Please Hold For a Panic Attack

I'm not quite sure why I thought I would be immune to my regularly scheduled yearly panic attack while here in England, but I think it's coming over me right now. As my parents will tell you, I usually have some sort of mild mental episode at least once a year that causes me to go through much distress over my schoolwork and the acting stuff I may or may not have going on at that point in time, and I've just come to expect them now. Sometimes it's more dramatic than others (last year's was not so great), but this time, it's just... weird.

The panic has been coming over me slowly over the past few days. Don't worry, I'm not in a bad way or anything, but I am starting to think about a lot of things because I only realised yesterday:

MY TIME IN ENGLAND IS RUNNING OUT.

I can't believe it. I only have a little over a month left in this country, which I fall in love with more and more each day. I think I realised this when I started getting excited that my family was coming over to see me soon. I can't wait for them to get here, but when their stay is over, so is mine, since we're going home together. I don't want to leave London. There are still so many things I haven't done. I love it too much here, and it's hard to think that when I go home, and even when I go back to school, I won't see a lot of the friends I have here, some because they live in Europe, others because they live in faraway states, and still others just because we don't have the same major.

There are other things, too, that all hit me today and are causing me to seek stress relief. I haven't gotten my last two academic papers back and I'm worried about those grades. And while I was in France, I missed my history revision class, which isn't a huge deal, but I really would have liked to attend. My teacher posted the list of reading material that will help us on the exam but I lost my i.d. card yesterday which means that besides the arduous process I have to go through to get a new one, I can't even get into the library, let alone take out books. I think I may ask one of my friends to let me check out books on their card so I can start my studying (or as they call it here, revision.) I'm really scared of this exam; I can B.S. essays until the cows come home, but taking my first and only exam in the British school system is kind of daunting. No, scratch the kind of. It's daunting.

I think another contributing factor to my weird state of mind is that a lot of my really good friends from Arcadia had their last opening night on Thursday and will be presenting their theses and graduating soon. This means about 80% of my close friends will be gone when I start school next year. Some of them may stay close by, but it will never be the same as it was, and I feel bad that I can't see their final projects and watch them graduate.

The long strip of paper you see in the picture above is about half of my novel broken into little bits of scene. I have realised how many problems there are in it and am taking it apart and using this paper to examine and fix it. There is much about my writing that I'm beating myself up over, but this is not a writing blog, so I won't go on about that here.

Thankfully, a source of stress that went away today is my final (non-exam) essay. I had a thousand words due today on my Adaptations performance. It was easy once I got started, but it was definitely freaking me out for awhile. (Of course, I found out after I turned it in that it's due two days after I thought it was. Bleh. Either way, though, it's turned in.)

I know that this entry was more brain vomit than an entry... if you got to this point, I love you. I think it's all going to be okay, but as usual with these things, I just have to figure that out slowly.

London Doesn't Want Me to Leave, Either

I think it's pretty clear that if I could stay here in London for the rest of my life, I would. But I believe I've also mentioned that I've begun to realise how hard that would be for an American right out of an American college. If I haven't mentioned it, basically this is the deal: It's really hard.

The UK seems to operate under this motto: "We LOVE foreigners! Come visit! Yeah, we said visit, not live. Go home, love." It's really hard to get permission to live here permanently or even semi-permanently. This time it wasn't too bad because I was on a student visa, and I suppose I could go to grad school here if I hadn't decided halfway through high school that seventeen years of academia was more than enough for me, thank you.

(Side note: seventeen years of school? Are we all insane? Life is short and experience is the best school there is. It is also, in some cases, less expensive. Seventeen years... minimum, in most cases.)

So while grad school may be an option for me down the road, it isn't my plan for right after graduation, and therefore will not be my way of getting into this country. It seems the only other way is the horrible catch twenty-two of employment. Hey, look! There's a job that's perfect for me in London! I think I'll apply... oh, I have to be a UK resident? Okay, well how about I move there and then apply. You want me to have a job before I move there? All right...

Oh, no, wait- there is another option! I could marry someone here! That's cool... except that I don't have an English significant other and call me old fashioned, but I'd prefer not to pull someone off the streets and marry them.

So my options are limited. But I did get a ray of hope today- two in fact- that might make my hypothetical move to England easier. First of all, my inbox on the casting service I signed up for has been exploding lately. Sadly, the jobs are a high enough caliber that I need to upgrade to get details, and I think it's a little late to do that, but at least I know that, if I move here, that's one reliable source (I did go on one of the auditions I was notified about and it was great.)

(Another side note: it seems to me that a lot of drama schools here- on the high school and university level- also act as their students' agent. I know Kate Winslet got her first movie role through her theatre school. I think it's a good idea- who knows you and your abilities better than your acting teachers? This is most definitely not ALL theatre schools here, but it is common. It's also completely unheard of in America and I'd like to know why.)

The other sign from the universe was shoved under my door- it was a guide to house hunting, put together by QM. While a lot of it means nothing to me, never having gone house (or apartment) hunting before, one of the back pages has a chart of apartment rent rates in areas all over the city.

This is helpful because for kicks, I've been checking out apartment rental prices around London, and most of the time, the number is so high that I have to revive myself afterward. The usual-ish rate it around 200-400 pounds. Not to bad, right? Not until you realise that they pay per WEEK here, not per month. And I know that it's more expensive because I'm looking into a city, but still. That's a lot of cash, even if you do have a roommate.

But even though the prices are sky-high, I still would like to see these two things as signs that London would like me to stay. I can't do that, as I must go back to Arcadia, but returning? I'd like to think it's an option.

If anyone is reading this and they have any tips on these kinds of things, feel free to comment away below. I may not necessarily be moving to an apartment here in almost a year's time, but I'll be moving to an apartment somewhere. Yeah... I just registered for my senior year classes. Who's scared? This girl.

Script Frenzy update: 25/100 pages. Going to a write-in tonight, so hopefully I'll have a bunch more by tomorrow.

In a Forest Dark and Deep

I saw this show this afternoon! I was really excited because Olivia Williams is awesome- I saw her first in Dollhouse a few years ago and was thrilled to see her again as Miss Stubbs in An Education. To be honest, I had no idea who Matthew Fox was (he is apparently from Lost and Party of Five, neither of which I've seen.) Also, it's directed by the playwright Neil Labute, of whom I am a new fan (I saw another one of his plays exactly a month ago, The Shape of Things, which I loved.)

The show was all right. I didn't like it as much as I would have liked, but there are a few factors that went into this "eh" reaction. First, both of the actors' energy was kind of low- the reason I tend to avoid matinees. As an actor, I know that matinees are usually not nearly as good as night shows, but the student price was only offered for Wednesday matinees. Also, my energy was really low, so I wasn't a great audience member. I wasn't a huge fan of Matthew Fox's acting for awhile, but he got better as it went on. I don't think he's done a ton of theatre, and it shows. That being said, he wasn't bad- it wasn't torturous to watch him or anything, but Olivia Williams just seemed more comfortable on the stage. And I think the main reason I didn't like it as much as some of the other shows I've seen, or even as much as Labute's other play, is because I wasn't supposed to. In the program, it says that the roles in this show are not for actors who want the audience to adore them. The characters, Bobby and Betty, are two terrible, terrible people, especially Betty, and they spend the play reminding each other of that. Betty is incredibly annoying- besides having a ridiculous amount of faults, she's also very whiny. I think Olivia Williams must have been exhausted at the end of the show, as she had to spend most of it crying.

Williams did fantastically with her accent- for a part that emotional, I heard one slip up, that's all. It's very interesting how high and young-sounding British actors' voices become when they do American accents. Williams has a lower, very calming English voice, but you only heard the low register in this show when she was sobbing without speaking. I was really impressed.

Overall, I'm glad I saw it, but I'm also glad that I didn't pay a ton to see it (though I was more than happy to take the free seat upgrade I was offered.) If nothing else, I got to see an actor I like live, which always makes for a good story.

Surprise!

Remember how the other day (and for many entries before that) I complained that I couldn't get a show? I was sad. Very sad.

And then all of a sudden, a contact I made came through over the weekend. After a frenzy of e-mailing, calling, and texting between the director and myself, I was offered a teeny-tiny part in an off-West End show.

I (and the rest of the Queen Mary Theatre Company) had gotten an e-mail that the director needed some last minute actors for three roles, one bigger one and two smaller ones. This was about a month and a half ago. Of course, I contacted the director right away, and we e-mailed back and forth for awhile. I was only eligible for one of the smaller parts (though I really tried to negotiate my way into the bigger one, he said it could only be played by a man) and he said he hoped to get to Queen Mary sometime in early March to audition people.

March came and continued on and there was no word. I just figured the director had found someone he wanted and moved on. And then suddenly on Friday, I got an e-mail asking about my schedule. The next day, he offered me the role. My starting date? Today. The opening date of the show? Tomorrow. It runs for a little under two weeks.

Only having a few hours of rehearsal isn't a huge deal- the rest of the cast has been rehearsing normally, and like I said, my part is small. Like, incredibly small. I'm not onstage for thirty seconds, and I have one line (which may be given to the taller of the two of us actors, which will never be me.) This is the kind of part I would not accept at a lower-level, non-paying, non-professional theatre at home, not because I'm a snob, but because it doesn't do anything for my resume. But this is different. While it's a very small theatre, it is off-West End (as opposed to off-off West End, which yes, is an actual thing, just like off-off- Broadway.) I'll apparently also get to mingle with lots of cool people (the cast and director are already very nice.) And finally, it's not like I was looking for a paying acting job, considering that I'll be breaking the law if I get one and take it. Plus, I just wanted a show- you guys know, you've been reading my whining for long enough.

So I went to the... (interruption- our fire alarm goes off constantly for about ten seconds. At this point, we don't even move until it's gone off longer than that. Just now, it blared like an air raid siren for a full thirty seconds [and a mostly packed-up bag from me] before it stopped. I'm sick of this happening once a week.)

Anyway. So I went to the four-hour tech rehearsal at eleven this morning. The theatre's pretty close to the tube station. As I was exiting said tube station, my Oyster card malfunctioned and the guy got all huffy with me. "This means you don't have any money on it. If you do this again, you'll be fined fifty pounds and have a criminal record, got it?" I knew I had money on my card, but I just nodded. "How exactly did you get out of Mile End?" he asked. As it happened, all of the gates at Mile End were broken, and they were letting people through the handicap gate. I told him as much and he gave me a raised eyebrow and a disbelieving, "Uh huh." He let me through and I thought, well, maybe I really don't have money on my card. So I went to go top up. When the amount of money that I did have flashed up (plenty to get through), I could not help immaturely turning back to him, pointing at the screen, and calling, "Excuse me, but I do have money on my card." Sometimes I get tired of acting like an adult. He must have felt bad about yelling at me, because he put more money on my card (I don't actually know why he did this, but I didn't stop him. I was annoyed.)

Once that debacle was over, I walked to the theatre, which is quite small but very theatre-y. The director is much younger than I expected, and also Scottish, which means another lovely accent to appreciate :) The play is set in New England, and two of the cast members are English, using American accents, one is from Baltimore, and the other is Canadian, if I'm hearing his accent correctly.

I was kind of surprised at the part I was given to play. The director had specifically said he wanted two women, so I kind of expected just to come on, get a drink from a bar onstage, and go off or something. I hoped I wouldn't have to wear skimpy clothing... But that will not be a concern, because I am playing a henchman (or... henchwoman) and I'm wearing a trenchcoat, gloves, and a hat. Definitely not skimpy! I go on, shout "There she is!" (maybe), and pull off the actress playing the title character. It was just me today, and it's rather amusing that I have to attack this woman and pull her off stage because she's taller than me. In order to hold her the way they want me to, I have to stand on my tiptoes. I also did today's rehearsal wearing the trenchcoat over my plaid skirt and black sweater. I'm so threatening But all of my notes were good, so I guess I'm scary enough :p

The rehearsal let out at two and I headed back to school. That's right, I skipped class to go to this rehearsal, and I'm not sorry. I never ever skip class unless it's for something like this (and I tend to get permission anyway.) I save up all of my sick days and then use them for acting purposes, hoping there will be acting purposes for which to use them. Plus, it was RT- I know what I missed: two hours of people calling Frankenstein "overrated", as I heard one classmate call it. Since I tend to feel myself going very insane very quickly in that class, I figured I would be fine.

I'm just happy to have a show. This may or may not go on my resume, but I'm just happy to be doing theatre in London, and this "I'm doing a show" happiness will probably carry me until I get home, when I will begin to fret again. It is a cycle that cannot be stopped. The play's pretty short, maybe forty minutes, so there's not a ton of waiting around, and I got a lot of reading done today. Maybe I'll bring my essays along tomorrow, since I'll be there from 12 pm to whenever the show lets out. Gotta love tech and opening night all in one day!

The Children's Hour, or I Thought I Was Cooler Than This, But...

Now that I'm breathing evenly again, I can tell you that tonight was ah-ma-zing.

I've been a huge fan of Keira Knightley since I was fourteen years old and saw her in Pirates of the Caribbean (a movie I did not want to see, by the way, but then harbored an obsession for after seeing it, for many, many years.) I've also loved the play The Children's Hour since I was fifteen or sixteen. Tonight, I saw a play I love that starred an actor I admire.

I'd been getting more and more excited as the day got closer, but I seriously thought I would be cool about it. I mean, I'm an actor. I do theatre. What's the big deal?

IT'S A BIG DEAL. It's a very big deal to see someone you're a fan of, especially when you get to see them in action, let alone in a favorite play. We were sitting sort of far away from the stage on the stage level. We had been warned before we bought our tickets that there would be a pillar obstructing our view of certain parts of the stage. We thought it would be annoying when we first sat down, but I overheard one lady say that once you're into the show, you don't really notice it, and she was right.

The play was really good. I actually thought the first act dragged a little bit, but maybe that's because I know it so well, because Adrienne and Laura, who came too and who didn't know the play, said they didn't think it did. The performances were great from the start, though. All of the girls were at least eighteen (WHY did I not try out when they were casting in America?!?!) and they were pretty awesome. Ellen Burstyn was great as the doting, conclusion-jumping grandmother. Bryony Hannah was wonderfully hateful as Mary- I actually rolled my eyes and glared at her character numerous times. Elisabeth Moss, who is very famous here but who I had never heard was really good as the somewhat stoic (and later, very punchy and then very depressed) Martha.

And Keira Knightley... where to start? Well, first of all, her acting. She's been criticised a lot as an actor, but believe me- she can and very, very well. She was very authoritative and powerful with the girls, loving with her fiance, and terrifyingly angry at the end of the show- stuff you've never seen in her movies and is mind-blowing work. I actually thought she was remarkably comfortable onstage- I was expecting her to be too small with her gestures or awkward with the blocking, but she made the adjustment beautifully. Her American accent was pretty good. I couldn't figure out if the actors were slipping on certain words or if they were using Boston accents. And the movies don't lie- she's very beautiful in person, too.

It was also just wonderful to see the show itself- even if the cast hadn't been what it was, I would have been in the audience tonight. Though I love the show, I'd never seen all of it- I'd seen one scene done and then was in the same scene a few years later, but it's not the same as seeing it all full-out. It's just such a great show that comments well on the dangers of lying just because a person is bored. While I do think that the first act moved slowly, the second act was fantastic. I don't want to give away anything about the plot, but there's an incident that happens in the last scene that's horrifying and of course, I knew what was coming. As the final scene crept towards that point, I couldn't sit still, I was so nervous. I kept changing my position, finally sitting with my arms tightly folded, and I was actually shaking. My arms were crossed so tightly that I couldfeel my heart beating much faster than usual. And for the rest of the scene, I just cried and cried, and it was one of those performances after which you just want to sit there and cry. In fact, after the cast had taken their bows and the lights came up, I just sat there with my face pressed into my coat while I cried a little more.

I was determined to stage door stalk afterwards, and there weren't that many people there. Something that freaked me out, though, was the presence of paparazzi. That doesn't happen in America, and it made me really uncomfortable. It was very cold, and I knew that Adrienne and Laura were waiting there because I demanded we do so, so I was relieved when the actors started coming out. Sadly, none of the schoolgirls stuck around- even Bryony Hannah, who played the lead, only signed a few before she left, and that's because someone called after her to do so. However, we did get the autographs of Ellen Burstyn, Keira Knightley, Elisabeth Moss, and Tobias Menzies.

When Ellen Burstyn got to us, Laura commented on the performance (I, as usual, froze and could hardly remember how to breathe. WHY AM I NOT COOLER?!), and Burstyn exclaimed, "Oh! You're American!" Laura said that we were here studying and Burstyn asked where and what. I managed to chip in at this point... I had a conversation with Ellen Burstyn.

Keira Knightley came out then and signed everyone's program. I (along with everyone else) said how much I loved the performance and she smiled and thanked everyone before hurrying to her car. I love finding out that actors that seem nice, actually are.
After those actors left, most of the others had gone, too, so we made our way back to the tube station to go home. We were all extremely giddy, skipping down the sidewalk and talking a mile a minute. I know I couldn't breathe evenly and we were all smiling ridiculously. On the tube ride home, we alternated between talking super-fast and not talking at all, staring into the distance and grinning while stroking the covers of our programs. I seriously thought I would be cooler than this about this whole experience, but it was like I was fourteen again.

It was just an amazing, amazing night of theatre.
(Oh, and a little sample of how theatre nerdy I am- during intermission, we were all talking about different shows we'd seen and Adrienne mentioned a production of Macbeth she'd seen... and she said the title. In the theatre. She stopped in the middle of her story because I think I actually went pale. When she asked what was wrong, I was like, "You said... you just said... it. You said the title. In a theatre. You said it." If there's one theatre superstition I believe in, it's that one- I've seen and heard of a lot of shows having issues because someone's said Macboo in the theatre (in fact, I always call it Macboo, whether I'm in a theatre or not.) Because Adrienne is a normal person, she was unaffected by this utterance, but I actually considered telling her that she had to do the ritual (go outside, spin around in a circle three times, spit, swear, and ask to be let back in.) I knew that that would be too weird, so I didn't... but I was very nervous for the rest of the show. It makes me wonder, though- that's never happened to me while I've been in the audience. Is it just actors saying it that affect the show? 'Cause I've seen some pretty bad stuff go down after an actor's let it slip.)

This Entry is As Long As My Class' Syllabus

This toast with jam that I am eating is deliciously carb-tastic. I just thought I'd share that with all of you :p

Today was my first day of classes, and though I use the plural, I only had one on this particular day. It started at two, so one would think that I would have the whole morning to relax and calmly do stuff. But no... because I am me. Since I had to go see a play tonight (more on that later), I decided that I couldn't put off getting my Oyster card anymore. So at ten, I walked down to the tube and took it to the proper stop. I did not look at a map because I knew the address and I had been to the office before. But (now, stop rolling your eyes, Mom :p), I kind of forgot that when I went to the office last time, we had had to get off at a different stop due to work being done on the line. So I got lost... three times. Thankfully, a woman in a hotel I kept walking past looked it up for me online, and it turns out that I just kept walking down the wrong end of the street on every road I went on.
Finally, I made it to the office and got my card (a LOT of people haven't picked theirs up yet). This means that I can stop buying day passes every time I want to go ONE place ONE time (though, thankfully, I usually end up getting my money's worth out of the day passes, since I tend to go a lot of places just for fun.) Unfortunately, being lost meant that it had taken me about forty five minutes to get to the office, so a lot of my free time was wasted.

I visited the school library to see if I could pick up a play I have to read before my Thursday class, but besides having problems with my card so that it took me forever to even get INTO the library, their system is not easily navigated and I had to get to class, so I didn't end up finding the play. The library is GINOURMOUS- it's got a lot of big sections just for studying (and, downstairs, for louder, general hanging out) and floors of journals and books and even a section full of pretty good DVDs. I will definitely be checking it out tomorrow when I have no classes.

My class today, Reading Theatre, was pretty good. I left early to get there, but I wasn't the first one there- surprising, but the girl who was is just as much of an overachiever as I am, but more outwardly so, if anyone can believe that. She's also very nice. People started trickling in and then this woman came in holding a big stack of papers. I say "woman," but truthfully, she looked young enough that if she had come in and sat among us, we never would have asked question. She asked us to arrange the rows of tables and chairs into an inward-facing square so we could all see each other (you know you're in a theatre class when...)
I was pleased to see how small my class is. People had made it sound like we were all going to be in classes of eighty or more, but my professor said that they hadn't even expected as many people as there are to be in the class. That said, there was another section of the class being given at the same time in a different building. I heard from my nice fellow overachiever that we're lucky to have gotten the professor we did; the guy has a reputation as being on the not-so-nice side.
My class is about fifty/fifty in its percentages of international and English students. We have seven Americans, nine English, one Irish, and one whose accent I couldn't place. Not too bad, and no one seemed to judge any one any way, which was cool.
It's funny to hear just how many English accents there are. It might seem like it's a bit late to be commenting on this, but besides the fact that for the first few days here, I was surrounded almost completely by Americans, and actually, London itself is so diverse that I hear way more foreign accents than English. In fact, I've heard more American voices on the tube than I have any other! So sitting in class today was really my first chance to hear a few different accents. One girl even commented on hers at one point: "You may not believe it with my accent, but I am actually middle class," was her statement. I don't think you'd ever hear a comment like that in the States.

In the class time, we went over the syllabus (thank God... I didn't think we were going to do this; I thought she'd just hand us the TWELVE PAGE SYLLABUS and say, "Work hard and enjoy!") and the professor gave us some finer details for the assignments. I don't have a sit-down exam at the end of this class- just two big pieces of writing due that will be huge percentages of our grade- the ONLY parts of our grade. That's one of the weirdest things about academics here- you don't get a participation grade and homework is just reading, so it can't be marked. It's especially shocking to a theatre student not to get a participation grade; that's pretty much our entire grade sometimes at home, along with the assignments we're given during the semester. It's a whole different world over here, academically. While I was getting a little worried, the girl who had been there before me was asking question after concerned question... which was great because she was basically asking everything I wanted to and I could look normal for once in my life.

Another thing about English students (or at least the ones in my class)- they're just like us. In everything I've read and with everything I've been told, I expected my English counterparts to basically already have all of the work done before the term even started- like that scene in Mona Lisa Smile when Katherine asks rhetorical, this-is-just-a-preview questions and it turns out the the girls know every single answer already. But thankfully, this wasn't the case. Some were just as overwhelmed by the reading list as we Americans were, a few complained about being asked to do extra work (and they did it loudly), and some tried their hardest to get out of doing said extra work. It was like... university. So there's one big worry off of my shoulders- I can just blend in (or look like an overachiever. But it's better than looking like a slacker.)

So one big surprise on the syllabus (though thankfully, I had found this out a day or two ago, previewing the document online) was that, even though today was the first day of class, we were supposed to go see a play tonight. As I said, I found out about this a little bit ago, but that didn't make it any less surprising that it was so soon. Some of my classmates didn't even know that we had to see a show tonight. But that wasn't the biggest problem for me; that was that I had been told to order my tickets for the show through the school e-shop. So I did... only to have our professor tell us that associate (a.k.a. international) students wouldn't be being included in the student tickets- we have to buy our own in whatever way we can. Okay... well, I couldn't un-buy my ticket. Unfortunately, my (and another American student's) buying a ticket online meant that I technically took a ticket away from a regular student. Oops...
After class, during which we brainstormed about what "how" and "where"s do to an audience's perception of a show, the other girl and I were asked to stay behind and speak to the professor. Great... my first day of class and I'm already in trouble. We weren't, though- she just wanted to make sure we weren't denied tickets once we got to the theatre. In the end, she just told us to get to the theatre super early to guarantee getting the ticket we had paid for. "If you bought one already, then you deserve the seat," she said.

So the situation slightly sucked- no only was I not guaranteed a seat I had paid for, but in order to hunt down said seat, I had to give up one I definitely had and had already paid for. I had signed up months ago to go on an orientation dinner cruise on the Thames tonight, and I really wanted to go. It had been a nice, clear day, Adrienne and Laura were going, and can you imagine the pictures?! But the show (Julius Caesar) isn't playing again until the 18th, and we're discussing it in a few hours before that night's show. It was a no-win situation, especially since it was Caesar, which is a play that doesn't exactly thrill me. I read it when I was fifteen and came away none too impressed and all too bored.

All the hall-talkiness of my first day of class and meeting Laura at the library afterward meant that, in order to get to the theatre early, I had to run back to my room, change into something acceptably evening theatre-going, and have "dinner" (bread and Nutella, anyone?) before going to the tube station. I made the commute with no trouble and the theatre was easy to find (thankfully, since I apparently never learn my lesson and hadn't brought a map.)

The theatre is called the Roundhouse, and the structure is in its title- it's a round house, although the house itself is not strictly "in the round"; it's more of a thrust. I got my ticket, bought my program (yeah, they're not free here, but they're totally worth the extra money- they have rehearsal photos, interviews, and lots of theatre-nerdy goodness inside) and spent the waiting time reading over the reviews we were supposed to read for class and then reading Going Bovine. As I was doing the latter, I heard a voice talking next to me and glanced up briefly... then did the most giant of double-takes and literally got a head rush that had me tightly gripping the wall. Because standing right next to me, talking into her cell phone was HARRIET WALTER!!!!

Excuse me, this merits some more punctuation: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HARRIET WALTER!!!!

If you don't know who she is, first of all, shame on you :p You can see all of the AMAZING stuff she's been in here, but though I love her movies and TV shows, I love her most for her incredible acting book that came out last summer, Other People's Shoes. It's the first non-fiction book that I've ever hovered over with a highlighter because of all of the amazing content. I've quoted it to my friends. I love that book.

Here's the version of the rest of the story I would like to tell: I said, very coolly, "Excuse me, but are you Harriet Walter? I'm Rachel and I think you're incredible." Ms. Walter said hello back and then we chatted like best friends and then we hung out and we are now inseparable.

Here's the version that actually happened: My brain tripped out, trying to figure out how it could be possible, or even if it was possible that it could be her, then accepted that I was in London, at a well-known theatre, and that I was, in fact, standing next to one of my favorite actors. Cue me almost fainting and then freezing like a deer in headlights while my brain screamed, "TALK TO HER, SHE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE!" until she figured out where her friend was and walked behind me toward the bar. Goodbye, Opportunity. It was cool freaking out while you passed. *sigh*

The show itself was actually really good, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I got WAY more out of it than I did five years ago, probably because I've actually had some Shakespeare experience since then. Which made me think... maybe I should be willing to read/see Shakespeare I've previously hated (*cough*KingLear*cough*)... maybe I'll actually like it. I did go in and out a bit during the second act, but it was a very well-done show, and it really made me think of my home school, as the theatre department's next show is Caesar and basically everyone I know is in it. I'm glad I went to see it tonight (mostly because I saw Harriet Walter, but it being a good show didn't hurt either.)


And now for some random observations of the day:

Uttered by my theatre teacher: "I'll hand you out the syllabus." I thought this ordering of words was a Lancaster county thing, but apparently it's not limited to my home county!

Instead of dimming the lights in the lobby when it's time for the audience to take their seats, they ring a big bell.

British actors' resumes are, in general, more extensive than any American ones I've seen. In America, theatre actors tend to have mostly done theatre, and film actors, film. Here, it seems like almost everyone dabbles equally in theatre, film, television, and radio.

At intermission, the audience clears out of the theatre so quickly and completely that for awhile, I thought I had just imagined that there was more to the play and it was over already.

When they do return from intermission, they bring food like candy and water ice, as well as open cups that hold beer, among other things.

I think I'm beginning to understand why, when the British try to imitate American accents, they automatically revert to exaggerated Southern American. It's easy to take the general extension of vowels just that little bit too far.

The tube is a bit scary at night when you're on your own...just sayin'


(Oh, and about comments- I've heard there's some trouble with those dumb twirly letters not being able to be typed... I'm working on fixing that!

A tip from my mom regarding this: when you can't see the box you're to type those dumb twirly letters in, click on where it says "word verification" [it won't look lik something you can click on; do it anyway.] That worked for my mom and me. :) )