“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
-Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Well, officially, we’re done! Most of my classmates are off exploring Europe, and a few have even been snapchatting me from back home in the States. I’m spending one last week here in London, trying to see all the things I got too busy to see during the semester! It’s been a fun and emotional weekend, which I’m going to use as my excuse for this post being late.
Early last week we were all deep in rehearsals for our Acting and Shakespeare performances, plus our two final papers. I spent most of Monday doing work, and then Tuesday morning a group of us were at a coffee shop by 7:30 to finish the papers. Rehearsals all week were stressful but fun, and it was great to see our pieces start coming together. Tuesday night I did take a little break to go on the Jack the Ripper walking tour in East London. I think I was the only one of our group that enjoyed it, but I thought it was great! The guide told us about London at the time, took us to the sites of some of the murders, and showed us photos of victims and suspects. It was really crazy to see areas I recognized, like Brick Lane and Shoreditch market, and hear her talk about what used to be there in the 1880s.
Wednesday we had our Acting performances! We rehearsed in the morning, had a rushed and stressful lunch, and then sat to watch the other group perform scenes from Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” It was cool to see the results of all of their efforts after just hearing them talk and vent about the process all term. Then we set up the classroom for our scenes from “La Ronde.” The performance went really well! We’d never performed for an audience, so we’d never had laughter or any kind of response during. It was amazing how, even in an “open rehearsal” in a classroom, we could feed off the audience’s energy. I’ve learned so much about acting from Gabby’s class, and I feel like she gave us so many tools to take with us for future performances.
“La Ronde” cast with Gabby
Wednesday night I wanted to go see “wonder.land” at the National Theatre, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open – hopefully I’ll get a chance to go this week. Thursday was another crazy day, so I was glad to have gotten some rest. We started off with a huge warm-up, all 20 of us squeezed into the Shakespeare Room with Yolanda, our teacher. Each group got to run their abridged play and then have a quick lunch. The other group went first again, performing a 45-minute version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Then we did our version of “Twelfth Night” and before we knew it, we were officially done with LDA.
Two Olivias
That night all the students and faculty went out for a fancy dinner, and Kathy gave us our diplomas for completing the program. After that, since we didn’t have anything to do on Friday, we finally made it to a club in Picadilly we’ve been meaning to go to since the first week! It was weird to be out on a Thursday, but we were all glad to have one last night out together!
We spent Friday packing, returning books to the library, and saying goodbye to Kathy and Lesley and Sophia in the office. That evening we all piled our leftover food together to share it so it wouldn’t go to waste. We stayed up all night talking and packing, not wanting it to end.
Goodbye Lesley!
Saturday morning we had to be out by ten, so we were up early to finish cleaning the flats. Lots of people headed to the airport, but I got on the Tube to East London, where I’m staying this week with people I met while I’ve been here. After dropping my things off, we headed out for some exploring – and we didn’t have to go very far. We spent the whole day enjoying the Tower of London – just half a mile away from their flat. Then we went to an “American BBQ” restaurant, which was pretty good, but it’s hard to impress a KC girl with BBQ from anywhere else.
Sunday we did absolutely nothing, which was AWESOME. Today I’m off for exploring and souvenir shopping!
