKay]

Happy 11th birthday to SMNetwork, founded January 14, 2000!

Let's see how far we've come!

11 years ago today I was 23 years old, had been in Chicago for a year and a half, and was living in a tiny studio apartment.  I was using dial-up internet on a laptop and had been writing web code as a hobby for all of 6 months.  I'd done seven shows in Chicago, and was on the verge of starting at the company that would become my resident home for the next three years.

What were you doing in January of 2000?

[RuthNY]

We've actually done this thread once before, but why not do it again?!  In Jan. 2000, I was in Pittsburgh doing PIRATES OF PENZANCE.  And currently, I'm back in Pittsburgh doing CAMELOT. Same theatre, same director, same happy experience!

Happy Birthday SMNetwork.org!  Now blow out those candles and have some cake!

EDIT: I know we've done it before, let's consider this the remix version.  - PSMK

[missliz]

January 2000....I was a sophomore at my all-girls, verrrrry Catholic high school. Organizing a student production of scenes from plays that weren't allowed in our drama class due to content, language, or men. (I remember Agnes of God and Art being part of the evening.) Always a little subversive...

[dallas10086]

Beginning the second half of my internship at Virginia Opera in Norfolk. I think we had just started rehearsals for Turandot, which is still my favorite opera, directed by the brilliant Darko Tresnjak.

[ReyYaySM]

In January of 2000, I was a senior in high school and had not discovered stage management, but I did know I was going to college to study theatre.  I was probably in the midst of preparing college applications.

Happy birthday, SMNetwork, and thanks PSMKay for all of your hard work over the years!!

[maximillionx]

First off, happy birthday SMNetwork! Thank you for everything PSMKay!

In January of 2000, I was starting the second half of 7th grade.  My first theatre experience was in 7th Grade when I acted in Cinderella as chorus boy #7.  The rest is history....

[lsears]

January of 2000 - I was a junior in high school, looking at colleges that would give me a BFA in stage management and looking at places I could go for a gap year between high school and college for a year away from theater.

[MatthewShiner]

January of 2000.

I just started my last quarter in graduate school at UC San Diego.  My grandfather had just passed away - I remember missing my first first-rehearsal ever.  Was getting reading for life as a real world stage manager and trying to figure out where in the freaking world I was going to end up.

Funny, 11 years later, I still am.

[Balletdork]

Happy Birthday SM NETWORK!

January 2000~ I was midway through my first season (of 8!) as SM for the Alabama Ballet; I was promoted to PSM, then Company Manager and eventually Artistic Administrator~ little did I know in 2000.

Now I'm the PSM for the Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton, Ohio- and have been since August 2007; where I worked as a PA, ASM and SM prior to moving to Alabama. It's been a great time; and though we lost our Artistic Director of 25 years, Marsha Hanna, to cancer this month, we're opening 12th Night in 2 weeks.

The more things change, the more they stay the same....

[babens]

I was returning from my last trip to NYC as a pure "tourist" (since then I have only been to the city for interviews, work, and now living here) and getting ready to start rehearsals for my first opera (Street Scene), as well as moving off-campus for the second semester of sophomore year (and never living in a dorm again, thus never again having to share a bathroom with more than two other people).

[hbelden]

For christmas 1999, my partner paid off the last of the undergrad student loans we had hanging over us; for the first time in my life I was debt-free.  I remember that time fondly!

Because she had done that, I was able to quit my day job and throw myself into stage managing full-time.  I haven't held a day job since.  In January 2000 I was stage managing my seventh show, an MFA production of "Who's Afraid of Solarin?".  (This MFA program hired non-union SMs for their shows; at the time, it was the best non-union paycheck in town, but unfortunately their shows only ran for one or two weekends.)

I had finally decided to give up acting and pursue a career in stage management.  Looking back on it eleven years later, I know I could not have made a better decision.

[nick_tochelli]

Happy Birthday SMnetwork! And undying thanks to PSMKay and all the moderators for keeping this going.

In January 2000, I was a senior in high school en route to a 24-2 record and a sectional championship as a starting goaltender for my high school hockey team, a birth in the State Forensics Tournament for Oral Interpretation (reading prose and poetry from a book), deciding which college to attend, and began rehearsals for my final orchestra concert...January was a busy month, man!

[AlanDKnight]

I was in the 4th grade and hadn't really discovered theatre yet, but I enjoyed singing and performing. I've come a long ways from then.

[samharman1989]

I was 10 years old playing one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella. Not alot has changed thankfully. Can't beat a bit of pantomime humor.

[bex]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SMNET!

In January of 2000 I was 12 years old, in the 6th grade in Oklahoma City, and had every intention of becoming a lawyer like my dad...