A Semester in London: ART IN LONDON CLASS, RON WEASLEY, MR. BATES, AND OTHER THINGS!!!

Throughout the semester the Art in London class has gone to many museums and galleries including The Tate Britain, The Tate Modern, The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The British Museum, The National History Museum, The Victoria Albert Museum, The Wallace Collection, The Saachi Gallery, The Queen's Gallery, The Dulwich Gallery, and are yet to go to many more. Here are some photos of the artwork that the students have seen.

Here is how I keep the students under control. It works!

The Global Issues class went to Greenwich and were able to stand between two time zones at the same time! Some unconventionally as you will see.

The Cutty Sark!

I had the privilege of going to the House of Lords with Phil Rendell and his grandmother, Baroness Ruth Rendell, the famous murder mystery writer and author of many, many novels. She is a member of the House of Lords. We sat in on a session for a few minutes and then Lady Rendell took us to dinner at the House of Lords' dining room. She later gave us a tour of other parts of the building including Westminster Hall and The Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the crypt. Probably the most beautiful chapel I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures in many of the rooms. Below is the coat room and Westminster Hall where Presidents Clinton and Obama have spoken and where the Queen processes to enter the chamber.

Phil waiting for his grandmother, Lady Rendell to come and get us to bring us into the House of Lords.

Lady Rendell and Phil

Lady Rendell and me, Lord Diomandes!

The night before I went to dinner at The House of Lords. Suzanne Deranek, from our Admissions' Office, Jonathan Kennedy from Tara Arts, his wife, Alise, and his mother, Carol, and I went to dinner at The Ivy. Excellent meal and good time! Nice way to relax from our show being finished!

Suzanne and I also went to see the new musical, The Commitments, based on the film. Excellent show that should play for awhile! Arielle and Hannah Schwartze also went to see it.

Suzanne obviously did some shopping at Primark before we went to the Sunday matinee!

The Theatre in London class last Wednesday went to see MOJO at the Harold Pinter Theatre. It is a revival of a 1995 play that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre. A star studded cast was amazing. It was Rupert Grint's (Ron in Harry Potter) debut acting on stage. The cast also included Brendan Coyle, Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey, Colin Morgan, Merlin in the TV show, Merlin, and Ben Whishaw, Q in Skyfall. We also saw Daniel Mays whom we had seen in The Same Deep Water as Me at the Donmar Warehouse. It was nice to see him in a completely different role. He was one of our favorites in the show!!!

Rupert signing autographs and posing for photos after the show.

Brendan Coyle signed the book Billy Murphy bought me: How to Live Like a Lord without Really Trying. I found it ironic that he signed it seeing that he plays a valet in Downton. He gave me a slight smirk when he saw the title!

We have also spotted other celebrities. Here is John C. Reilly at the National Theatre lobby.

Rebecca and her friend, Colin, from back home ran into Jimmy Page, lead guitarist of Led Zepplin on a train. He was with his son who took the picture. He told her he would do a picture after they got off the train....and he did!

Here is Becca, Haylie, and Colleen playing dress up at the Costume and Theatre exhibit at the Victoria Albert Museum.

Dean Michael Charron, his daughter Kelsey, Suzanne Deranek, and I stopped by Millie's Cookies in honor of Millie Harrison. We ate Millie cookies on her birthday! The Charron's and Suzanne came over to see our play, The Triangle Factory Fire Project. You can see photos of the play in the blog before this one if you haven't seen them already.