A Semester in London: London 2010: Week Three, Part One

Well here is the blog for Week Three. I am doing this blog in two parts. Part two will cover our trip to Bath last Friday. This blog will review all we did this week. The photo above is the Real Greek! Actually, Michael and I were craving greek food and went to The Real Greek restaurant. It is sort of like a greek tapas place where you can order alot of different greek appetizers. Regina and Joanna happened to walk by on their way to The New London Theatre where we were going to see War Horse, and Regina took the picture from outside the restaurant. Last Monday was an interesting day. In the Theatre in London class, Greg and Marie did a presentation on The Old Vic Theatre and The National Theatre. The Page to Stage class read and discussed War Horse, a play that was produced at the National Theatre and then transferred to The New London Theatre on Drury Lane last year. It is scheduled to go to Broadway, and it was announced today that Speilberg is making a film of it. (Hope he doesn't ruin it!!!) The horse puppets were made by a company from South Africa. Monday afternoon we went on a tour of Drury Lane Theatre, the oldest theatre in London. Monday night we went to see War Horse. Everyone loved it, and we had a pretty lively discussion on it in class today. It was interesting to see what changes were made to the script.

THE PLAYS:

Students waiting to be let into the theatre.

On Saturday evening we went to the Greenwich Theatre in Greenwich to see a production of The Laramie Project. For those of you who were in London last year, it was the same company, Wild Oats, that performed it. There were three different actors in this production. It pretty much was the same as last year. We liked it but were also critical of it. The company really played the sentimentality up too much, and it became a play about the actors doing the interviews as opposed to them telling the story. On October 10th they are doing Laramie, Ten Years Later. If we are not rehearsing that night, I would like to go see the show. Many of our students saw it at the Guthrie last year. Some of the students spent the day exploring Greenwich and most of us had dinner there. Greenwich is where we performed The Diviners, a number of years ago at the Greenwich Playhouse (not the theatre Laramie was in). Brought back alot of memories. Both good and bad!

REHEARSALS:

In addition to attending plays, we spent every night and Sunday afternoon rehearsing for our production of God's Country. It was great for our students to see The Laramie Project in order to view another type of documentary theatre. Below are some photos of the rehearsals at The Drill Hall.

Tom and Dave waiting for rehearsal to begin.

Joanna reviewing lines.

Jarod going over one of his many parts.

The Holy Aryan Family!

Rick and Laurence (Before his concussion and after injuring his leg) doing the Alan Berg 60 Minutes Interview scene. So we did not have Laurence at Sunday's rehearsal. He just got out of the hospital with a cut on his head and a concussion! Waiting to hear that story.

Rehearsing the Rader courtroom scene.

The military militia training scene.

Shane being interrogated...not by Annie, she is narrating here.

Heather, the Assistant Stage Manager on book and Michael, the Stage Manage following blocking notes.

THE CLASSROOM:

Classes are going well. On Tuesdays we go to Sidcup for the Global Issues class (Michael taught the class this week because Steve Dykes was in the United States visiting Chicago and the ATA students in Minnesota) and the Acting class with Tony James. On Tuesday afternoons, Brian York teaches the British Politics class back in our classroom on Hammersmith Road. On Wednesday morning is the British Literature class with Patricia Owen and Wednesday afternoon is Art in London with Elizabeth Dawson. This past week Elizabeth took the students to The British Museum. They enjoyed it and had a fun time as you can see below. Thursday it the International Business class with Christopher Bond and Darren, and I teach both of my classes on Monday. Friday is the day we go on daytrips. This week it was Bath. I will do a separate blog on that trip tomorrow.

Our classroom on Hammersmith Road

Students waiting for class to begin.

THE DRURY LANE THEATRE:

As part of the Theatre in London class we took a tour of The Drury Lane Theatre, the oldest theatre in London. Unlike other tours, this is a theatrical tour where two actors play a number of roles and take us around this West End Theatre giving us a lot of history. For those who have been on the tour the past couple of years will notice in the picture that "Drury Lane", the nickname we gave one of the tour guides, was not working there anymore. However, we did have two excellent tour guides. We were not able to sit in the actual theatre this year because they were rehearsing a scene from Oliver, the current show in the Drury Lane. We were however able to pass through and watch the rehearsal.