One More Rehearsal Before We Open !!!!!

Invitation to come see Radium Girls Tuesday Oct. 14th - Saturday, Oct. 18th at the New Wimbledon Studio Theatre at 7:45 pm

Dave, David, and Gareth....Rose Bruford Students during a break from the directing scenes

It has been a good week except for the fact that I have been limping around London like Ratso Rizzo from the movie, Midnight Cowboy. My knee has been killing me! It feels the same way it did when I had my knee surgery a few years ago...hopefully, it gets better. My Italian friend, Sirio, a professional photographer was here for a week and left on Friday. He was here for a photo shoot of the guy who owns the Formula One car factory, a soccer team, and other things. Sirio also photographed the 4th riches man in the world who since then has lost 21 billion dollars. I bet he isn't smiling like he did in Sirio's pictures!!!!

Sirio outside the Royal Court Theatre

Classes have been going well. I went to Rose Bruford to watch directing scenes that my British students were doing for another one of their classes. They did a great job both directing and acting. I had a great class doing scenes from Our Town with them. The SMU students continued working on British dialects with Tony James. The Art in London class went to the Tate Modern Museum on Thursday. Last week Peter, Shannon, and Curtis took advantage of free tickets from their art teacher to go to an exhibit at the Royal Hospital of Chelsea. They loved it, and Shannon made Curtis carry a bag with tons of art books in it!!! Poor guy...A group also went to Madame T's Wax Museum. We are looking forward to both Michael Charron, the Dean of the School of the Arts at Saint Mary's and Brother William Mann, the new President of Saint Mary's coming to see Radium Girls next week. We have one more rehearsal on Monday. Tomorrow is a day off because the theatre is unavailable. Tommy and Peter and I are going to Camden Town to find a couple of costume pieces that we need for the show. Tomorrow night Tim, Peter, and I are going to see Bo Burnham, a 19 year old comedian that Peter is familiar with and likes a lot. We will see.

Rehearsals have been going well and we want to invite everyone in London reading this to the show!!! I included some photos from today's rehearsal. Plus a video clip.

Cast of Radium Girls invites you all to the show!!!! Enjoy the rehearsal photos...

Tim focusing lights.

Scene change lighting.

Ali (Sob Sister) and Bill (Reporter)

Shannon, Caitlin, and Bern as the Radium Girls

Bill (Dr. Knef) and Caitlin (Grace Fryer)

Caitlin (Grace) and Curtis (Dr. Flinn)

Caitlin (Grace) and Bern (Miss Wiley)

Curtis (Male Shopper) and Shannon (Shopgirl)

Joe, Danielle, Curtis, Shannon, Bill, and Ali in Shop Scene

Ali (Widow), Curtis (Lovesick Cowboy), Joe(Venecine Salesman)

Curtis (Lee) and Peter (Roeder)

Bern(Photographer), Shannon (Katherine), Bill (Tom), Caitlin (Grace) and Ali (Sob Sister)

Board Room scene change

Bern (Miss Wiley) and Bill (Mr. Berry)

Curtis (Mr. Lee), Danielle (Mrs. Roeder) and Peter (Roeder)

Joe (Von Sochocky) and Ali (Sob Sister)

Nightmare scene: Shannon (Katherine), Danielle (Madame Curie), Bern (Irene)

Ali (Mrs. Fryer) and Caitlin (Grace Fryer)

Caitlin (Grace Fryer)

Joe (Von Sochocky)

Courtroom scene

Bill (Tom) and Caitlin (Grace) Cemetery scene

1940 - Cemetery Peter (Roeder), Shannon (Harriet) and Caitlin (Grace)

MORE PHOTOS LATER....MY CAMERA BATTERY WENT DEAD BEFORE THE SHOW ENDED TODAY....OH, WELL!!!!!

Bill as Dr. Knef and Caitlin as Grace

Great Week in London and Surrounding Areas...

This is a long blog with lots of photos. I wanted to get caught up with what we have been doing.

Last week we saw Ivanov with Kenneth Branagh. The translation by Tom Stoppard was very good. The class had mixed reviews on the production. Sets were great!

Here are some photos I did not included last entry:

Waiting in line at the Globe to enter the theatre.

Students waiting for Merry Wives of Winsor at the Globe to begin.

Boat races on the Thames during the Thames Festival (Italians?)

Tim, Mary, Michelle, and Caitlin at the Globe

Classroom - Bern looks enthused~!

Ali, Joe, Caitlin, and Tommy at Blackfriars in Oxford

Peter thinks he is a student at Oxford!!! Wishful thinking Pete!

Rehearsals at the Drill Hall end tomorrow! That will be the end of lugging props and costumes across London. We move down to the Wimbledon Theatre on Monday and are ready to settle in. Roger Frith, our lighting designer, came to Wednesday's rehearsal. Rented a saxaphone for Tommy and scene change music is going to be great. Monday will be move in day. We have to put all the furniture together that we bought from IKEA and hang lights...hopefully, I can get to stage the show Monday night in the theatre. Actors and crew are doing a fantastic job! Below are some photos from rehearsal at the Drill Hall.

Bern and Bill rehearsing a Wiley/Berry scene

Tim Stage Managing

Michelle doing line notes!

Yesterday(Friday) we went to Canterbury one of my favorite, magical places in the world. Students had a really great tour guide, an Italian who has lived in England for 30 years, Andre Russo. Will try to get him again next year. The Cathedral is as magnificent as ever. So much History. It was a rainy day however. Rain held off while the students were on tour. Canterbury photos are below:

Students on tour in Canterbury

View of Cathedral through the Gate

The tour continues.

Students waiting to enter the Cathedral to get out of the cold and rain.

Tonight we attended a performance of Now or Later by Christopher Shinn at the Royal Court Theatre. The play takes place in a hotel room the night of the election of the President of the United States. The Democratic candidate is likely to win. At the same time a series of photos of the president-elect's son, who is gay, appear on the internet with him wearing a costume dressed as Mohammed. Every one of the advisors and his mother try to get him to apologize, but he refused. It finally comes down to a showdown between father and son. This was an excellent play with incredible acting. Their American dialects were excellent. We had front row seats. It starred Eddie Redmayne a wonderful young actor who is currently on television in the mini-series Tess of the D'Urbervilles. He was also in The Good Sheperd and The Other Boleyn Girl among others. The students got to speak to him before and after the show.

Students outside the Royal Court Theatre

Students and myself in front of the marquee for Now or Later

Ali, Bern and Caitlin with Eddie Redmayne after the show.

Bill getting Matthew Marsh's autograph. He played the President elect. Last year we saw him in Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet.

Bill and Bern with Domhnall Gleeson who plays Matt. He was in Great Expectations that we saw at the Gate Theatre last year in Dublin when students were studying at the Gaiety School of Acting.

My classes at Rose Bruford are going great. We have been working on The Crucible and Our Town. Both classes of students are doing well. Our SMU students have been working diligently on learning a variety of British accents for the play Us and Them that they are working on in class with Tony James. Here is a photo of my afternoon group.

Rose Bruford students.

I want to end this long blog with a new tidbit I learned while drinking coffee(Me drinking coffee, go figure!)

Jonathan Kennedy, one of my closest friends in London, and the person who is handling all of our publicity were having coffee and dessert at a cafe in Neal's Yard in Covent Garden when I look up and saw a plaque on the wall of an upstairs flat. Monty Python lived there. It was the first time I realized that Monte Python was an actual person. He was a film maker....who knew?

Jonathan Kennedy and the pigeons! They are taking over the world. Believe me!

Monty Python's flat in Neal's Yard.

The plaque....

I will try to get the students to write the next blog. Cheers! Gary

Break-a-leg in Winona, Oxford, and other things

All of us here want to wish Judy, Kit, Lisa, and the cast and crew of Bus Stop best of luck on the show...our thoughts are with you as you open! Break-a-leg!

Tim Markus spent four days with us. He just got off of stage managing a tour of the opera, Porgy and Bess in Germany! He got to see 7 shows while here and I believe he beat JC's record of number of London shows seen....!!!! He and I went to see the musical, Zorro which was fantastic...the music was by the Gypsy Kings. It was very humorous, great choreography and a lot of fun! Better than I thought. He ended his trip by seeing War Horse at the National which we will be seeing Nov. 20th...waiting in line at 8am paid off!

We went to Oxford today. Had great weather! Classes are going well. I am enjoying teaching 22 British students at Rose Bruford College where our students take acting class with Tony James which they are really enjoying. We are seeing Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov tomorrow afternoon and Monday Someone to Watch Over Me at the fringe theatre, Baron's Court right down the street from the student flats! Also venturing into Camden Town tomorrow morning to look for props and costumes pieces. Rehearsals are going well at the Drill Hall....

Will post more pictures and videos (Shannon and Danielle punting in Oxford!!!!) Boy can those girls navagate a boat!!!! hahahaha

Again break-a-leg Bus Stop cast and crew and Brother William congratulations!!!!

Our First Week in London

D.W. Gregory with the cast of Radium Girls

We have had an exciting first week. On the day the students arrived we met D.W. Gregory the playwright of Radium Girls in the crypt of St. Martin's of the Field church in Trafalgar Square. (See Picture to the right) We saw Mid Summer Night's Dream at the Globe for Theatre in London class. Samuel Beckett's five short plays in an evening called Fragments at the Young Vic Theatre directed by Peter Brook. Looking forward to our discussion on these plays in the Page to Stage class. I went to see Sam Shepard's new play, Kicking a Dead Horse that he directed at the Almeida Theatre. The students will see it on Saturday. Tonight we are going to see Merry Wives of Winsor at the Globe. The Thames Festival is today all along the river. We will attend and work our way to the Globe for tonight's show. Check out the short video clip of Dolores Gregory at the crypt.

I am giving over the blog to some of the students.

Hey this is Danielle, Shannon, Michelle, Amber and Peter. Since our first day here we've been having a blast. We got off the plane unpacked and went to meet the playwright of Radium Girls. We went to the Crypt at St. Martin of the Fields church and having, what else but true English tea. The building was brick, when it got later they would put candles on tables which really added to the atmosphere. We had a good time talking to Dolores. We got a chance to ask her questions about the setting, character, and any other questions we had to make our production better.

The next day we went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Globe. When we got off the tube stop, we were walking along Southwark Bridge when we first saw The Globe, all of us got excited and couldn't wait to be the first in line to be the Groundlings (standing seats in The Globe closest to the stage). We then got ready to rush the stage to get the closest standing spots. The show was amazing, everything was amazing. The interesting thing about the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was that two hours before the performance something happened to the actor playing Puck, he would not be performing. There was a note on the enterance to the theatre stating that someone else would be filling in and that he would have a script in hand for the production. During the prolouge Peter Quince came out and told us that The Globe doesn't have enough funding to hire understudies so someone else in the cast would have to perform instead. A lot of us were pretty upset, but when he walked on stage we completly forgot that he had a script in hand; he was AMAZING! It was a great performance. Later we found out that the "new" Puck only had two hours to get ready for his big role. He originally was a fairy and because something happened to the original puck he got the chance to take the stage in a leading role. So never get disheartend if you have a small role, you never know what can happen. You might get the chance of a lifetime.

Saint Mary's students at the Globe

A fast recap (more details later)...

We also saw Fragments at the Young Vic. We were all very excited to find that the one female player was a character from the latest Harry Potter movie. For most of us, it was our first time seeing absurdist theatre. Some of the short plays were as dark as we imagined them to be, but there were others that were really funny! Lots of humor; it was great to see on stage.

We've also been able to see some other shows on our own. We went to a music club in Notting Hill to see a friend of Gary's, Nassau Royal (Dave Ross), perform. Great acoustic music; fun bloke to talk to. You can google his name to find his myspace and hear his original music. He plans on attending our show.

Nassau Royal plays a C chord

We'll talk more about other shows in a later blog. Hope all is well in the States. Cheers!

My First Few Days

Well I arrived on Monday and have taken a couple of days to settle into my flat! It is a pretty nice flat in a great neighborhood. Very convenient. Finally, I am over jet lag, and I went out and about today. Went to the National Theatre and Yound Vic to purchase plays and then went to see Josh Hartnett in a staged production of Rain Man based on the film with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. It was a preview performance, and I heard from one of the actors that they went through two directors and had to delay the opening for 10 days. Tomorrow night I am going to see Joan Rivers with Jonathan Kennedy. He had an extra ticket so it is a freebee! The students arrive on Saturday and at 5pm we are going to meet D.W. Gregory, the playwright of Radium Girls. More on that later. I was watching the British TV show Antique Roadshow and someone brought in a watch from WWI era that was painted with raduim paint. They actually spent some time talking about the girls who worked in the factory and ended up getting cancer. Weird moment! The weather has been pretty cool here. Not hot at all. I brought too many short sleeve shirts!!!

Ta Ta

Gary