All around the Cathederal

Hello everyone!

So I know that this is deviating from the normal Sunday night post but that is because this Sunday, I will be partaking in my Half Term break and will be in Paris that day! Very exciting!

So here is my week thus far.

On Monday, we had the usual day. It was exhausting and long. In Movement, we came up with little movement pieces that Sue filmed and in Voice we read our poems again and Simon gave me the same note I've gotten in every class, too much tension in the neck and back. In Stage Combat, we worked with the swords some more and in Period Dance we reviewed "Jenny Pluck Pears", which meant that we got nice little breaks between the long dances. Then we had an hour before we had to run to a show that was up near Camden Town. I could have done without seeing this show but the highlight was that I got to meet Timberlake Wertenbaker, one of Britain's best modern playwrights. It was a totally unexpected but great experience.

Tuesday started with Acting and we did our character object exercises that Kathy had asked us to do. I thought that mine went really well but Kathy told me that I didn't have the oilyness of the character yet, which she realized she had never told me about. Then in the afternoon, we had a master class with two of the actors from Privates on Parade. We were worried that we were going to have to talk about the play but we actually heard all about their careers and it was very interesting.  We then had a boring meeting about traveling and called it a day.  

On Wednesday, we had our physical theatre class and we finally got to do mask work! We worked with neutral masks and got to experience what that is like, which is very strange.You have to keep your face and body extremely simplistic which is actually more difficult then one would imagine. Then I had my Shakespeare class which was one of the most frustrating I have experienced in a long time. Leo wants us to stop using our brains so his way of doing this is to throw five things for us to do at the same time, which is just a lot to deal with. At one point, I began to cry but Leo told me to just let it out so I could keep going. It really did help to just release my emotion. Then after an hour of working with me, he said I could finally stop. Later that day, I had a meeting with Ellen who had just gotten back from her tour of the US. I told here about how I was, frustrations and all, and that was that. While I was waiting in the office, there were a bunch of Americans from Fordham who had come to visit the program. It was strange to hear American accents in a world of Brits. Later that day I had my audition class and we worked on Major Barbara and picked which Lady Anne speech I'm going to be doing. Act 4, Sc 1 here I come!

Thursday morning started with Shakespeare once again and I managed to successfully avoid having to work on my speech again after Wednesday's emotional roller coaster. After that class, I had Alexander Technique in which we worked on me sitting and standing properly. Then I was done for the day. Later that night, we went to see Timberlake Wertenbaker's play Our Country's Good. It finally was a great show again after the last three moderate flops. We then got to stay and talk to some of the actors from the show which was cool because we got to hear about their lives and what they want out of their careers. Then we had to get back early because we had class starting at 8:45 the next morning.

At 8:45 Friday morning, we began our Dramatic Criticism class with a discussion about Timberlake Wertenbaker and her play. I thought that everyone liked the play but it seems people didn't like the fact that it had no resolution and very low stakes. I still enjoyed. No one can take that away from me. The we finished class early due to early start and had a break before we went onto Acting. In this class, we talked about the relationships between the characters in the scene which was hard for me considering I don't have another character in my scene. Then we talked about units and the last two Stanislavsky questions. Then I had to run to go do my Acting homework. It was such a mess of me getting to the Old Bailey that I already had a great story including not having my oyster card, the ticket machine taking forever, the train being impossibly late and all kinds of fun things. I went and found the Old Bailey and walked in and asked about the public viewing gallery. I was told that it closed at 3:30 (it was 3:45 right now) and that the website had been wrong. I was so annoyed that I decided to walk across the Millennium Bridge and wander around Bankside by the Globe. My day ended better but I was still worried about when I could do my homework since it is due the Tuesday we get back and I am gone until next Friday. Right now, I am just chilling in my room before my early start tommorow morning for Paris!

I'll keep you updated on Half Term travels after I get back!

Bye-Bye!