Our timetable informed us our morning would begin with an improvisation class for the first half of the day. I was petrified. Improv? Sounds like a good opportunity for me to embarrass myself in front of 38 new friends. I like to think of myself as having a good sense of humor, being witty sometimes, and occasionally coming out with a great joke. But put me in front of an audience and it’s like the English language vanishes from my brain. So an improv class sounded a bit scary.

I should have known it would all be fine. I had forgotten, of course, that improv isn’t just being funny and getting laughs. Improv can help you build a character and build an ensemble. Our improv class was AWESOME.

(This is when the blog will get pretty hippy-dippy sounding for all my non-theatre friends. And every entry is going to start sounding like nerd central. I’ll try to keep it brief and just capture the highlights but I apologize in advance.)

In the improv class we did a number of exercises and all were great. It was so refreshing to be in a room of people who were committed to doing the work. During warm ups and the exercises, there wasn’t anyone in the corner rolling their eyes, clearly thinking what we were doing was silly or stupid. Instead, every person jumped at the chance to work and committed fully to whatever the task at hand was. This is a good group of people who should prove fun to work with over the coming months.

After improv, we got some lunch and headed back for another lecture by Rodney. I think this is our last Rodney lecture for a while which is a shame. I love that man. He is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met yet has an incredible sense of humor. Much like Shakespeare himself must have been, Rodney can go from spouting a beautiful piece of wisdom to telling a ridiculously dirty joke or asking an actor to put the f-word in front of any other word beginning with an f in a monologue. We all had a good laugh today over a little language difference between the US and England. In the US, when you hit someone in a car from behind, we call it rear ending. Well, over here, it most definitely does NOT mean to hit the back bumper of someone’s car. Ok, ok, but in all seriousness, he’s wonderful. Over the course of the afternoon we discussed the differences between editions of Shakespeare’s work and worked our way through act one scene four of Henry VI. It took us just about three hours to work through the whole thing, starting and stopping to swap out actors for each role, discuss the meter, discuss vocab words, and much, much more. The pages of the script that I have are covered in notes. What was especially educational was that everything we worked through can be applied to any other scene we need to analyze (though some of the stuff Rodney pointed out I never would have found even if I stared at the scene for a million years). Queen Margaret makes a formidable speech in that scene and I was one of the people who got to work part of it on its feet. It was so much fun and I am officially obsessed with Margaret’s character. My ideas for my thesis are running rampant around my head but, again, a story for another time. Here’s the section I worked but I highly encourage looking up the rest of the scene. It’s really something else.

Brief background: Richard, Duke of York has tried to usurp Henry VI through war, after promising to allow Henry VI to live out his reign and then Richard and his family could take control. Margaret, Henry VI’s wife, and her lover, Clifford, have defeated Richard and his army. Clifford killed Richard’s young son and now Margaret and Richard meet on the battlefield. Margaret makes Richard stand upon what is probably a head of one of his soldiers or possibly even the head of his son. She then ruthlessly mocks him and torments him.

What! was it you that would be England’s king?
Was’t you that revell’d in our parliament,
And made a preachment of your high descent?
Where are your mess of sons to back you now?
The wanton Edward, and the lusty George?
And where’s that valiant crook-back prodigy,
Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?
Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
Look, York: I stain’d this napkin with the blood
That valiant Clifford, with his rapier’s point,
Made issue from the bosom of the boy;
And if thine eyes can water for his death,
I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.

I bet you all didn’t know that reading my blog you’d get a little Shakespeare education as well! And I bet you all appreciate it oh-so-much. (Really I have visions of everyone scrolling past all the monologues. I’m not offended, really I’m not. You’re just missing out haha)

Rodney’s lecture ended right about 5:30 and we had a bit of a break. Then, we met with two members of the Student Council at LAMDA. They gave us some information about LAMDA and London and we could ask them absolutely anything we were wondering about. Both of them were incredibly nice and told us to not be scared to meet the rest of the students at the school. There is a party at LAMDA on Friday to welcome everyone back for the term. It should be nice to meet students from other programs there.

Now I am back in my room and still can’t believe this is my life for the next few months. I apologize for sounding like a broken record… This is just exactly what I was hoping for and more and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here.

Until next time!

Cheers!

All the activity yesterday really wore me out. Claire and I fell asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows. And thanks to the relatively easy schedule of our first week, we could sleep in and have a leisurely morning. We met everyone at LAMDA around 10:20, got some breakfast, and boarded the bus to Hampton Court Palace.

Hampton Court Palace is a structure torn between two worlds. It was originally built for Henry VIII during the Tudor reign. A lot of it is clearly in Tudor style with no expense spared in the building and decorating. When William and Mary came to power, William hated everything English. (Ironic, I know, considering he had been crowned King of ENGLAND.) William III started to demolish anything English and build a more Baroque palace. Fortunately for us, he died before it could quite be completed which is why we still have so much of the structure built during Henry VIII’s reign of opulence. We had over four hours to explore the palace which at first we though was a bit much. Turns out, we really did need that time. The property is absolutely massive, and two of the areas usually on display were even closed today. The gardens are even bigger and, despite the cold, we explored thoroughly. I’m not sure words can quite capture how large and grand this place is. It has been kept in remarkable condition, with Queen Elizabeth II renewing the drive to conserve it in the recent past. It’s truly magnificent and, if I could, I’d move there tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I could live there with about 45 of my closest friends and no one would even know I was there. It’s a palace the scale of which I’ve never seen and still can’t quite comprehend. You have to see it to believe it.

We boarded the bus at quarter till 4 and headed back into the city. I had dinner with my friends Alex, Megan, and Claire. (Look Mom! I have friends!) At 6:45 we headed to The Barbican and took our seats for Richard II. Precisely at the hour printed on our tickets (7:15), the show began. David Tennant starred as Richard II and was really great. I didn’t care for some of the other actors in the production or some of the directing choices. The first half dragged a bit. But by the end of the first act and all through the second act I was enthralled. I was completely unfamiliar with Richard II until tonight. I think I have a new favorite Shakespeare play. Tennant delivered some of the most beautiful poetry brilliantly. Go read some of it, preferably all of it. It’s truly some of Shakespeare’s best poetry (in my humble opinion). This show paired with our lecture yesterday even gave me some ideas for my thesis… Another topic for another time but it’s nice to be getting inspiration already.

Being theatre nerds, we stayed at the stage door to see David Tennant after the show. He was extremely gracious and very nice. I snapped a lot of pictures over people’s heads. Here’s one of the best:

This is a very, very tiny portion of one of my favorite speeches in the play. Richard has just found out that he has all but lost the crown to his cousin, Henry. He laments for a while and finishes his speech with this:

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

So brilliant. So beautiful. Tomorrow promises to be another exciting day. I’d say pinch me but I don’t ever want to wake up from this remarkable fairy tale.

Until next time!

Cheers!

Dinner with Lisa last night was lovely. We went to Giraffe on the South Bank and enjoyed some delicious food. It was lovely to see her and I can’t wait to meet up with all the GW England people soon.

Today LAMDA started. Claire (my shoebox-mate) and I headed out a bit early, stopped at the local Pret a Manger, got a cup of tea (so British, I know. Also, Zayde, you would’ve loved the tea. Very strong and fragrant) and then got on the Tube. In total it probably takes about 20 minutes to travel from our room to LAMDA. Not bad at all and very easy.

Claire and I both agreed that the first day of anything is always so unnecessarily stressful and nerve-wracking. We were glad to have each other as we waited in the LAMDA common room for our day to start. All around us were the year, two year, and three year program students greeting each other after the Christmas holiday and we felt quite alone. Soon enough, though, we were led to one of the studios where all of us semester long students sat in a large horseshoe shape. Rodney (the director of LAMDA) and Debbie (the director of the acting program) addressed us all for about an hour and a half. They passed out our time table and explained the way our training would occur. Rodney is amazing. I have had the great fortune of hearing him speak once before when Alan and the Dean’s Scholars came to London my freshmen year. He explained LAMDA as being “the most physical training in the UK because that gets you out of your head. After all, you don’t intellectualize rhythm. You feel rhythm. And any great playwright writes in rhythm.”

Music to my ears. Any training I’ve ever had that I found useful and enjoyed has shared the sentiment of getting out of your head and de-intellectualizing everything. Intellectual analysis has a time and a place, definitely, but eventually that time and place expire and it is time to stop thinking. The training here seems to cater to exactly that and I could not be more excited and happy.

Furthermore, Rodney explained, “we are here to serve a playwright, not ourselves. Check your egos at the door.”

Cue the hallelujah chorus, if you please.

Classes run from 9am-5:30pm (sometimes later depending on if we have a master class) with an hour lunch break. ACTING. ALL. DAY. LONG. I can’t think of anything better.

After our lunch break today, we had a lecture by Rodney about the English Kings and Queens. It was particularly focused on the ones Shakespeare wrote his history plays about. Rodney is an engaging and fascinating lecturer. Everyone in the room hung on every word. The story he wove was full of humor and intrigue. History teachers should take a lesson from him in how to lecture effectively. All throughout he gave the guys and the girls good advice on finding good audition monologues that differ from the ones they see at LAMDA auditions over and over and over again.

In entirely un-American fashion, after Rodney’s lecture, all us new students were welcomed by drinks and sandwiches with Rodney and Debbie as well as some current LAMDA students. It was great to mingle with everyone and have the chance to really talk to people. There are a few characters but everyone seems very nice. It is incredibly refreshing to be surrounded by people who love theatre, who live for theatre. Standing in the common room during a short break, I looked around and there were people everywhere practicing and memorizing lines while carrying on conversations with friends who were doing the same thing. Being surrounded by people who share the exact same passion as you is invigorating and I can’t wait to start really working and learning.

The rest of the week we spend sight seeing and getting to know our group of semester abroad students. Next week begins the real focused work and classes. Classes include acting, clown, singing, Alexander technique, voice, text, historical dance, physical theatre, and combat. That doesn’t include all the rehearsals we will have preparing Shakespearean history scenes, Restoration comedy scenes, and Shakespearean tragedy scenes. Tomorrow we will go to Hampton Court and then see Richard II starring David Tennant. Later this week we will go to the Tower of London and next week we will see Henry V starring Jude Law. Later this semester we will take a two day trip to Stratford and see three shows at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I’m in theatre heaven and I couldn’t be happier.

Until next time!

Cheers 🙂

English children ride scooters predominantly, like Razor scooters that were popular when I was in elementary (pardon me, primary) school. Just something I noticed today as I walked around.

I slept in because I have a feeling I’m going to be a bit nervous and excited tonight before my first day so I wanted to get a lot of sleep. Once I woke up my first task was finding a place to buy a top-up voucher for my SIM card. So I wandered around, going in lots of places, until I finally found a store that sold it. I basically made a big loop of the neighborhood which was annoying at first but I’m really glad I did it because I now know my way around quite well. I walked through a lot of very residential areas which was nice. The houses are ridiculously lovely. At one point I was the only person on a street full of pristine houses and I passed the local church. The organ started playing as I walked by. It couldn’t have been planned better… After I bought my phone voucher, I paused to get some coffee and a sandwich, then came home. Now my phone is all set up and it is glorious. Oh unlimited data! How I have missed you old friend!

Then I set off for Kensington Palace. The palace is quite beautiful but a MASSIVE tourist trap. The whole thing is laid out with text on the wall and contrived “mysteries” of the castle. There’s even a room where if you sit on the window seats you can hear “the walls whisper” court gossip. A little corny but I still enjoyed. What I like about places like that is thinking of all the people who have walked the halls before me. Queen Mary II, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II, Will and Kate, and many others. Buildings like that just hold so much history and, if the walls really could whisper, think of what they would say!

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to meet Kate while I was there and no one came up and offered to make me a princess but… you win some, you lose some.

It was getting chilly but I wandered around the gardens a bit before asking an American tourist to snap this picture:

Dear American tourists, Please improve your photo taking abilities. But thank you all the same for understanding why I want one.

After Kensington Gardens I came home and shortly after my roommate arrived! She’s quite nice and I think we will share the shoebox nicely.

Now I’m just relaxing until it’s time to go to dinner with Lisa!

Tomorrow school starts and I’m extremely excited. I’ll finally get to meet everyone else in the program and get started with everything. I. Can’t. Wait.

Until tomorrow!

Cheers!

I had planned to wake up a bit early this morning to get an early start on the day. After soundly sleeping through the night, however, I did not want to get out of bed. I finally forced myself out of bed and out the door just before 9am. I live about 3 steps from any and all of the greatest shops ever as well as all the bus stops I could ever need. Like I said, I am in an amazingly perfect location. So I grabbed some coffee and hopped on the bus headed for St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The bus system here is amazing. I actually think I prefer it to the Tube (this is in my vast experience with London transportation in the past day and a half). I make that claim for a couple reasons: 1. It’s cheaper. 2. You actually get to see the city while you’re riding it. On the trip from my flat to St. Paul’s I saw Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, The Houses of Parliament, and Trafalgar Square, to name a few.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is spectacular. With your entrance fee, you are invited to go on the guided tour for free. Always eager to learn more about art and history I decided to go for it. Well, Ms. Jean Pattson did not disappoint! She led us on a very thorough tour  (1 hour and 45 minutes long) that was not only interesting but allowed us to go places normal people aren’t allowed to wander through. And if you know me at all you know how much I like seeing things that are otherwise roped off. One of the things we got to see was the Dean’s Staircase. This was designed for only the Dean of the cathedral to ever see and use. It was also the staircase used in the Harry Potter film when they’re walking to the Divination classroom. So my take away lesson from her talk about that room was: I got to stand on a Harry Potter set!! We sat in the choir, in the Chapel of St. Michael and St. George (which is otherwise reserved for those appointed to the Order of St. Michael and St. George. The Queen has a chair there and Jean says it is “horribly uncomfortable”), under the dome, and explored the crypt all while Jean explained everything there is to know about St. Paul’s. My favorite story she told was of the St. Paul’s Watch, a group of men who essentially lived on the roof of the cathedral during the German bombings of London in World War II. They kept the roof (and the whole building really) from catching fire and being destroyed. Jean told of a bitterly cold night on December 29th, 1940. When the men went to roll up the firehose, they couldn’t. The water was frozen inside it. Last year, on December 29th, an old man came up to Jean after her tour and said he was on the roof that night. I got chills just thinking about that…

After the tour I climbed 528 steps to The Golden Gallery, pausing at the Whispering Gallery and Stone Gallery on the the way. The Whispering Gallery is up around the inside of the dome. It’s so called because if you stand on one side and whisper towards the wall you can be heard on the other side. The Stone Gallery is outside the building about half way up the side. The Golden Gallery is all the way at the top of the dome. The views were breathtaking. On this rare, clear, blue skies day in London I could see the entire city. It was beautiful. A kind American tourist who understood the importance of picture taking offered to take my picture, which was nice and made me forgive her when she didn’t know what the Globe was when I asked if she could fit it in the frame. I think at first she thought I was asking her if she could fit the whole world in the picture. Silly Americans…

Speaking of Americans! Did you know there is a memorial to the American soldiers who lost their lives fighting in England during World War II inside St. Paul’s? Well now you do! It’s behind the altar and includes a lot of symbolism such as the Burning Bush and the 1st commandment in Hebrew as a tribute to the Jewish soldiers who fought and the horrific events of the Holocaust. There are also some important dates such as the founding of Jamestown and the year America became a country. I think the latter is such a funny slap in the face to the Brits. “Please build us a memorial in your most sacred building in town and oh, by the way, we would like it to have the date that we officially kicked your butts in the American Revolution. K thanks!” All jokes aside, though, it really is a nice tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives. We also saw the Order of the British Empire chapel. That one is in the crypt and was being closed later today because members of the Order can have weddings and baptisms there. I creepily took this picture of the extremely British family who was arriving for their newest member’s baptism as I left the cathedral. You can’t quite see them in this picture but the hats were fantastic (say “fantastic” in a British accent in your head, please, it sounds more like how I meant it when you do).

 After spending much longer in St. Paul’s than I expected, I decided to just walk around the area. So I crossed the Millennium Bridge and walked to The Globe. There’s a new theatre there which is roofed so it can be used in the winter. When we were there freshmen year, we each donated a pound or two towards the effort (shout out to my Dean’s Scholars). You’re welcome London. I hope everyone is enjoying their new theatre. The inaugural season just began and I’m hoping to see a show there soon.  I continued walking and soon saw signs for the Rose Theatre. I stopped in and watched a brief film about the recent discovery of the foundations of the Rose in the late 1980s. Due to plans already in place to build something on the site and some issues with preservation, the remains are just barely visible. This is a longer story but this post is getting to be really long. It is pretty interesting though so if you’re curious, you can read about it here: http://www.rosetheatre.org.uk/the-history/.

Leaving the Rose, I found a Pret a Manger, grabbed a sandwich, and wandered around. I came upon the Borough Market, a massive food market with stalls selling meats and cheese and any kind of dessert that exists. I’ll have to come back for lunch some day because everything looked delicious. I sat with all the happy Borough Market customers eating their food while I nibbled on my sandwich in the Southwark Cathedral courtyard. At this point my feet were a bit tired, I was a little chilly, and it was getting to be later in the afternoon so I decided to head back towards my flat.

I got to relax for a bit and then went to meet Amy and John for dinner. We were supposed to meet at a place on the South Bank at 6:30. Amy told me the directions on the Tube but with due to my love affair with the buses, I Google mapsed (it’s a verb now, right?) how to get there and it said the bus was just as fast. I queued up for the bus (like the new vocab?) and hopped on. Well… about 5 stops before where I needed to be, the bus decided it was done and the service was terminated. So I waited for the next bus and was 15 minutes late. (Sorry John and Amy!!) Once I got there, we had a wonderful time. The restaurant was Wahaca and had some delicious Mexican food. Not going to lie, I did not expect good Mexican food in England but I was proved wrong. I’ll definitely be going back. (I use a lot of parentheticals don’t I?)

Anyway… now I’m back in my room. My roommate still hasn’t appeared so I’m all alone. Oh! For those of you wondering just how small the shoebox is, here are some photos:

In this picture, my bed is to the right. The desks are to the left. Through the door with the towel is the bathroom. The big white unit to the left is where our microwave and mini fridge are.

This is my bed. I’m standing just next to the ladder to my roommate’s bed which is slightly bunked above my bed but mostly above our closets and chest of drawers.

  Here is Cici, enjoying his new bed.

Sorry… this post got a little long. I start school on Monday (I can’t wait!) so there will be less sightseeing to report on. Until tomorrow!!

Cheers!

2 plane rides and a tube trip later and I’m safely in London!!

I have to dedicate this post to my family and my friends. Without you guys I don’t know if I would’ve made it onto that plane today. I’m obviously very, very excited but it was quite a daunting thought. But you guys cheered me right onto that London-bound flight. (Special shout outs to Mom, Dad, Emily, Ro, Bekah, Josh, and Amy for being my cheerleaders up to the last possible second I could have my phone on.)

We made it through the airport in Salt Lake City without any tears which was good because if one person had started crying we all would have. And it’s a good thing airports are such public, invading spaces because otherwise the waterworks would have put on a spectacular display. Particularly getting on the plane in New York I have never felt so many emotions in my entire life. And then half way through the flight when all I wanted was to sleep but the flight attendants wouldn’t turn off the cabin lights and there were crying babies and I was nervous and excited and anxious and scared I cried a couple tears but then I fell asleep with my eyes still a little damp which got my mascara wet which meant that when I woke up my right eye was stuck shut for just a second. So what have we learned? No crying with mascara on if you intend to fall asleep right after. Important life lessons are already being learned!!

After customs and baggage claim, I got on the tube and came to my flat. My flat is the size of a shoebox… When I say that, I’m not exaggerating. My roommate hasn’t arrived yet but I am interested to see what happens when we try and fit two people in this room. I shouldn’t complain though because it’s clean and in an absolutely amazing area. I unpacked, ran some errands, drank some tea (in a desperate attempt to stay awake), and then met up with Amy! We went to a pub and caught up. I don’t know if I was particularly good company because I was kind of a sleepwalking zombie by then. But we had a good time and then she walked me around the neighborhood. It’s lovely to have your own personal tour guide 🙂

Now I’m back in my room, applauding my will power at staying awake this long. Tomorrow I think I’ll do some sight seeing and see where the day takes me.

Cheers!!

When my sister and I were kids, my grandmother had a foolproof device for getting us to mind our manners. Elbows on the table? Chewing with our mouths open? Slouching in our chairs? “Meghan, Emily, you will never have tea with the Queen if you have your elbows on the table, chew with your mouths open, slouch in your chairs.” To a  little girl obsessed with Disney princesses, that certainly worked.  And so, this blog title is dedicated to that threat. The words that planted in my head the idea that someday I would be having tea with the Queen of England.

Obviously when I take off for London tomorrow it is not to keep a date with the Queen. But I will be headed for her home town and certainly plan on drinking lots of tea while I’m there. I’ll be studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts for just over three and a half months. Monday through Friday, all day, I’ll be taking acting classes, movement classes, voice classes, and everything in between. I’ll be studying Shakespeare and Marlowe, Restoration playwrights, and theatre history.

All that’s left to do is somehow manage to fit all my belongings into ONE suitcase (thank you Delta for charging $100 for a second bag…) and make it to the airport on time tomorrow morning. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m exhilarated, I’m anxious. This promises to be a semester for the books and I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity.

So, here goes nothing! 3 1/2 months. 108 days. 155,520 minutes. I plan on making every second count.

Cheers!