Last week already!

I can hardly believe that it is already my last week here in London. Time really has flown by, especially this week. So far the majority of this week has been dedicated to different workshops and seeing the last of the plays on our list.

On Monday we had our first workshop at the Victoria and Albert Museum and focused on The Duchess of Malfi. We did some exercises and some of them were even new to me which was great because I have some new ones to add to my warm up list to use while teaching. After a while we talked a bit about the play and were asked to make a short 1 to 2 minute skit about the play. My group decided to do a quick Melodramatic version of the play which included gender reversed characters since we were a female heavy group with only one male and the play is the complete opposite. It was a lot of fun doing this even though we only had a 10 minute planning/rehearsal period. After the workshop I explored the V & A some more since it inherited the artifacts from the London theater museum when it closed down not too long ago. It had some really cool things including this temporary display that showed how five directors would have interpreted Ophelia's mad scene in hamlet and how they would have had the actress behave and interpret the section. Later on that night we headed back to the Almeida theater to see some protest theatre put on by the Belarus Free theatre company.  Eurepica Challenge  was a collection of about 12 short plays/monologues that dealt with numerous problems within the world and each one focused on a specific problem within one country.While I applaud what they attempted, I wasn't a big fan of it and found that it just wasn't my cup of tea.

On Tuesday I put my big girl pants on a joined my classmates for a very creepy tour of St. Leonard's Church Crypt where the Burbage family is buried. For those that don't know James Burbage built the first Elizabethan theatre and later built the Globe. His son Richard Burbage was a famous actor during the Elizabethan time. Anyway we met up with Father Paul and he graciously took us around downstairs and showed us around. While down there I saw numerous tombs, bones and coffins and learned quite a bit. I'm sure it would have be a lot more enjoyable if I hadn't been frightened that a dead body was going to pop out from somewhere. We all headed out and some of us with a bit more than expected since we had "dirt" on us or as some of us thought dead people's skin that was floating around (I wasn't too thrilled about this). After finishing our tour we headed down the road to where the first theatre once stood and had a quick lesson there. After class we were allowed to go our own way and do what we wanted until our show that night. A small group of us joined Alison for some lunch before heading off in search of where the Blackfriar's theatre once stood. Unfortunately we were unable to find a plaque that stated anything about it standing anywhere, but we like to believe that we found the area. That night we watch One Man, Two Guvnors which has been so successful at the NT that they are moving it to the West end. After watching the show, I know exactly why it has been so successful. This play has been by far one of my favorite plays since we've been here (definitely top 5 material). After the show we headed to a pub by our dorm called the Goat in boots to celebrate one of the girls birthdays. It was a great time had by all, until closing time at midnight.

Today we headed back to the Globe, where we had our second workshop for the week. When we first got there they gave us another tour of the area, this time I felt our tour guide gave us a lot more information about the theatre, which wasn't given to us before. While on our tour we were able to see an understudy practicing for a role since he was going to take the stage sometime soon (later came to find out it was the show we were attending). Once our tour ended we met up with our instructor for the workshop named Chu, I kinda giggled inside thinking of the movie Ladybugs and Robin hood Men in tights (I know kinda childish, but I couldn't resist). He was great and once again I learned some great exercises to use when teaching. For this workshop we focused on Hamlet, and he definitely gave some new perspective with the text and I rather enjoyed myself. After the workshop ended I was hoping that I would be allowed up on the stage to perform a monologue, but unfortunately since there was a matinee at 2 we were unable to. This Matinee also happened to be the one we were attending so it wouldn't have been the best time to perform it. We watched Doctor Faustus, which I had heard about but never seen. I thought the acting was good and some of the elements were really entertaining but at times I was just so bored with the play, and it didn't help that the seats were extremely uncomfortable. When the play finished we headed down to another area of the Globe where we were going to have a Talk back with some of the cast in the show. I found the talk back to be quite entertaining and a lot of fun. The only negative, besides the lady who wouldn't quit interrupting was that the man who was choosing the people to ask questions, seemed to ignore our side and favor the other areas, since neither Sara or myself were chosen to ask our questions. On the bright side, after the Talk back we ran into the actors and were able to ask them our questions really fast and they gladly answered. Afterwards we were given the evening off to do as we like. I headed back to the dorm to write this and work on my project. We have our last day of workshops and plays tomorrow night and what better way to end it than with War Horse. I'm so excited about this and really hope it doesn't disappoint. We'll just have to see and don't worry I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

XoXo