Tech time

Quite a lot has happened since my last post. And its only been a few days. We are now heading in to the final countdown. Two days until the first performance of our devised piece, five until David gets here, eight until I fly back to the States and a few more after that to finish up my Christmas shopping. Lots to do. Also somewhere in there I need to write this paper.

We have been steadily progressing with the show. Everything is blocked now, and we began teching everything on Friday. Saturday we didn't have any of the tech crew there, but we did have a chance to fine tune some of the scenes and add more to others. We also ran the show from beginning to end. This was a big morale booster. I think it reminded everyone just how much work we have done in the last week. It did also remind us just how much work we need to do in the next two days, but hey you take every victory you can get. The running time is fine so we will not have to cut any more material, which I think everyone is relieved about. Reminders for myself for the upcoming week: Stay focused, stay positive, don't borrow trouble/worry.

Last night my cousin took me out to a fabulous dinner, and then a wonderful evening of chamber music. We went and saw Handel's Messiah, performed by a chamber orchestra in full period garb. It was rather fun. A little silly if you ask me, but fun. We also had seats that were basically on the stage, behind the chorus. So we couldn't really watch the soloists at all, but we did get to watch the conductor which was fun. It was nice to spend some time away from school, listen to some music not in our show, chat with other awesome people. Relax a bit. I am kind of ready for a break.

Its really interesting, when I was living on my own in Seattle I really missed being on a college campus. I missed having everyone there all the time. Now I am back in that environment, true not living on a campus but our intensive schedule produces the same effect. Its a little overwhelming to be honest. I really love the other students in our group. I enjoy working with them and I enjoy socializing with them. But I miss having other social groups too. You can tell that we are all currently a bit burnt out and stressed about our show. But since we hang out with each other all the time we don't ever get away from that stress. Ah well, it will all pass in a few days.


Really looking forward to spending time with David next weekend. To be honest I am also starting to worry about the weekend. I have a tendency to over plan, and I always want things to be perfect. However many of my great ideas for our time have fallen through. I really wanted to take him to see some theatre while he was here. It has so far proven to be impossible to get any tickets that are a) for the shows we wanted to see b) together c) within our price range or d) any of the above. I think the plans we have a made are going to be really great. We'll see some sights, check out some Christmas markets, and I am taking David to his very first Ballet, which will be lots of fun. I cant help wishing that we had more time, but I cant let that overwhelm my enjoyment of the time we do have. See what I mean about borrowing trouble?!

Today was not nearly as productive as I had hoped. Did get a little bit of reading done for my paper, but I didn't start my first draft like I told myself I would. Well that's just one more thing I can throw on the pile to worry about later. Right now my mental and physical well being trumps the paper. Plus its not due until after New Years. No problem!

The Clock is Ticking

Oh my goodness. I am exhausted. It has been a busy week. We finally finished blocking the show today, and we started tech as well. We are slowly making progress. Slowly. I think in the end we will be fine. Not that we can chill out in the next couple of days, but we don't need to panic.We have 4 days left, well 3 days of rehearsals until we open our devised piece.

We have spent a lot of time in the last few days just putting down the basics for each scene and moving forward. So we have a lot of detail work to do over the weekend. And then we will finish tech on Monday. We have cut the show down quite a bit, but I think we may have to do a little more trimming. Hopefully though as we clean up transitions and each scene gets tighter we will take off a lot of time. We do need to keep thinking about what can be cut though, as we have an extra performance next Friday that has to be 20 minutes shorter. That is going to be interesting.

We are all pretty exhausted at the moment. I am looking forward to having a day off on Monday. This will be the first weekend I have had to myself in a while. I love traveling and having everyone visit, but I need a day to myself. I plan on shutting myself in my room and cracking down on the paper I am supposed to write over the break. That and do exciting things like laundry and grocery shopping. I cant wait. And then next weekend starts the break.

David will be here a week from tonight. I cant wait. I am looking forward to showing him the city and all of my regular haunts. I've been brainstorming all sorts of fun places to take him. And then after that its back to the states for a real break, which I am also really looking forward to.

However I have to get through the next 10 days first. So on that note, I am going to retire early this evening and hope that a full nights sleep will help me stay calm and collected through tomorrows rehearsal.

Looking ahead

Music music and more music. Can you guess what we worked on today. Blocking, no wait, you were right. Music. I know we needed it, and do still need to go and work on some of the music, but I am getting antsy about staging this thing.

We have a week until we present this piece, and we wont be having rehearsals at least one of those days. If we do end up having Saturday rehearsal (which I am all in favor of) we will be missing several people as they cannot get off work. This would be fine if we made up for it by having later rehearsals all week, which had been discussed earlier, but it is looking like we wont be staying late. I am a bit puzzled by this. Well we shall see how the week progresses, panic always does wonders for peoples motivation!

Tomorrow we start buckling down on the staging. And at the end of every day we will do a run through of the material. I believe that's when we will start cutting stuff as well. Right now we have a 2 hour and 20 minute show. That's an hour longer than our time slot. So quite a lot is going to have to go. Everyone is getting quite nervous about this. No one wants to get attached to a piece to find out that it wont go in the show. And we are all understandably worried about getting our fair share of attention. I hope that with a more impartial eye than our own the cuts will be equitable. There are many reasons in favor of keeping and cutting material, some of which may not be known to us currently. And who knows if things are weighted in one direction now they may shift the other way when we get to the showcase or the contemporary show. We really have no way of knowing. I just have to force myself to trust the decisions being made and not let myself get stressed by any of this. Really the important thing is that I am doing the work for myself. As long as I am continually working and improving then I am getting my monies worth, and shouldn't get upset about casting. Easier said than believed, but I have to keep trying.

We are starting to think ahead for the next unit. After Christmas we come back to work on our performance research projects. I have been approached by two fabulous ladies to join them in their project, which is terribly exciting. I think the three of us will work quite well together. Topics are no where near being decided on, but there are some neat ideas floating around. Starting to get excited. I do need to buckle down and work on my own paper first. I want to have a solid draft written before I arrive home at Christmas so I can spend my time with my family and not panicking about writing. That may mean that most of the paper is written on the plane ride home, but hey that's 8 solid hours where I cant wander off and procrastinate! This evening I am going to focus on reading some of the research I have gathered in hopes that it will do me some good. Goal for this weekend, start writing!!!

Some thoughts to think! Here is an exercise for all of you. What is a good musical for a group of 14 women and 8 men? Preferably something ensemble based, or at least with considerable stuff for an ensemble to do. A range of contemporary and classical voices, movers rather than dancers for the most part. An accidentally forwarded e-mail conversation has gotten everyone here thinking and arguing. Yet another thing for us to worry about. I rather enjoy playing this game as long as no one gets too invested in any one choice (because you know it will never be that one). Send some ideas my way and I'll share some of the ones we've been tossing around!

Divisive Devising

We started a new unit a few weeks ago, let me tell you about it. We are devising, as a class, a new piece entitled 'A Brief History of Everything'. That's right, all 22 of us plus 3 teachers are devising a theatre piece together. If you think that's too many cooks in the kitchen you would be correct!

We started with a title and an interesting brainstorming tool. Everyone was supposed to come in with an idea of something they wanted to go in our brief history. We got a range of ideas, everything from MGM movie musicals, to modern England, to backwards movement, to courtship through the ages. We then spent the day breaking into groups to discuss these ideas. Over the course of the next week we decided that we would use the seven ages of man speech by Shakespeare. You know the one 'All the worlds a stage...' etc. We would have sections for each of the ages.

To start off we came up with a list of possible songs to use to fit these original ideas, then our instructors brought in music for us to work on in small groups. We were a bit confused by some of the choices they brought in. Very few of their list had anything to do with the list we had all come up with together. From there we all brought in scenes and some folks got started writing new material to go into the show.

As the piece has progressed tensions have run quite high. Everyone is stressing about this piece. People were worried because we didn't have a structure, or they were unhappy with the music choices, or we weren't sure which pieces we were using and which were being cut. All valid concerns, but most of the tension came from the fact we didn't have instant results. No one was willing to trust the process, which is slow, but will eventually come together.

Add to that the lack of communication between the different instructors and you get a big mess. I think our main problem throughout this whole process has been a lack of communication. There is a rather big disconnect and stuff gets lost or twisted in the shuffle. Everyone has a very different idea the kind of piece we are working on. To be honest it has been really frustrating. Both the disorganization and the stress. Everyone needs to chill out, but also people have got to work on their communication skills.

I think however that things are finally coming together. We have a basic running order of the program, and now we just clean and fine tune. There is still quite a lot that is up in the air. We have more material than we can use at the moment so we will have to cut a bit of that. We also need to start blocking everything and working on how we transition from one piece to the next. I think this is where it is going to start to get interesting though. The movement/staging stuff is all being handled by one of our teachers and I think he has some really great ideas. I think we are going to have some really neat things in this show if we get our act together.

I really just want everyone to take a deep breath as we move into this next week (myself included) and really buckle down and get some work done. We have over a week until we perform, which is quite a lot of time if we use our rehearsals well. So key words for this next week are calm and focused.

On a totally side note we finally got our evaluations from last term. I am quite pleased with some of the comments. My favorites were from my acting teacher: Katie is getting better and better every time I see her. She can be quite bold if pushed. And  from the assistant course leader: There is sophisticated work ahead that one can look forward to from Kate. Add to that the fact that I got a 1st, and overall I am quite pleased. There are still things I need to work on. I spent a lot of the term working on my lower range and belt, which has come quite a long way, but it means I haven't brought in as much music for my higher register. I want to remind them that I am actually a high soprano. I know I also need to start working on some more 'serious' acting. I tend to gravitate towards the comedic, and even when I bring in a serious piece the teachers have me play the comedic side to it. So I just need to find a balance to all of this. I don't want to get pigeonholed in any one 'type'. I feel my first term at grad school went pretty well considering.

Today is going to be interesting

Just had to cross a picket line to get to classes this morning.

I appreciate that times are hard and everyone is struggling. And I support workers protesting having their pensions cut. However I am going into considerable debt to be here this year, and I want to get as much as I can out of my education. So while I support your right to picket, I still need to get to class.

Sorry!

On a similar note, immediately afterwards I fell up the stairs while carrying heavy pots and pans, bruising my knees and elbows. Karma?

Its Show Time

I have had the amazing good luck to have seen three very different shows in the past two weeks. While I was in Barcelona Rebecca and I saw a rather mediocre amateur production of Private Eyes by Stephen Dietz. The show was too confusing to be straightforward and not confusing enough to be really interesting. The actors were all sort of half hearted, the set was boring and the show was miss represented through its advertising. All in all it was a total disappointment. Enough of that.

Back in London a bunch of us went out for a friends birthday with the aim of seeing a West End Musical. After comparing ticket prices and peoples preferences we settled on .... wait for it... Ghost, the Musical. Yes, Ghost, pottery wheel and all. Interesting. Now I must admit I have never actually seen the movie, and to be honest I don't feel a pressing urge to go out and watch it even now.  The show itself was interesting. The scenography was incredible. I mean, really really cool design. A lot of fantastic stage effects. People walking through walls, disappearing, things flying through the air. All done flawlessly. Beautiful. The scenery was all big video screens. And there were a lot of neon colors and video clips playing simultaneously with the onstage action. Fascinating and compelling, but totally overwhelming. The poor ensemble. Any time they would come on for a number the screens would go crazy and no one would pay attention to the people.  The show itself is not great. The music is generic and totally forgettable. The actors were so over amplified that you couldn't understand them. And the story line is trite. So if you are interested in the design (which is worth seeing) go see the show. If you want to see a good show, don't go see Ghost.

Then this past weekend a few of us got together to see the West End production of Crazy For You. This was absolutely lovely. They didn't do anything crazy with it.  The choreography and dancing were wonderful. The ensemble were distinctive and fun to watch. The whole thing was just perfect. The show itself is a bit dated, and it was interesting to see such an American show played here. There were several bits and jokes that didn't work simply because the audience was primarily English. For example the whole song about being English (Chin up, carry on old chum etc etc) really didn't work at all. But on the whole it was simple, and lovely. The kind of show that you cant help but feel great after watching. I wasn't hugely fond of the leading lady, but not to the point where it detracted from the overall experience.

One of the interesting things I noticed about the west end shows was the quality of everyone's American accents. Basically, atrocious. Especially in Ghost. Everyone was going for the sort of New York/New Jersey cop awfulness. It was not pretty. The two leads were fine, although I have yet to check their bios to see if they are actually American. That was the case with Crazy For You, the lead guy (who was wonderful by the way) had a bio that featured mostly work in New York. The girl, who's southern accent was lacking, was not. This I find this quite encouraging, as I do have an actual American accent. Hopefully it will work in my favor!

Spain Time

Right, so I've fallen quite a bit behind. So I am going to try and break this up in to several smaller posts, as quite a lot has happened. Where should I begin. Well we started a new unit at Central, but as that is ongoing I am going to leave that one for last. Also I really need to collect my thoughts about that one. So I'll start with Spain!

To put it simply Spain was pretty incredible. It was rather a whirlwind trip, and I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had a blast. My best friend (or HLM) Rebecca is currently living in Barcelona. She is there for the fall working on some cool top secret project involving 3D printers. So I figured what better excuse to get some jet-setting in to my schedule. Mainly though it was a chance to get to spend some quality time with her. After living together for 2 years after college I've been going though severe Rebecca withdrawal since she moved to Pittsburgh last fall. Amazing that we should reconnect on the other side of the ocean!!

One of the first things we did when I arrived last Friday was to visit the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous unfinished Basilica. This is perhaps Barcelona's most easily spotted landmark as it towers above all of the surrounding architecture. It is also absolutely incredible. I mean holy cow, this building is amazing. And it isn't even close to being finished. At the moment the target finish date is 2030. There were models inside chronicling the progress of the building. It is impressive both what they have completed and what is still left to do. I think it is going to end up being nearly half again as tall as it is now, if not more. It will be truly massive.

Even aside from the scale of the building the Sagrada Familia is awe inspiring. The carvings above both the front and back entrances are absolutely gorgeous. And the stained glass windows are incredible. The inside of the basilica is stunning. I don't know whether this is part of the design, or just a side effect of the current construction but there is only stained glass in one half of the basilica, the side with the altar. So as you walk from the back of the room towards the altar the light goes from this austere white light, to this stunning pattern of color. It is an amazing effect. I could go on about this building for ages, it was incredible. Basically Rebecca and I walked in after admiring the facade for a while and our brains turned into puddles of goo due to the awesomeness of this building.

During the rest of my trip we saw quite a bit more of Gaudi's architecture. It is all pretty incredible. We visited Park Guell, although we got lost on the way and arrived after it had gotten dark. This had the unexpected bonus of turning the trip into a sort of spelunking trip. Ok not really, but we felt like we were in really interesting caves, while we explored the archways in the dark. It was fun! We also stumbled across several other buildings designed by Gaudi while we were walking around Barcelona. Including one that looks like a dragon. Basically I think I need to live there!

Lets see other highlights of the trip... Well I discovered what Iberian Ham is, and its pretty gross. Basically wherever you go, including sketchy shops in the middle of the metro, they sell whole pig legs. Not terribly pleasant to pass all the time! We went to a flea market where you could buy everything including the kitchen sink. I learned what a 3D printer is, and its awesome. I learned how to play Settlers of Catan in Spanish. Ok the game was in Spanish, I just learned what each of the little pictures meant. And most importantly I got to catch up with Rebecca. Yay! I am still lobbying to get her up here before she heads back to the states. That way the two of us can go to the Doctor Who Experience together!

Stay tuned for another exciting installment tomorrow. Coming up we have West End musicals, a Flash Mob in St Pancras station, American Thanksgiving abroad and the Devised Unit!