Deloitte Ignite Festival '09

Shameless plug:

Head over to the Royal Opera House this weekend and check out the Deloitte Ignite '09 Festival and catch various artists and acts! It's being curated by Time Out, so you know everything will be full of hipness. Here's a run down of what's being offered over the three days.

The short film I shot last week will show as part of the site-specific performance of Absent, dreamthinkspeak's offering to the festival. You can find a summary of it here.

If seeing me in a dress in a movie isn't reason enough to go, you should also know that most of the events are FREE! Heck, that's why I'm going.

"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.

The Day I Became Undead

August went out with a bang, as this last week was beyond full. I'll catch you up on the majority of it soon, but I thought I'd just throw up something quick from today, when the zombie film Baby's First Steps was shot. I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM from several zombie nightmares, to shower and get ready to make my 7 AM call. We finally wrapped at around 6:15. It was a really easy and fun shoot, and the small crew--director Stephen, producer Stephen (a different one), DP Mark, and the fabulous Faye who did my make up--were great to work with. Below you can follow my transformation from human to zombie. Enjoy!

First I was made paler than I usually am, with a slight green tint for the just-turned-into-a-zombie feel.

A little red around the eyes.

Veins were applied thickly, but would be faded a little bit later. I had some painted on my arms/hands as well. (Don't I look like such a charming zombie in this shot?)

Add contacts, and voila: instant zombie! And check out the blood covering my hand! This shot was taken in the middle of the day, during some of my down time. The contacts were really terrible for about the first twenty minutes, which was surprising as I had been putting them in and leaving them for increasing periods of time the whole week leading up to the shoot. Eventually I adjusted and was fine for the remainder of the day.

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?

Last blog before Scotland

I leave for Scotland tomorrow, and will be gone for about a week. I'm putting myself under internet quarantine (I need it) so don't fret that you don't hear from me in the interim.

Randomness: I booked a short film for the Zone Horror Short Film Competition. I'm waiting to hear from the director the exact date of filming, but it looks like it'll happen sometime in September. I play a zombie. I am very excited about this, but it is also completely unfamiliar territory since I have never seen a zombie movie. Yes, it's true. Please don't hit me too hard. I need to do some research, maybe while I'm up north.

Below are some lovely pictures taken of Hampstead Heath, where I've been spending a lot of time lately for rehearsal/research for the festival piece I'm working on for Central in September, on picnics with friends, and for walks. Enjoy.