The Fantasticks!

Published on by Andy Affleck

FantasticksLg10-239x300.jpgAfter 25 years, I have finally fulfilled a longtime dream of mine: to get back on the stage and do a play again! In a few short weeks I will be appearing in the Swamp Meadow Community Theater’s production of The Fantasticks. This is one of my all time favorite shows. I performed in it in high school as Matt, the male lead. Now I am playing Henry Albertson, an old actor, quite theatrical and vainglorious for his supposed glory days and lost youth. Every time I have seen this show (and I have seen it many times over the years) Henry has always stolen the show so, as you would expect, I am having a ball with the part. You can reserve your tickets at the Swamp Meadow Box Office and show dates are May 21, 22, 28 and 29 @ 7:00 pm and May 23 and 30 @ 2:00pm at the Isaac Paine School in Foster, RI.

I have been regularly photographing rehearsals (any that I am in are courtesy of my son who came to a rehearsal) and just having so much fun. The cast is great and the show promises to be, if you forgive the pun, fantastic.

Familiar and Unfamiliar

Published on by Andy Affleck

I have to admit it’s very weird being back at Pfizer. It’s all so very familiar and yet so much has changed. There are some old friends and colleagues still around (or just returning) but, for the most part, the people I did most of my work with and for are no longer there. I walk around the Groton and New London offices and keep expecting to see people I know and only seeing strangers. I’ve only been gone a year and change and yet it’s all very different.

The work, however, has not changed. Granted, when I was there last I was working more on the portfolio/PMO side and now I am back to being a Project Manager but the processes have not changed significantly. I slipped right into the work like a comfortable shoe and am plugging away on what needs to be done. Yet, when I walk around I feel like a stranger in an incredibly familiar land. Imagine if they took everyone where you worked and replaced them with strangers and then think how weird it would be to walk around the office. That’s what it feels like. I guess when you’ve been somewhere for so long in the past, the feeling of being new is terribly at odds with the familiarity of the place and the work itself. It feels like one of those TV shows that changes more than half the cast between seasons when you thought it was over in the first place and while it’s the same show, it’s completely different and it’s weird watching it.

Such is the life of a contractor.