"We give our testimony to the end of summer..."

September is here, and your time is up summer! I wanted to quickly throw down something about my doings over the end of August, as quite a bit happened, and I was too, too busy to actually write anything. Also, I know I joke about it constantly, but in all seriousness I don't know when I'll be able to blog anything again, coherently anyway, what with entering dissertation crunch time and all (count down=T-minus 20 days...), so again I must beg your indulgence for what will probably be a long absence. Many apologies in advance.

August 22-23:
Traveled to Hove to participate in a research workshop led by Nia Lynn, and MA at Central on the Voice Studies course. The research was for her dissertation, and basically consisted of examining the application of the ujai breath in text work. It was lovely to get out of London almost immediately after returning to it from Edinburgh, and the second and final day of the workshop Nia, myself, and fellow MA-er and workshop participant Alex walked over to the beach after a lovely home cooked meal (provided by our host, Ms. Lynn) and went swimming. I haven't gone swimming in the longest time, and it's been several years since I was last in the sea. The water was lovely, the perfect temperature, and totally worth braving the painfully pebbly beach side to get to the water.

August 24th:
Back to Central to rehearse the piece I'm working on for the Festival of Emergent Arts. We had one of Lou's (our director) course tutors come watch our work to offer some feedback. It was the second time we had a guest in rehearsal, and the first time it was with a tutor. My work involves a lot of props, and I didn't feel wholly confident about how I had used everything, and the recording of my text I'd made wouldn't play. Basically, it didn't come off the way I'd like, and that frustrated me a lot. We have about a month left to really cement this, and it still feels like it has a long way to go. It will get there, hopefully right when it needs to, but I'm feeling uninspired about it. My ensemble members are great for this, though, and keep suggesting changes and providing feedback. It's helping to keep my head in the game, at the very least.

August 25th:
Fitting and rehearsal at the Royal Opera House for the short film that will play as part of dreamthinkspeak's site specific piece, Absent. The piece will be performed in the ROH on the 5th and 6th of September, as part of the Deloitte Ignite '09 Festival. It's set in the 1950s, and everyone was attired as such. This is me, in my dress--it was a lovely green, but they shot the film in sepia, so I've coloured it to give a sense of what I should look like on film. It was a four hour day, and it was super easy and chill, and everyone was really nice and fun to work with. It is always such a nice surprise when you get on well with the strangers you are sometimes thrown together with on acting jobs, and this was such an experience.

I also made a visit to Primark this day--my first since I got to this country. Primark is essentially an Incredibly Cheap clothing store that sells a lot of items that look stylish, but will probably fall apart after four wearings. But at their prices, four wearings is completely worth it. However, due to all of the incredible bargains (the women in my family would go CRAZY in there), walking through the store is very much like one of the following: 1) What it must have been like to push through a mob to receive rations during war time; 2) What it must be like during a time of mass looting. Not a terribly ideal shopping environment for me who hates both crowds *and* lines (I waited 15 minutes for a changing room--I know, it's a tragedy), but worth it to obtain a costume for the zombie film (sweater, t-shirt, pair of jeans) for LESS THAN FOURTEEN POUNDS (that's less than $22 American). Oh heck yes. I survived, and the McKenna blood in me, reared on outlet shopping and coupon flyers, danced through my veins this day.

(That being said, the jeans were an awful cut and the fly would not stay closed during the shoot. But they were only 5.87GBP!!!)

August 26th:
Did some filming today for a ballet that will premiere in Houston this fall, that is currently rehearsing in Paris. It's a re-imagining of The Firebird, and the designer wanted to include projections of women passing apples and taking bites out of them. The projections were being shot as Chinese shadows, so the designer was looking for women who looked like women: "i.e. breasts" was what the e-mail notice said, actually. So, there I was, in my bra and underwear and high heels with two other girls, standing behind a sheet, moving in place, passing apples and biting into them for about an hour. The projections themselves are only going to last around fifteen seconds. After this work, I was very set on finding a Pilates class.


Later in the day I picked up the zombie contacts from Baby's First Steps director Stephen, and when I got home called Max for help getting them in. The call had nothing to do with Max's intense knowledge of zombies, and everything to do with the fact he wears contacts and I do not. After a seemingly endless struggle, I finally got one in. And then I wanted to die. You have to understand, I've never worn contacts before, so the initial and instinctual rejection of having a foreign object in my eye filled me quite to the brim. Also, the contacts have white irises (hence the fright factor), and so not only was something on my eye, but something was on my eye that was obscuring my vision some how. It was strangely scary process (even more scary when I looked at myself with both of them in my eyes), but I don't think I would have been a terribly convincing zombie without them. Once I calmed myself down, they were fine, and I wore them for a couple hours and watched TV. Very easy. I'd do it again.

August 27th:
Shooting the party sequence for Absent. This day really showcased the importance of working with people you get on with, and again what a treat that is. I was stationed at a table with two guys, Charlie and Conor, and they were great the whole day. Because of the nature of the piece (and because it's film) the director had us doing basically the same few actions over and over again for about six hours. If I had ended up with people who were less relaxed, less fun, and less engaging in our constant random conversation (the film's only soundtrack is a big band swing song, so we talked about anything and everything else during the shoot), this day would have been really draining and long and awfully boring. Instead, I had a great time (up until the end when I was so full on the Ribena that had been standing in for the wine on our tables that I wanted to crash from the sugar while peeing), laughed a lot, and got to wear a pretty, pretty dress while doing it. If only my real life were more like these days--except there would be real wine, damn it!

August 29th:
Filmed the exterior crowd scene for Absent. Several of us turned up on both filming dates to essentially play different people and provide more filler for the beginning of the film. This is me in my second costume--I have on another, different green dress, but again I have sepia-ed myself. Despite several delays that broke up filming (people walking into shot, traffic, some police coming by to see if we were filming legally), we managed to wrap early, and I had no trouble making my second scheduled event of the day, which was seeing my friend Laurel (that's her there, looking all pretty) in an independent horror film she's a lead in that screened at the Film 4 FrightFest. The movie had some problems (I think they're going back into post to make some adjustments after the London screenings), but she was great and it was lovely to see someone I cared about do so well at something we both care about a great deal. And it made me miss her.

August 30th:
Back to Primark for more zombie clothing. Stephen texted me Saturday and said our make up artist Faye had requested more than one top as there would be bloodying and we may need a spare. It turned out we did, so despite escaping within barely an inch of my life (never go to Primark on a weekend), it was totally worth it. And again, it was incredibly cheap.

That night, Caitlin and my friend Jake came over and I cooked them dinner. Jake is a temporary transplant from the states, in the UK on what I gather is essentially a business exchange with his company, where a UK worker goes to NYC to get trained at his job, and Jake comes here and does his job until the Brit is tip top and ready to come back. It was nice seeing a familiar and friendly face, and I hope to see a bit of him while he's about the next couple of months.

August 31st:
Shooting Baby's First Steps. We were shooting in Stephen's flat, and my call was at 7AM. It was hard getting up early--especially after having awful nightmares about a zombie apocalypse the whole night--but I got there right on time and again lucked out that all of the people I worked with that day were fun, relaxed, and focused. Life is so much easier when people are awesome. I only hope I was the best zombie I could be for them! I'm excited to see the final cut of the film (though a little scared to see me as a zombie) and hopefully all will go well with it.

And that, my friends, is how everyone should end their summer.

E-burgh, baby. E-burgh.

"I know, I've been neglecting you. I'm sorry. I don't mean to do it. Things just get out of hand sometimes, you know? I know I've said before that I would change, and that I haven't. Well, that's to be expected: people don't change. I won't ask for your forgiveness, because I don't want it. All I really want is your understanding. And your acceptance. This is just me, baby. Take me for the good and the bad. But when I'm not around, you gotta believe that I'm thinking about you. For reals."

If my blog and I were in a relationship, I'd do that little song and dance just above, and would hope it would hold us together till we got back from that mutual friend's destination wedding. After that though, all bets are off.

I know I haven't been around. The week in Scotland was a nice change of pace, caught some good theatre, caught some bad theatre, caught some things that I wouldn't necessarily label "theatre" ever, Ever, EVER. Here's a drive-by of what I did/saw on the trip:

Thursday, 13 August: Fly from Luton Airport (the silliest airport to ever have its own TV show), and land in Edinburgh with Amy, Max, and their friend from the states, Ashley (who was my awesome roomie during this trip). We took a bus into the city proper, then walked to our digs and headed out, looking for dinner. We ended up at probably the worst Indian restaurant I've ever been to, where the food was LONG in coming and then had no taste when it finally arrived. The only redeeming part of the evening was the terribly pornographic mural we ended up sitting under. Here it is:

(Those are Max and Amy's heads, cut off down there. They were feigning a pose so I could take this picture in a less obvious way.)

Friday, 14 August:
Walked up Royal Mile to the Hub, where the Edinburgh International Festival Centre is located to meet our friend Mauro, who was able to wrangle us some tickets for a couple shows. That evening we caught part of the Gate's Friel trilogy, his play Faith Healer. I love Brien Friel (Translations may in fact be my most favourite play), and was sad to have missed Faith Healer during its run on Broadway a couple seasons back, starring Ralph Fiennes as Frank Hardy, a traveling faith healer--part con man, part miracle worker. The acting in this current production was great, and of course the Friel dialogue was both real and poetic. The set design was a little disorienting, though. The play is delivered in four monologues, the first and the last from Frank, the second from his wife Grace, the third from his manager Teddy. As the play progresses, you realize two of the three speakers are dead. Each of the characters sits in a space that resembles a meeting hall (presumably where Frank would have performed a show), but is then given certain props and set pieces that places them in another, specific place. It was off putting to see such specific and detailed set dressing in an environment that appeared to otherwise act as a non-space, perhaps even a kind of limbo. It wasn't terrible--just curious, and little distracting somehow. Still, a nice opportunity to catch a traditional piece of theatre, something I haven't taken in too much of since I got here and began exploring the avant garde, the inventive, and the devised.

The Hub--home of the International Festival

After the show, we met Mauro for a drink at the bar of the Traverse Theatre, marking mine and Max's first foray into the world of good, Scottish whisky. Then Mauro took me off to the Assembly's Supper Club, a late night cabaret, where we took in a couple of acts. It was late by the time we got out, and I was hit with my traditional "late-night-drunken-hankering-for-fried-food." I told Mauro this, and he said, "Let's go to the Techno Chippy."

I present to you: "The Techno Chippy."

Above is the establishment we visited. Mauro's nickname for the chippy was due to the fact that there was a man DJing our eating a experience, on two turn tables, with hot techno music. You can see the sound system in the windows on the left. A very strange and wonderful place, Cafe Piccante has several locations (New Yorkers: go find yours) and offers a number of fried delights. Scotland is famous for its chippys, where you can take any number of food items in and request that they be submerged to crisp, greasy perfection. The most famous of these novelty normal-to-fried foods is of course the deep friend Mars Bar. Oh but yes. After devouring some pizza (not fried, alas!), I delved into my Mars Bar (which Max would later liken to, perhaps not completely inaccurately, a deep fried turd).

Oh, the disgusting goodness.

It really wasn't bad, I promise. It was a very satisfying way to end the first night of our adventure.

Saturday, 15 August:
Today we caught our first Fringe show, The Tale of Lady Stardust, another straight play, apparently written by a fellow Centralite on the MA writing course. It was a fun little show about a couple guys who thought David Bowie was a prophet. A nice afternoon. That evening we caught our second International production, Diaspora, a really lovely show that combined live music, projection, movement, short film, and acting in a discussion about personal identity and national heritage.

The ceiling of the Playhouse Theatre, where Diaspora was presented.

After the show, the group of us went back home to watch my very first zombie movie ever. I had bought a few at a nearby HMV to do research. That evening we watched the original Night of the Living Dead. The trailer reads kind of hilariously kitsch nowadays, and we laughed at the movie more than gasped I think it's fair to say. Still, I got into bed as quickly as possible that night, and made peace with the idea that if I was bitten, I hoped Max would have the decency to kill me quickly. I should mention that Max is pretty much a zombie expert. He helped me select all of the zombie films in my research arsenal, and discussed with me different kinds of zombies and their movement. He also taught me how to create an effective zombie escape plan--apparently he creates one of these for every home he lives in. Yes, my friends are pretty much brilliant (albeit occasionally strange).

Sunday, 16 August:
Got up early to go for a jog through the city, and attempt to get tickets to Barfly, a site-specific theatre piece that used a bunch of Bukowski short stories as its source material. A pretty perfect theatrical event for me (and yes: it was performed in a bar), but alas it was sold out. So I ended up wandering around the city before heading back to the flat, and stumbled upon Greyfriars cemetery. My mother and I used to go for drives, pull over at cemeteries and walk through them, reading the gravestones and making up stories about how the people died if a cause wasn't cited on the stone. It's something I still do today. Gravestones are such interesting things: the fact that a whole human life is meant to be represented by a piece of rock, that that is what's left for us to remember them by. But those things don't last, of course--many of the older cemeteries contain gravestones that have been totally eroded. It is such an effort spent in vain, like so many human acts. Very fascinating. I could go on about this forever, but I won't.

I've truly come home.

Anyway, spent some time there before walking back in the rain (it rained everyday we were there), and headed out later to the Scottish Whisky Experience with Max and Ashley. It was basically a tour (with a ride!) that taught you about the distillation process, the flavour difference between the four main regional sources for whisky (there was a tasting), and the Guiness World Record's Largest Whisky Collection. Seriously: there was a crap ton of whisky in this place.

Sampling some delights...

Ashley and Max offer a toast.

We left the SWE and met Amy at the Baked Potato Shop, where you can get a baked potato slathered in nearly any topping of your choice. It was a nice follow up to the afternoon spent drinking various whiskies. Then the three of us trekked up to the top of Arthur's Seat, and got a beautiful view over the whole of the city. It was wicked windy, but the rain held off while we were there, so it turned out to be a great hike.

("Such great heights...")

We climbed down the peak, grabbed dinner, and caught the Little Angel's Puppet Grinder Cabaret, which had been directed and featured an act by my puppetry course teacher.

Monday, 17 August:
Today we encountered the perils of festival going, when you have several shows grouped under one venue name, while that solitary name has in reality several locations. We ended up at the wrong spot and had to dash several blocks to make it just in time for Earnest and the Pale Moon. I really enjoyed this show. There were a lot of live action sound effects, the acting was really good, and it was just a fun time. There were a couple questions I had about a couple plot points, but generally it was just nice to see such effective story telling done so simply. It was a fine example that you can still succeed in making a piece of theatre with energetic actors and very little props, costumes, and sets. I would have found them a new lighting designer though. But I left the theatre feeling better than I had before I got there, and sometimes when a piece of theatre helps you enjoy an afternoon, it's gift enough.

That evening we caught Suckerville, a transplant from my own MA's Turbulence Festival back in June. It was interesting to see this piece simply because of how much it had changed. The play presented in Scotland was unrecognizable as the piece I had seen a couple months earlier, which just goes to show: you never really know at what point in a piece's development you're catching something. It's weird to think about that. Rowan Atkinson's great sketch, "A Small Rewrite" comes to mind.

Finally, to finish off the evening, I caught the fabulous Camille O'Sullivan. I must start by saying, I have the hugest lesbian crush on this woman, I would absolutely go gay for her, no question. She's an amazingly talented singer, has phenomenal presence, and a pretty killer wardrobe. I first heard her sing the first time I caught Absinthe at the Spiegeltent in New York. I had no idea who she was, but she sang a version of Jaques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" that ripped my soul apart and has stayed with me for the past few years. A friend of mine recommended her show to me and I realized that she was the same singer I had heard oh so long ago, and I was determined to catch her. She had such an inviting and personable stage persona (this was probably aided by the fact that I also believe she was very drunk during her performance), and gave every song its due. In short (like her skirt), she was pretty much perfect. Thanks to the concert I now also have a recording of her "Ne Me Quitte Pas"--she didn't perform it, but I bought a CD afterwards. If they ever make a movie of her life, I would like to play her. That is all.

Tuesday, 18 August:
Because of the very random nature of the Fringe Festival, with shows coming from all over the world and at all different levels of skill and composition (and again, to use Suckerville as an example, at different stages of development), your experience doesn't seem truly complete until you see an awful, soul wrenching, maddeningly bad piece of theatre. Our last Fringe show filled this slot nicely, and how. It was called The Grind Show, and I won't even get into it. The good thing about seeing significantly bad theatre (truly) is that you remember what good theatre is, and what makes it good. It is absolutely a learning situation. The bond amongst the people you see it with also strengthens, too, by having jointly experienced such a huge amount of trauma. Still, that solace won't get me back the hour of my life stolen from me--that I paid to have stolen from me. My new rule for theatre festival going: No more student productions.*

*(And touching on that, briefly--I won't go see a revival at a festival either {And most revivals/Shakespeare plays done at festivals ARE student productions, FYI}. What is the point in seeing a revival of something in a FESTIVAL, that is usually meant to be about new, original work? It just seems silly.)

Spent the afternoon and evening with Mauro (who also accompanied us to The Grind Show--our bond is stronger than ever!), hopping from various Mexican restaurants (yes, they have those here), and then went home and watched another zombie movie. For the record, I watched all four zombie films over the course of that week, and they were as follows: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, and 28 Days Later. I can now say I really like zombie movies, and am sad that I've missed them for this long. However, I still don't think I'm brave enough to watch something like Dead Snow, a movie about Nazi zombies--at least not brave enough to watch it by myself. Any volunteers?

Wednesday, 19 August:
Our last day in Edinburgh, we took it pretty easy. I did a little more zombie research (this was less research, and more me watching every DVD extra on Shaun of the Dead), Amy, Max and I grabbed dinner, caught our flight, and landed that evening back in Lon-don-towne, ready to ease our way back into our normal, sadly less theatre filled lives.

That was a rather large nutshell, and you should be commended for getting through this entry. I'd commend myself for writing it, but considering how long it took me to post it, I won't. Happy?

The Long (Theatre) Weekend

It's Memorial Day weekend in the States, and it's another Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. So again, I have Monday off from school--whoo hoo! I should spend the day focusing on plot/script/character development for One Thing May Lead to Another (which goes up in less than a month's time), but let's be honest and up-front: I probably won't. The most I may be able to get myself to do is read a couple chapters in my Charlie Chaplin book and call it "research." (Incidentally, that was how I justified dedicating a week's worth of free time to watch all four seasons of Jeeves and Wooster. Thank goodness British television only ever lasts 6 episodes a season, otherwise I'd be way behind.) It feels almost indulgent to be neglecting work on a day that is so open for getting some done, but what it comes down to is:

I'm frakkin' tired.

Friday was twelve-and-a-half hours of theatre making (in at 9:00, released at 21:40), that basically ended with a near twelve minute devised telling of the Oedipus story. Yes, that's right: we averaged about one minute of performance per hour in rehearsal (a number that actually doesn't seem too far fetched if you really think about it). What we ended up with was still a bit raw, and clearly in a workshopy place in aesthetic and execution, but was actually a complete performance with some interesting moments of theatricality in it. Considering the length of time we had to develop the work, I'm quite proud of what we generated. The director, psychologist, and other actors were all great to work with, as was the project's facilitator Nessah. My friends Caitlin, Heidi, Loukia and Max were in the audience on Saturday, and I was touched that they came out to support me. And Simon McBurney was there, which was pretty bemusing to me.

I got a couple hours break after the performance ended Saturday afternoon, and then headed off to rehearsal at Central. I was only going in for an hour, to really catch up with what my ensemble members had done while I was gone--they had rehearsed Friday without me, as well as earlier in the day on Saturday. I arrived, they showed me some footage of scenes they'd improvised in character, we talked a little about my character and how she needs to fit in/serve the structure of the plot (which is a place of debate and confusion for me as of late) in order to justify her existence. I'm more than a little stressed about this, but more about that some other time. Anyway, finished rehearsal, went home for a couple hours, then hit up the Camden Odeon for Angels and Demons. My recommendation: It's a pass. Majorly. Unless you're homesick for Rome. And if you're wondering: no, there was sadly no melted butter to save the experience this time, though Max and I were masters the MST3K-style commentary. (God I miss that show...)

Today, after a lame jog with Max (my fault) and banging my left knee a couple times--rather magnificently in each instance I must add--I went down to the BAC to rehearse for an "event" I'll be participating in this Thursday and Friday as part of the BURST Festival. "Event" is in quotations because the artist who conceived it described it as such today, rather than calling it a "performance." It's called Handbag Scratch. I should explain something--in the UK, a scratch is basically an evening hosted for the sake of a group of artists (most often writers) who are creating new material and want to see what works and what doesn't. The BAC is big on helping artists develop new work, and the institution hosts several "scratch night" evenings to accommodate this. (For all my NY theatre peeps out there, this would be a non-competitive version of SLAM!) So the "event" is still in development, but is pretty cute as it stands. I won't divulge the details until it's done, but I will say that the women over sixty who are participating in it make the whole thing for me. It was a quick and easy rehearsal, and we (Loukia is also performing in the "event") were out of there in just under two hours. Amazing. Then tonight I headed back to Camden for the Accidental Festival closing night party with Heidi, and now am curling up for bed.

I'm sure there's a moral to this weekend, and I probably know what it is, but I'm too out of it to write it to you now. Good night, friends.

Theatre Design Expo

My friends Max and Caitlin, both scenographers on the MA-ATP, were showing off their work at Central's Design Expo yesterday. It was a really nice event to attend, as it highlighted an aspect of theatre that doesn't get nearly as much note as it should. Let's face it: if you didn't direct something, act in something, or write something, most people outside of the world of performing art don't have a clue all the things that are taken into account when doing all of those other jobs that make a piece of theatre happen (although, it could be argued--and fairly--that those people also don't really know what it is to direct, act, or write either...). As an actor, I'm just as guilty of having little knowledge of how a designer does their job and what they try to explore while doing it, and it was a real treat to see so many examples of the process and product designers at Central had created all in one place, to allow for closer examination of those aspects the majority of the theatre-going world often takes for granted, not excluding myself.

Both Caitlin and Max showed parts of their Narcissus and Echo project, and Caitlin, who had worked on Stage Two Practice in the same ensemble I was in, showed off a lot of pictures of myself and Ronan and the infamous Perspex. It looked pretty shrine-like to me, and I took a picture to feed my ego.


Seriously, though: a couple candles and it would be complete. I wonder if a designer's narcissism is anywhere near an actor's...

No, that's impossible. Now there's something designers will never understand about acting.

"Vacation, all I ever wanted..."

The first week of break turned out to be not very break-like, but more of a preparation for the rest of my time off from school—time off that seems like it will be pretty full, dominated by work that is going to lay the foundation for a lot that I need to accomplish in the upcoming third term.

The first few days were pretty loose and relaxed. I slept A LOT, napping more than once a day on occasion. I read the Guardian most mornings, and plodded through the web-based copy of the New Yorker I receive (thank you, online subscription). I spent a lot of time in coffee shops, trying to convince myself to go do something, then failing and not caring. One of the more productive things that hasn’t got anything to do with schoolwork: my friend Max and I have taken up jogging together on Sundays (we were at it again today). Max is a pretty big runner, and I can usually get myself out two, three times a week, but we’d both fallen out of the habit during our respective Stage Two Practices that essentially took over our hearts, bodies, and souls February onward. As one of my goals during this break was to get back into shape, having a running buddy seemed a very novel indeed, especially considering how much I loathe running. Truly: there’s nothing I dislike greater than starting running again after a long absence—but then after it becomes a routine, I start craving it like a crack fiend. Addictive, but at least it’s a healthier habit. But starting out is always so dreadful. Having company at least once a week is nice. And in all truth, we came to the decision to run together in order to “train” for a hash.

My friend Abby first told me about hashing when I visited her this summer while she was doing Doubt in Cape May, where she is huge. We got onto the topic of things I needed to do while I was over here, and suddenly she gasped and squealed out: “You have to go on a hash!” Now, before your mind wanders to illicit places, no, “hashing” has nothing to do with marijuana, though it does involve some kind of substance abuse. Essentially, you follow a path that has been laid down for you on the road with chalk markings or piles of sawdust (apparently) and you jog for quite a while. The catch is: the path always leads to a pub. So after you’ve jogged for a substantial amount of time, you drink. I think it’s genius, and all the more reason to bother with running in the first place. And I’m pretty sure Max agrees with this. Abby did tell me, however, that on your first hash, you’re meant to drink your first pint from your shoe, which sounds just awful. I’ll keep you lot posted on our progress.

In my effort to get into shape, I also registered for some yoga classes. The first day I went, I saw a London fox standing by the entry way to the studio. My deep-rooted affection for these little guys makes me believe this was a very fortuitous sign. The studio I’m going to is kind of a trip, in that the company seems to be the UK equivalent to the yoga corporation I used to work for (strange that phrase: “yoga corporation…”), which is both reassuring in its familiarity, and bizarre in some strange, almost cross-dimensional sense. “Yes, Spock—it would appear they promote the practice of yoga on this planet, too…” I hope it won’t take too long to get my practice up to snuff, and I think that the yoga will compliment the running nicely. I may even go to Pilates. But let’s not push it just yet.

But as I said, so many paragraphs ago: meetings. Wednesday I sat down with classmates Ariana, Poppy, and Loukia and discussed plans on developing work we’d started to touch on and generate during last term (a concept that is Ariana’s, so details will be scant here). Ariana is looking to have us present the piece in both London and in a couple towns in Germany this August, which means I won’t be flying home in July as originally planned. (The topic of when I’m actually going back to the states is a pretty hot one right now, but we’ll get to that in another entry.) The work that we’re doing with Ariana is new to me (here’s a hint: it’s largely NOT text based), is pretty exciting because of the newness, and I really like the concept she’s shooting for. Even the challenge of working in this manner is pretty freeing all on its own, and that’s been great so far. I look forward to more of the same over the coming months.

That evening I also caught The Lady From Shanghi at the BFI, and am once again convinced that I need a wardrobe akin to the women of Noir cinema. And a gun. Yeah, that would be good…

Thursday I met with Nick Wood, head of our course, alongside my fellow Space (in) Between cohort Mauro, to feedback on the success of the sessions, and in an effort to get The Space incorporated into next year’s first term offerings. The school is currently reviewing, revising, and re-writing the course as it stands, so there may be room to squeeze it in. Or there may not be. Either way, it was a good meeting, and it was nice to see that the head of the course would take the time out of his very busy week to discuss our findings and the possibility of adding this program to the schedule. We’ll see what comes of it.

Friday consisted of back-to-back meetings of my Stage Three Practice group, and my RMO group. In the first meeting, Chad, Maria, Hedva, Lisa and I basically discussed what attracted us to the project we’re going to be working on, and what our personal goals were as artists concerning our work for the piece. Then we generated a list of movies, plays, anything really that we knew about that dealt with a meal or consumption.

The second meeting with my RMO group was to discuss the upcoming "Great Orchidaceous Travesty," where THE BAND, our research experiment of beat-like quality, will be making its debut to an organized audience. I say “organized audience” because we always perform in public, gleaming our audience members from passers by, or unsuspecting produce shoppers, but this will be the first time we play in a venue where people will actually be watching us as part of an evening of bizarre cabaret acts. I am, admittedly, nervous. We’ve never really “performed” like this before, and will be short one group member, who’ll be replaced by another classmate who’s never seen our work and hasn’t rehearsed with us yet. It will all turn out one way or the other, I suppose. And if something does go terribly wrong, we’ll have a chance to redeem ourselves, as we perform again for a second time a fortnight later on the final night of the "Travesty." Anyway we’ll be wearing hats, so that’ll be good.

And speaking of hats, on Friday I also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum with my friend Caitlin to peruse a hat exhibit that is currently going on there. It was great, and if you’re in London reading this, please try to check it out before it goes away on June 1st.

Friday night I also caught the first half of a student production of Hamlet. I say “first half” because I left during intermission and held up in the theatre bar for the rest of the show. I may just be burnt out on the play (it is my favorite, and I even carry a miniature copy of it around in my purse—God Bless the Globe gift shop), so that may have been why I felt the need to leave. That being said, I have only ever walked out on two pieces of theatre, and this was the second. I actually have a lot of opinions on certain choices (mostly directorial) made during the time between 1.1 and the middle of 3.2 (they cut right after "Give me some light: away!"), but I’ll keep them to myself. I will say, though, keep an eye out for one George Taylor. He played Polonius and was by far the best thing up there in my opinion, and was the one actor that made me think, “Maybe I should stay...just until after the arras scene.”

The rest of the weekend was quite literally spent wholly confined to my dorm room, while I cleaned, read, and continued to sleep for a good long while, when not watching downloaded American television on iTunes. And touching on that briefly: some of you may have noted an absence in any blog entry relating to the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I have had so many random post-finale discussions, that to delve into one here just seems wasteful. Be that as it may, I will say I enjoyed it, though could have done without the coda, and that I also sobbed through the last thirty minutes or so. And no: I am not ashamed.

Rest in peace, Galactica.

This week I am meeting my RMO group to discuss how our dry run of our research presentation went, and prep a little for our final presentation. I have two meetings with the Ariana group scheduled, THE BAND will perform, and I’ll be catching the first part of Romeo Castellucci’s trilogy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Inferno at the Barbican. I also have a couple days of transcription work at Central, typing out some research presentation or other for £££.

That was a long entry and is probably just an indicator of what the next few weeks will bring: massive fullness. But this I vow: I’ll keep finding time for naps somehow.

St. Patrick's Day in the UK

Ah, the luck of the Irish.

St. Patrick's was pretty uneventful, but spent amongst friends and over alcohol, and therefore just right. (Above: Maria and Ronan start the festivities after a beat experiment. Maria had Ronan use his accent to get that hat. Oh, the exploitation of the Irish continues...)

When done with school for the day, I headed over with Caitlin to Filthy MacNasty's, a Scottish bar, where you could get a Guinness and a bowl of Irish stew for 5GBP, and be serenaded by a Pete Doherty look-alike, even if you didn't order that. (Sorry: Pete-R Doherty, now. Apparently the "r" is essential.) We joined Max and Heidi, who had gotten there about an hour before us, and were later joined by Ronan, who was possibly the only actual Irishman in the place (and subsequently got all his Guinnesses served to him in actual glass glasses--the rest of us had to settle for plastic knock-offs). I grabbed a cab and headed home early, and my driver only charged me for half the fare after we had a lovely chat about drama schools--he'll be auditioning for one in a couple months. I didn't see quite the widespread drunkenness that you can usually catch in NYC, but considering the Peter Doherty look-alike had been in the pub since 10AM, I'd say the spirit of the day was most definitely still maintained.

No Guinness-staches here!