This was one of those weeks that I actually spent more time at LAMDA than I did at home (but it's becoming clear to me that all of my weeks will probably be like that.) After classes on Monday, school had booked us tickets to go see "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller at the Apollo Theater. Two friends and I decided to run to a hole-in-the-wall vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden beforehand, and to say that the food was just good would seriously understate the fact that, if it were socially acceptable, the three of us would have been licking our plates clean by the end of the meal. With our bellies (thanks mommy) full we hurried over to Picadilly Circus, the "Times Square" of London, as my professor calls it, but, thankfully, all of the bright lights and big city fanfare outside did not interfere with the brilliant simplicity of the play inside the theater. Our tickets were all the way up in 1st Mezzanine, but the raked stage and stadium seating made it feel as if we were all sitting in the front yard with the actors, watching their lives unravel around them. The play was riveting, and I found myself so grateful that I had not read it beforehand, because of how real and authentic it all felt as it was unfolding. Granted, we were all so emotionally drained by the end of the play, all we could do was herd ourselves home and try desperately to remember our lines for our scene presentations the next day.
Tuesday and Wednesday were both 12-hour days at school, which for me, has become a mathematical equation of sorts;
Wake Up + Dress + Walk to Tube + Tube + Walk to School + Make Tea + Class #1 + 15 minutes for more tea + Class #2 + Lunch, brought from home, that includes another cup of tea + Class #3 + Break, with tea + Continue Class #3 + Dinner - from home, more tea + Either more Class #3 or Mask = 1 (EXHAUSTING) wonderful day at school.
The observant reader among you will notice that I am downing about 5 cups of tea per day, not counting the 1 before and after school. This gross increase in number is due to the fact that I have been graced with the presence of acute Bronchitis in my chest. In the wise words of my mother, "I guess this is what people without tonsils get!". Regardless, it has been a pain in the butt and daily intakes of Robitussin, echinacea, and, of course, tea have become my go-to. I guess that being in another country doesn't really change the fact that my immune systems likes to remind me who's the boss every now and again.
Regardless, the rest of the week was easy, and Friday night LAMDA's Student Council set-up a "Getting to Know You" Party where all of the classes got to mingle and, hopefully, eliminate some of the segregation of the common-room at break times. It is things like that that remind me that this isn't just a mythical drama-school in the sky, but a real place for students who are just like me, but with more patience.
The weekends have become "squeeze as much of London into 2 days as you possible can" days, and I'm totally okay with that. Yesterday we went to Camden Markets, and specifically, the Stable markets, a converted horse hospital that now holds shops in every one of the old horse stalls. There were so many people there but it was so exciting and I even had my first authentic English Fish'n'Chips. At some point during the day we made the spur of the moment decision to look into theatre tickets for that night and so we ended our day in Picadilly again, this time going to see "Deathrap" a thriller by Ira Levin that just happens to feature Jonathan Groff as one of the actors. Not only was the play amazingly scary and well-thought out, we were total groupies afterward and hung out at the stage door waiting for him after the show. Our unexpected star-sighting was seeing Michael Kors, the fashion designer, walk out of the stage door before any of the performers, everyone felt a bit shell-shocked by his presence there and didn't really register it until he had power-walked far away from where we were. Eventually, we met Jonathan Groff, who asked us what we were doing in London and how long we were there. When we realized that we were there for a similar amount of time someone suggested "Hey - we should hang out!". Well, we weren't necessarily blown off, but his adorable little smile and chortle at our suggestion made it seem like we probably need to work a bit harder next time...
So that's that so far. Today's plan is to get to the Rose Garden before it gets too cold out and then head over to the Tate Modern for an afternoon of art. I guess I have to accept that the formula for these posts is going to be; experience a week, try to recall what you did, then spew it out in one excessively long blog-post, hoping that people don't get too bored to stop before the end.
I guess what I really want to say, not so much about this week, but about this trip, is that, no matter how nervous I was, or how many times I doubted that I should be pushing myself to these extremes, there is not 1 day that I am not so grateful for being here, and, in the words of Uncle Steve Sondheim "that's what it's really about, isn't it?"
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