First Week of Classes

It has been a very long, busy (and chilly) week! It was also the first week of classes, so I have a lot to report on! (academic pun intended) On Monday I had one of my electives, Theatre in London. The first hour of class we played "two truths and a lie" to get to know our classmates better. It was a very successful icebreaker, I learned about one guy's career in the circus, someone else's 8 pet catfish, and Katy Perry's cousin. Just kidding. That was a lie. I'm really excited for this class: we see a show every Wednesday night and then discuss it next week in class. This week, we saw a play called 'Greenland' at the National Theatre.  It was an interesting experience. The script was written by three or four different playwrights, and the result was a non-cohesive storyline. It was all about the environment and global warming, which is a provocative issue, but not an interesting play. The characters didn't really have any connection to one another, so I didn't really care about any of them. Technically, it was a really cool show. They had a lot of special effects: it rained on stage, snowed (they used small pieces of white tissue paper), they flew in a shopping cart, and really cool projections of text and images. Other than that though, I wouldn't really recommend seeing it. Not that any of you reading this blog are considering flying to England to see Greenland, but anyway....

Tuesday I had my other elective: Arts in London. I'll say what I told Teny on Tuesday night, that I forget how much I love history. It's basically an Art History class, but about every piece that is in a museum in England. We go to a new museum each week, having prepared individual mini presentations about a few pieces in the museum, which we share with the class when we come to our assigned piece of art. Over the course of the semester, we are going to the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, etc. I'm so excited to see everything! On Tuesday, we did a run-through of History, a big overview of different time periods and political/social details of each. Teny, I felt like we were studying for the Art History A.P., making a timeline of history, and discussing the art associated with each. My class is small, only about 8 people, and I am the only student who has taken an art history class. I just can't wait to re-learn and discuss it all again! If acting fails, I might follow in your footsteps, Mikes. Those McDonnell children, we just love art! (Because you always dragged us through museums when we were little, Mom and Dad!)

Wednesday, the real work began. My first day of RADA classes. I was really nervous, because I didn't know what our schedule (pronounced shedule) was going to be like, or what to expect. All 9 of us had prepared monologues, which we were going to present in front of our peers and all the RADA faculty. Only slightly intimidating. I had prepared the "I would not be thy executioner..." monologue by Pheobe from As You Like It. We just dove right in with the monologues. There were about 15 teachers, all sitting in a straight line, and we stood up, one by one, and "showed them some acting." Afterwards, we got immediate feedback. It was all a little sugar-coated, things like, "very brave choices," "this is a really hard thing to do," "you all must be very nervous, and jet-lagged" (I don't think that teacher was impressed), and then a not so sugar coated response: "you guys made choices and decisions, but they were down the wrong path." Alrighty then...

The head of the program, Jeff...I forget his last name (typical, Mom I wonder where I get that from) gave us an introduction speech, about how they're not there to be our friends, we're all there to get better and become serious actors, and the teachers are here to help make that happen, etc. It reminded me of our Cherubs intro, except it was like Cherubs on crack. (excuse my crudeness..) like Cherubs on Steroids. We have class Wednesday through Friday from 9 AM to 7 PM. Each class usually runs about 2 hours, except on Fridays, when we have fewer classes, and they run about 3 1/2 hours. We have one 1 hour break for lunch. I wanted intense. I think I found it.

We dove right in. Literally, 5 minutes after we finished our monologues we were walking to our first class, which was Clowning. This class REALLY reminded me of cherubs, we did a lot of  ensemble work, which was a good way to start to really get to know the 8 people I'm going to be with three days a week for the next four months. Then we had a Monologues class, where we reworked the monologues we had performed earlier, and got more one-on-one feedback from the director of the program, who is also one of our teachers. He has a great sense of humor, I really enjoyed his class and I think I'm really going to enjoy working with him. I felt that way about all my teachers this first week (I'm going to wind this down because I want to go have a sandwich), how lucky I am to be here and to have the opportunity to learn from them and work with them. Mom and Dad, I am so thankful that I am here, in this program, with all these amazing opportunities. I was so nervous before I left, I think I forgot to say that.