"Are you dead from the neck up?"

Alright, besides plays, we did do a lot of stuff around town as well. But the plays were the best part. On Monday we visited Hall’s Croft and Nash’s house. Hall’s Croft is where Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna lived with her husband Dr. John Hall. They were really rich. It was kind of boring because we’ve seen like a thousand homes that were somehow associated with Shakespeare. He never lived at this one or anything so it was just like Stratford was just trying to turn everything into a museum so they can make as much money as possible. The tour guide in Hall’s Croft was really mean. He said, “Are you guys dead from the neck up?” No, your house is just boring. This was the most exciting thing.

The gardens were pretty too.

Then we went to Nash’s house and New Place. Nash’s house is where Shakespeare’s granddaughter lived. That is a stretch. Next door was New Place where Shakespeare’s house used to be. He bought it after he was super rich so apparently it was really nice. It is now just a garden.

But we really just enjoyed coloring our own knot gardens.

That night we went to Julius Caesar, which I already wrote a blog post about so just read my last post if you want to know more about it. On Tuesday we had class in the morning. We had a Q&A with the Company Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Dembowicz. We were hoping to get an actor, but he gave us interesting insight into the life of people in the RSC. Um, let’s just say it’s ridiculous. There’s a company of 45 actors who between them did 6 plays this season. The actors are in 3 plays each with different directors. Then in two weeks rehearsals start for another 4 plays with the same group of actors. So he has to juggle rehearsal times for all of these with the rehearsals for the current productions and the actual performances and at the same time be working with the other departments like marketing or the board to make sure everything is going smoothly. He told us he has one day next year where nothing is scheduled. Crazy. Just as a visual, this is the theatre we saw everything in, The Courtyard. It’s actually a temporary theatre but it’s what the new theatre will look like but on a smaller scale. This seated 1,000 people and was very nice for a temporary theatre.

Tuesday afternoon we went to Trinity Church. I went there the other day for church and it was cool. They’re doing construction right now so we couldn’t actually see Shakespeare’s grave very well because they wouldn’t let us through with all the scaffolding…

The Church is very beautiful though.

On Wednesday, we had a lecture about a portrait of Shakespeare that they think they have found. It was given by Sir Stanley Wells who actually found the portrait and have conducted all the research on it. They still don’t know for sure that it was him. The thing is there is no definitive portrait that we have that we know was painted of Shakespeare during his lifetime. They have dated this one and it would have been painted while he was still alive. It was found in the former home of his patron and one of the very few who Shakespeare ever actually dedicated a work to. So they think it’s him, but they aren’t sure.

In the afternoon we had a drama workshop! I had fun, although I think some people in our group did not. I got singled out to read Juliet’s entire monologue right before her suicide! I answered a question and then she was like ok now get up and do the whole thing. It was cool to see the process that these actors go through when preparing for these roles. We had to go through the lines and translate them into modern English so that we would know their meanings. Then we had to figure out who each line was directed to, even in the soliloquies! Then we got to do some scenes from “The Winter’s Tale” which we were seeing that night. All the groups had the same scene but we had to each play them differently. My group played the scene like it was a family court, but other groups had to pretend that it was an Oprah show, a dinner party gone wrong and someone’s deathbed. It was then cool to see how the scene was actually played out in the show that night. I really have fun doing things like that. And I got to play King Leontes who had killed his wife so extra fun! I’m writing a separate post on the actual production of the play we saw that night.

That night we went to a pub/bar called the Dirty Duck. The real name is the Black Swan but it developed that nickname over the years. It was a really cool place because it’s traditionally where the actors hang out after the performance.

I thought that we might see only one or two, but as soon as we got there practically the entire company was coming in behind us. So we were just creepers for a little while and just watched some of them. They actually have a separate room and bar just for them, which is neat. At the end of the night one of the actors pulled over his chair and talked to us. He was only a year or two older than us we think. It’s just crazy that someone about my age already has a job with the most prestigious acting company maybe in the whole world.

On Thursday we had our last Q&A with Kelly Hunter who played Hermione in “The Winter’s Tale”. This was the best Q&A yet.

She gave us insight into how she prepares for her roles. She always learns her lines before rehearsals and when she learns a speech she pays particular attention to the last word of every line. She can go through each one of her speeches and recite only the last word of each line. Also, Hermione has a scene where she has to pretend to be a statue on stage for about seven and a half minutes and then come to life. From the moment she leaves stage in the first half she starts doing meditation exercises to slow her heartbeat down. She doesn’t eat or drink anything so that her body stops those functions. Then she wraps herself up in a fire blanket and basically goes to sleep until it’s time to go on as the statue. And she does not move! It was fantastic.

That afternoon we had a wig and makeup demonstration! That was really neat too. She put some fake wounds and costumes on people. AnnGarner got a lovely head wound...

And Andrew got to wear some women's clothing...

And then…I got my throat slit! It was awesome! Except that she neglected to take into account that I was wearing a white shirt. I was finding blood in all kinds of places that night…Anyways, we got to see the different ways they got blood on people in Julius Caesar. Caesar actually wore a harness with a bag of blood in it that the actors would break open at the right moment.

That night we saw “The Drunks” which is a new Russian play. I may just write a separate post about that because this is getting too long. So this morning we left our lovely guest house, Forget-Me-Not, and the lovely lady, Kate, who took care of us for almost 2 weeks.

We were all very, very sad to leave. And now I sit in Carlisle, England. We saw Coventry Cathedral today which was bombed by the Germans in World War 2.

Sorry to throw all of this out in one post, but I had gotten behind! I miss you all!