Read until the end of the post, you won't regret it!

Alright now we all know I love theatre so let me catch you up on two of the past productions that I have seen.

First I saw Wicked. We got students tickets two hours before the show and were on about the 6^th row right in the center. Weirdest thing—they had English accents! That totally through me off for the first few minutes. I guess there’s no reason why they should have American accents, I was just thrown off by the fact that they didn’t have them!

Our Elphaba was Ashleigh Gray. She is the stand-by for Elphaba. I think everyone gets a little nervous when they see an understudy is on, but I don’t know why! She was fantastic! If I hadn’t seen the board before I walked in the theatre I would never have picked up on the fact that she was the understudy. She had a great voice (only not low enough to hit that last not in “I’m not that Girl”).

Glinda, played by Dianne Pilkington, was the one that I did not really like. Her voice was great I had no problem there. She just seemed a bit bored up on the stage. She rushed through all her lines and thereby missed a lot of the punchlines of jokes. I just wanted to scream “SLOW DOWN!” so that people could actually hear the funny parts. The Glinda I saw in Memphis (Helene York) was hilarious.

Everyone else in the production was good. No stand-outs or anything. Except that I did like this ensemble better than the one on tour. Maybe they are more comfortable in their roles here; they just didn’t seem to try too hard.

Another neat thing about seeing it in a permanent theatre rather than on tour is the differences in set. Surprisingly they had the giant dragon on tour (whose function in the play I really don’t understand), but in this theatre there were platforms and woodwork creeping off of the stage and onto the walls.

Sorry I look like a homeless person in that picture. That's Kelsey on the left and Jen on the right. One thing I really picked up on after 3 productions was the strong political undertones in Wicked. It’s really a testament against the government. There’s a ton of corruption going on where the Wizard and Madame Morrible do anything to try to gain power over the land, even if it means suppressing some voices. Actually during class the other day one of my professors said the L. Frank Baum wrote the Wizard of Oz with the Wizard as a representation of Williams Jennings Bryan, fictionalized in the 1950s play “Inherit the Wind”…which brings me to my next play.

As a class we went and saw “Inherit the Wind”. You’ve probably heard of this one before—it’s a fictionalized account of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial where a teacher was prosecuted for breaking the law saying no one could teach evolution in schools. The play basically supports the side of evolution, but if that’s all one takes from the play then you have missed the major point. The play advocates freedom of thought, that everyone should be allowed to express their own opinions. I like to think of it in opposite terms of the play. If the people in power were advocating evolution and suppressing the idea of intelligent design (as things seems to be heading) I would want to be able to have the freedom to talk about my beliefs.

The character of Matthew Harrison Brady, supporter of Intelligent Design, was played by David Troughton. Oddly enough his son was in the ensemble at the Royal Shakespeare Company so we got to see him in about 3 plays! But David Troughton was a fantastically bigoted Brady. His accent was (surprisingly) spot on. The play takes place in a small town in Tennessee, so I feel qualified to judge accents! Some of the characters though did not even try to put on an accent. Apparently Troughton played Dr. Who at some point (maybe he was the original one?). I've never heard of the tv show Dr. Who but it's apparently big over here.

The opposing character Henry Drummond, defender of evolution, was played by…drumroll….KEVIN SPACEY! Agh so cool! I think seeing him in person really convinced me as to how great of an actor he really is. His portrayal of Drumond was terrifying at some points, cheeky at others, but Spacey really drives the show.

I love the picture above. The programs had one man's face on the front and one on the back. Watching David Troughton and Kevin Spacey act up there together was amazing. They are both fantastic actors playing commanding and dominant characters. The results of those confrontations made sparks. That's a lame description, but I have no other words for it.

Best part--all week I had been gathering up a group to hit the stage door after the show, and we met Kevin Spacey! I got him to sign my program and then we took a group picture with him.

He's a really quiet guy. He didn't ask what our names were or even say hello although there was only about 10 people waiting at the stage door. Not that I expect any actor to do that. I'm grateful that he was willing to sign at all! He had a window installed in the door that he can open to sign autographs so he doesn't actually have to come outside. Ha! I guess we're a dangerous group. I did feel a bit like I was ordering a hamburger at the drive thru...

I really feel pressured to come up with awesome titles for my blog posts and I never can. Deal with it.

So finally I have gotten bit by the tourist bug I think because I’ve done about 80 zillion things in the past few days. One night (I don’t remember which night) we went as a group to a play at the National Theatre called “The Power of Yes”. AWFUL. I did not like it one bit. It was about the financial crisis. The play was less of a play and more of a documentary. The play was about the author talking to different people in finance and them telling him all these confusing things. So I was unable to follow what was happening after about 15 minutes. And I tried really hard to follow it. I was bored the whole time and the only thing I really gathered from the play is the bankers are the reason that the world is falling apart. A bit extreme, right? Well that’s how author David Hare really portrayed them. But I am not letting this blog get political, so let’s suffice it to say that the play was boring and one sided. And extremely uncreative.

One redeeming factor of the play was that it had another Harry Potter actor in it! Jeff Rawle played two characters in the play who’s names I could never tell you, but he plays Cedric Diggory’s dad in Goblet of Fire. So cool! This trip is like Harry Potter to the extreme.

Then we went to the Imperial War Museum. This museum starts with World War 1 and then chronologically goes through each war or conflict that England (or the British Empire) has been a part of through the years. Most of it was about England’s colonies trying to get out from under their power (although there was no mention of when America fought for independence…).

The museum was very well done. Dad you would be proud of me because I stopped and read most of the plaques although I missed having you there to explain everything to me (Now I will know whether or not you actually read this Dad). They had an entire floor devoted to the Holocaust as well. I’ve never been in a Holocaust exhibit of this magnitude so it was a very hard experience. Also they had interactive things like a trench experience and a blitz experience. The line for the blitz one was too long but walking through the fake trenches was actually kinda scary. That night we went and saw Wicked, but you want a full and separate blog post for that right? Thought so. Then, a couple of days ago I went to Platform 9 ¾!

Huzzah! Actually right now they’re doing construction at King’s Cross station so it wasn’t actually between Platforms 9 and 10, but that’s a minor detail. King’s Cross was surprisingly ordinary really. I wonder if they actually film there or not?

Anywho, right after that we went to the British Library. Of course I love libraries. They had a lot of cool artifacts. They had the other copy of Shakespeare’s first folio (I saw the other in Stratford), handwritten Beatles lyrics, and a copy of the Magna Carta to name a few. Actually my favorite part was a section about music and it had several handwritten copies of famous pieces including Handel’s Messiah and The Wedding March from a Misummer Night’s Dream. So what did I do but rip out my iPod and follow along with these old pieces of sheet music.

That night we went to Harrod’s. Really impressive place but also terribly out of budget for me! One weird thing they had was two separate monuments to Princess Diana and her secret boyfriend Dodi whose family owns Harrod’s. The monuments were tacky and just strange. They had like a wine glass from the limo with residue in it. Gross.

Yesterday I went to Camden Road Market. It was really cool! They had typical touristy stuff but also like vintage clothes, antique and everything you could imagine. The market used to be stables, but now the market operates 7 days a week there.

After that I went to Westminster Abbey. It was really neat. I went there the last time I came to England but I had forgotten how impressive it was. Every king and queen is crowned, married and buried there. Literally buried there. There were so many coffins of Kings and Queens dating back to the 1200s. Coolest of all was the Mary Queen of Scots is buried there (but her monument still has her head on her shoulders). Also located in Westminster Abbey is poet’s corner, which is where many famous authors are either buried or have a monument in their honor. That afternoon I stayed for Evensong. I’d never been to an Evensong before and it was really neat. We actually got to sit up in the choir area because there wasn’t really a huge crowd gathered there for Evensong.

More importantly, last night the Rebels played Arkansas! Pig soooooieeeee! Gross. But the Rebels pulled out a win! Highlights: 1. Jerrel Powe went in at fullback! What a man of many talents.

That's not a picture from last night, but it's just shows his greatness the best, I think. 2. Being able to hear the crowd chanting "HOUSTON NUTT!" over the commentator's mics through the internet and into the earbuds of my headphones. Houston Nutt for president!

3. Winning a game. Sad that my highlights have come to that, but its the truth! Go Rebs!

"Like Electricity..."

Ok about a week ago I went and saw Billy Elliot The Musical for the first time. It completely blew me away. The story, the dancing, the kids, the music is all wonderful. The show was much more emotional than I was anticipating, too. You may have heard of it because it is based off of a movie from a few years back and the music is by Elton John.

Basically Billy Elliot is about a 12 year old boy who lives in a small mining town in County Durham, England during the 1980s miner's strike. His whole family are miners, but one day he gets caught up in a ballet class by accident and decides he wants to be a ballet dancer. The musical explores how he struggles with the expectations of his family and his community in order to pursue his dream.

We got so lucky with our tickets. The great thing about being in London for 5 weeks is that we don't have to buy tickets ahead of time. Most places offer day tickets for way more than half price off that are on the first two rows and some places offer student tickets as well. We went to the Billy theatre about 4 hours before showtime and got front row seats for about a third of the price! This was my view.

Some of our view was restricted, but I just love to be so close to the stage, that I did not care one bit! So many of the actors would come and sit smack in front of us on the edge of the stage. We totes made a connection with Billy too. I think it's so fun when you're so close that you constantly make eye contact with the actors.

Our little Billy was 12 year old Ollie Gardner. SO CUTE! I just wanted to steal him! I was totally blown away by what these kids do onstage. In addition to Billy there are 3 other little boys and about 15 hilarious ballet girls. But Ollie totally dominated this show. Billy has to be able to tap, sing, act, ballet, street dance and so much else. And this kid was awesome at all of it.

One thing I do not enjoy about English theatre is the audiences. Seriously, everywhere we go it is like pulling teeth to get a standing ovation. One of the craziest moves in Billy Elliot is during the song "Electricity". The boy has been dancing and sing for awhile already and then at the very end he runs up a wall and does a back flip. WHAT?! I was freaking out and in America that would totally deserve a standing O. So I almost jumped out of my seat (and the Billy jerked his head to look at me) and had to restrain myself from standing up. Come on England!

So at the end of the musical me and the girl I went with were one of maybe 8-10 people in the entire theatre who stood up. Come on now. In America even the dumbest plays get standing ovations. A-mazing.

One thing about this show is that it really has depth and heart. There were moment where you were laughing so hard one second and then on the verge of tears next. The show really has complexity to it. You have political tensions (heightened by the weird scene with a giant Margaret Thatcher puppet), family issues and then just the simple fact that a boy wants to dance.

Everyone else in the show was great as well, just a little upstaged by all the kids in the cast! I really like Mr. Elliot and Tony Elliot. The scenes between the two of them especially when they would watch Billy dance were just so sweet. Watching two grown men cry is never easy!

All in all I highly recommend this show. I think anyone would like it whether you like dance or not. It's a feel good show with a good, however cliche, message to follow your dreams and do what you love.

Londres!

Well I guess I've waited long enough to update my blog. Sorry guys it's just that here in London I'm much less busy doing sightseeing so there's less to talk about. So we've been having lcass 3 times a week all morning and also attending some "briefings" which are poli sci or economics oriented, so I'm generally lost when we go to these places. So these are gonna be brief. We went to the Bank of England, watched a rich dramatic documentary about a girl starting a juice stand and I got to lift a brick of gold. Actually a lot more heavy than I thought it would be. We went to the Commonwealth Secretariat which basically used to be the British Empire's colonies minus America. Worst part of that--that mean lady put me on the spot first asking me what I knew about the Commonwealth Secretariat. I told her I had no idea what the Commonwealth was. Done.

Last Thursday night (I think it was) we went to see a production of "Mother Courage and Her Children" at the National Theatre. It was crazy! First of all it starred Fiona Shaw and Harry Melling who play Aunt Petunia and Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter!

Btw Dudley is hot now. So the play is really an anti war play written by Brecht in the 1940s during WWII. Here starts the confusion it was written in the 1940s about that time, set in the 30 years war in the 1600s, but with modern costumes, uniforms, etc. Whew! It was staged magnificently. I won't bore you with too many details, but it really felt more like a rock concert or at least a rock musical.

There was a band up there called "Duke Special and His Band" that played all the music throughout as well as sang with the characters. They were really good.

Best part-afterward me and another Harry Potter fanatic Alison Reeder went to the stage door and got autographs from both Aunt Petunia and Dudley! They were very nice. We decided not to mention Harry Potter so we wouldn't look completely insane. Harry Melling was so nice! He stopped and talked to us for a few minutes about the theatre he's doing. So cool!

At some point I went to the British Museum. Um it's enormous. It's about five minutes from our hotel so one day when we had a spare hour I just spent some time walking around in there. It's very hard to focus because there's just so much stuff! I did see the Rosetta stone.

I've been to some shows too which I'm doing a separate post about later. Sorry but you know how much I love theatre! Or if you didn't know you will figure it out soon!

One day we ventured out to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It's so beautiful.

One of the more famous things there besides Kensington Palace is the Peter Pan Statue. Also they had this awesome pirate themed playground with like a ship in the middle of it. BUT you couldn't go in if you were over 12 and didn't have a kid with you. We were all very mad about that.

This week we went to the London Metals Exchange for a briefing. Sounds boring right? Actually not so much. This is the place where they set prices for metals to be traded around the world. Each metal gets 5 minutes and there is a group of about 8 people representing all the major buyers and sellers of metals in the Western World. They have clerks behind them and more people on phones with their customers, etc. Some metals aren't exciting, but for some the last minute or the selling time turns into a shouting match with people screaming prices and making deals among each other. It was like an old school stock market. Also it gets so loud in there that they have hand signals to motion to each other the prices, bids and offers. It was really neat.

The other day we visited the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. There are many famous artists represented there including Michelangelo, Raphael, Monet, etc. We then visited Trafalgar square.

It's a Rick Pick!

This week as we have been set loose in various places with no schedule and no agenda we have begun to rely on Rick Steve's guidebooks to Great Britain. Hence the title of this post because each of Rick's 3 diamond (not stars!) recommendations have been dubbed a "Rick Pick". Here is us posing with Rick. Moving on.

After leaving Edinburgh we went to the lovely town of York. The only thing really to see in York is the York Minster. It is a giant cathedral built on a Norman Cathedral, built on a building used to baptize a Norman king, built on a Roman building. So lots of stuff going on there.

It had some of the coolest stain glass windows and carvings and statues.

The giant window they are famous for was not even there. They are repairing it piece by piece and apparently it's going to take 15 years to do it! So now they have a giant photograph where it was. Actually the photograph alone was impressive. They had to get HP to make a special printer in order to print this thing!

After we toured the Minster we got to hike up the York Minster Tower. It took about 10 minutes to get up the tiny spiral staircase. But the view was totally worth it!

The next day we headed out to the town of Cambridge. First we stopped at the American Military Cemetery. I have never been to a military cemetery before that I can remember. The experience was humbling and a bit overwhelming. Seeing the graves of a fraction of men and women who died for our country in one place makes their sacrifice more real to me. Reading numbers out of a textbook is one thing but seeing graves is another.

There was also a little chapel there that had a cool mosaic as well as a giant map showing the different squadrons (? I don't know my military terminology) from America that were stationed around the world. Fun fact: The architects for this cemetery were also the architects for Furman! Such a weird connection...

Then we finally hit Cambridge. Its a cool city. There are about a zillion colleges and pretty buildings there. We were all so tired that it was kinda hard to take in everything in under 24 hours.

Coolest thing we found in Cambridge was this random alley with a sign that said FU (for Furman University of course!). So we absolutely had to take a picture!

That night we had dinner at the Eagle's Pub. This was so cool because it is a place where the RAF (British air force) and American Air Force hung out during WWII. There are patches and stickers of all the squadrons around the room and they wrote on the walls and the ceilings. Also this is the place where Watson and Crick would hang out and they even announced their discovery of DNA from this pub.

We visited King's College the next morning and guess who's camera died. That's right, mine. Here's my one picture of the outside.

Then we drove to LONDON! Woo hoo! Downside: we had to say goodbye to our lovely bus driver Seamus. It was heartbreaking. He said goodbye to us and started crying. Ahhhh I hate goodbyes!

So yesterday we spent the day exploring London a little bit. We took a night walk as a group to get oriented and here is my first picture from London...I thought that was kinda a milestone, right?

Today I did nothing really. Slept til noon. Got out of bed at 1. Left the hotel room at 2. Then I just explored the city. I found my way to the main shopping area of town (I think I have a natural sense of finding my way to places where I can blow my money). Picture this--two H&Ms within 4 blocks of each other. Yesssssss!!!!!!!