First Impressions: Mark Charney

Alright, I have to dedicate a post to the Charn. The Charn deserves a novel for all that I'd like to say about him, but I'll only give him a few paragraphs here.

Mark Charney was our administrator at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. He collected our assignments every morning at 8:15am, and lambasted us gently (if such a thing could be done gently) when we submitted them a minute or so after the deadline. He was in charge of getting copies made of our odious, I mean outstanding, reviews.

One day when I was at my personal worst, he served as one of our mentors. Our homework was to use five adjectives in our whole review. Not only did I exceed the number by four or so, but I also managed to be a bit incoherent. Mark did have one nice thing to say. He said, and I concur, that I had done some pretty good critical analysis of the play that we had all seen the night before. It's too bad that the organization of my thoughts was lacking. I have trouble focusing, you see.

I'm working on it.

A few of us had known Mark before, and therefore, had many good-time stories to share about him. He was definitely a lot of fun, and we got more entertainment out of him that I thought we would get from any other member of the faculty. I will always remember the night where a few of us dined together at the Radisson.

I'm still waiting for the ghost story that he promised to tell us when we were all gathered together outside of class. It was too long to tell at the "non-fire" and it was too long to tell at the barbeque, but I'm still waiting.

Perhaps he'll publish it one day. Now that I think of it, his avoidance may have been to save for profit what he could have given us for free.

Mark, you sneaky devil!