Plans for Scotland

People, priorities and plans change over time, sometimes without notice - even in London. Even so, I am still committed, one way or another, to traveling to Scotland this weekend to tour the countryside. Castles and J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter will be high on my priority list. Distilleries less so.

I've arranged my Gatwick Express to the airport, an Easy Jet flight to and a room reservation at the local Holiday Inn in Edinburgh. I have a guided tour of the country side scheduled and an early morning ticket for the castle on the agenda before returning home early Sunday.

Edinburgh is where the first pages of the seven volume story of Harry, Hermione and Ron were written - and there will be much to see and do in just a short two days time.

The Land of Kings

Edinburgh Castle

The Streets of Edinburgh

The Birthplace of Harry Potter
Click here for more information.

Interning - Week Two

Days 78 through 81: What a Great Place!

The second week of internship with Camden People's brings a new set of challenges. See those windows on the first floor of the building? I have to design a display for the upcoming season. Pervious interns have concentrated on making sure that each display element is perfectly aligned with the one adjacent to it. You might guess that this was not the highest priority for creative people like Matt and Freya. Maybe I will try out some "Creative Memories" scrap booking techniques!

I now have my own set of keys and handle daily banking transactions for the theatre without supervision.

The project for the reminder of the semester has emerged from conducting a non-traditional SWOT analysis - matching my strengths against their weaknesses, creating an opportunity for me to be most helpful to them in the remaining month of work. How cool is that????

Housing and Roommates

Complaining Distresses Me So.

To be honest, we really didn't know what to expect when we arrived. Manson Place is adequate, but the living situation does leave a little to be desired.

The co-ed flats for VU-GCPers are in the basement, I'm guessing because there are so few of us in comparison to the guys. There are no windows and only one bedroom for the four of us in Flat 1. Three share the one bedroom in Flat 2, and they have no common room. Meanwhile, the guys are upstairs in larger flats - two per bedroom, 6 or 8 per flat, with larger kitchens and common rooms. There is a public common room and a study space on the basement floor, which is convenient for us basement dwellers.

We all started out sharing our refrigerators and cooking dinners together. As time has gone on, many bedrooms, (which include metal bunks and single beds but not much else) and some common rooms resemble cyclone city. Although we have a cleaning service of sorts, they are not really equal to the task. Bathrooms and kitchens have become an issue.

It's proven difficult to get even the smallest of our groups on the same page when it comes to neatness and cleanliness. Some Villanovans are traveling so frequently on weekends, that just keeping up with the laundry is a daunting task. Visiting family and friends provide the only motivation for neatening and cleaning.

I've taken to eating one big meal during lunch hour at work. I keep small snacks in my suitcase for the morning or evening when the mood strikes, but I have abandoned the kitchen all together.

GCPers who lived on campus fall semester have, I suppose, had an easier transition in this regard. As for me, I do admit that I miss my room at home, especially space for quiet time, a little privacy and space for my stuff!

We made friends with a few students from Boston University, who are also in London for the semester. Let's just say, their housing is sweet.

First Days of Interning

Thursday (Day 74) "Work" and Show Number Eight!

Week one of my internship with Camden People's Theatre began slowly enough - reading policy and procedure statements, signing waivers, taking a tour of the building, but the pace picked up quickly.

There will be a lot of office management stuff to which to attend weekly: updating the subscribers data base, preparing feedback reports to directors, processing receipts from the current show, managing spreadsheets, preparing bank deposits and related tasks.

The director, Matt, is soooooooo nice. Right off, he has asked me to collect biographical data on potential actors, search the internet for foundations and agencies to which CPT might qualify for funding and take minutes at meetings with applicants for CPT's spring festival of contemporary theatre. The festival, called SPRINT, "provides a showcase platform of major importance for emerging theatre practitioners."

Perhaps CPT's most important contribution to the local theatre scene is TONIC, a scheme for the Training Of New and Innovative Companies. "With the support of Arts Council England, London, CPT now works with up to four emerging companies per year, providing support towards the development of new performance work."

Freya Elliott is the assistant director at CPT. She is interested in creating visuals that combine flim with live performance. Freya is also mixes sculpture, video, paintings, prints and performance pieces. Really neat! She's fun too.

CPT's current production is The Flies by Jean Paul Sartre where "Sartre meets Fight Club! Theatre meets Live Indie Rock Music! It's a play with the Band A Riot in Heaven live on stage. The most famous French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre tells in The Flies “the tragedy of Liberty against that of Fatality.”

CPT's next production, one that I can't wait to see, is A Place at the Table. It's a "bold artistic journey tracing the shockwaves from the 1993 assassination of Burundi’s President Ndadaye backwards through Colonialism to ancient myth and forwards to the Rwandan genocide and conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

The really great thing about working here is that already I am getting to see ALL of the theatre business - from the very start of an idea to a satisfied audience filing out the door.

Somebody Has To Do It!

Unbeknownst to me, it's customary in the business for small theatres to schedule an extra matinee performance of a new production just for the "theatre community" - a "private showing" if you will, to solicit feedback and generate "buzz."

This week, The New Wimbledon Theatre issued such an invitation for Holes. It's based on Louis Sachar’s award-winning novel, and follows Disney’s successful film. The London stage premiere at Wimbledon's black box studio is from Director Adam Penford and Designer Simon Kenny.

(Having read the book dozens of times, it was one of my probably my first reading obsessions in elementary school. And even better, I had seen the play produced at the People's Light and Theatre in Malvern just a few years ago.)

So after lunch on Thursday, Matt sent me off to Wimbledon to represent CPT. It was a beautiful spring day. The "assignment" was in a part of London that I had not yet had a chance to explore. Holes is one of my favorite stories. Oh well, somebody has to do it!

Also Today: The Feast of St. Joseph

Happy Feast Day Father Joe!

Tonight - Phantom

Wednesday (Day 73): Show Number Seven!

I had forgotten just how much I love Phantom of the Opera! I've seen three professional productions of the play - New York, Philadelphia, and now London. It was such a joy to see it where it all originated. The music is always so captivating.

The actors who played Christine and Raoul were perhaps the best I have seen. The rest of the cast less so. But to answer the question .... Les Miserables - London continues to out distance all of the productions I have seen here or anywhere else for that matter.

Perhaps additional notes will follow as time allows.