Anxious-Nervous or Anxious-Excited?

Eight days friends! I embark on my big journey in a mere eight days and I am nowhere near prepared! I caught myself thinking "It would have been a lot easier to just stay at UK for all of my college career." I feel like the fact that I just don't know what to do about a lot of things is what is making me feel so crazy right now. There are about 15 different papers and documents that I need to print, half of which I'm not exactly sure where to find; I need to figure out my international phone deal; I also need to figure out what I need to know about opening a Scottish bank account; there is the whole I can only pack two suitcases (of winter clothes and shoes!) yet I also need linens and such or to purchase them when I get there...the list of things I did not think about until now just goes on and on and on!
Up until about four days ago I was nothing but excited, but now the nerves are really kicking in! To be honest I feel really nervous about making new friends, but even more nervous about finding my niche at St. Andrews considering it was a lot harder than expected as a Freshmen at UK; I just don't want to experience that again. I am also quite nervous about my modules (classes) as I have no idea what to expect and how difficult they will be, again I feel that I may be under prepared.
I am hoping that if I keep praying and trust that God has me going to St. Andrews for a reason, all will turn out fine and I will have a blast. Im sure I will have my good days and my bad ones, but I am just praying it won't be all of the bad situations that keep playing out in my head! If you think about it, feel free to send a prayer my way!
So, even though staying at UK may have been easier, I tend to be one that goes more for the road less travelled and I'm continuing that tradition. Hopefully I will have a few minutes to update everyone again before I head out! I will definitely post within my first few days at St. Andrews though! I will move into my hall there on September 9th.

P.S. I am hoping to keep in touch with people via email and part of the emails can be prayer requests. If you would like to keep in touch and get updates, but also send me your prayer requests and I'll send you mine feel free to contact me via cestone93@gmail.com. If I don't personally know you, the invite is still open as I always love to have new friends!

All Good Things Must Come to an End...

As I sit writing this post it is only 11:44 here, but I am trying my hardest to pass a few more hours before hitting the hay so that I can sleep most of my 8 hours plane ride home tomorrow. The end is bitter sweet! I am at a point of mental exhaustion that I am not sure I knew existed. This exhaustion has come from investing myself so thoroughly in the 13 plays I have seen in my time here and then critically thinking and talking about each of them. As you might imagine, this also come with a bit of emotional exhaustion too having put so much into the stories we are being carried away in on stage. 

I have now posted about all of the shows we saw except for the last four. On Monday we went to the Bush theatre for a one woman show entitled Josephine and I. It was written and acted by the stunning  Cush Jumbo (great name!). It was an intimate theatre with cabaret style seating, perfect for how often the fourth wall was broken. Miss Jumbo gave a captivating performance and did just as she hoped, "told a story so well that the audience travelled thorough time, to the moon, and places not on earth." with her. Tuesday we then went to the Young Vic for A Season in the Congo directed by the iconic Joe Wright. (credits: Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina, act.) It was quite obvious that he directed this show by the colors of the set, the way he plays with light, the use of puppets, and he cannot seem to resist a good dance number with slow motion effects. Due to the credits to his name, it was not a surprise that I happened to run into Keira Knightly in the bathroom as she is clearly acquaintances with him. I can proudly say I did not freak out and and stuck to the british mantra, "Keep calm and carry on." I know that I would want to be able to enjoy a normal night out if I were her, so I just acted like I would have if she were anyone else. Anyway, moving on...yesterday was our last day of shows. Our class as a whole headed back to the Globe for a final show, The Tempest. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed because it was nowhere close to the quality of a majority of our other shows, especially the Shakespeare, but I can't grumble because we have been so fortunate with everything else. After the show a few of us grabbed some indian food at a little place we love near the West End in Soho called Gopols. Then it was time for our final show, War Horse. It was just four of us who went to War Horse because we found 12 pound tickets that couldn't be passed up. It was unlike anything I have ever seen with the way they utilized the puppets as horses. The amount of control and focus that is required of the puppeteers is incredible. They walk in sync, create sound effects in sync, and even breathe in sync to create the horses breath. Lets just say it was a spectacle!

Today was out last class together and we made it fun by doing our own little awards. We each voted on various categories based on the shows we have seen. Here my choices (the class' choice in ()):

Best Script: Strange Interlude (Strange Interlude and Cripple of Inishmann)

Best Costume Design: War Horse (Strange Interlude and Midsummer)

Best Set Design: Othello (Strange Interlude)

Female Performance: Anne Marie Duff- Strange Interlude (Cush Jumbo- Josephine and I)

Male Performance: Bottom- Midsummer (Rory Kinnear- Othello)

Best Director: Nicholas Hytner- Othello (same)

Best Overall Show: Strange Interlude (class indecision)

We finished up on a final question from our professor and my answers will end this post and my time here in London. What are the biggest things that changed for you during this program?

• I knew coming in that theatre in England, especially London is a huge part of the culture, just look at the fact that there is a National Theatre here, meaning it is government funded. What I had not yet experienced was that theatre is a culture here. There are your ethnicities of people- Indian, French, Eastern Caribbean, and so on, but just like these, there is a culture of theatre people that encompasses everyone from designers, to actors, to tech, and critics. They are like this giant interconnected family within London that all seem to know, appreciate, and work with each other. It is really quite beautiful. 
• Another big thing I learned in my time here was how to asses a show. Matt Wolfe, while speaking to our class, said that there is not specific way to enter a show to critique it, rather each individual needs to figure that out for themselves. Seeing a show almost every night allowed me this opportunity and I now know how to actively process and think about a show and the choices made during and after viewing. First thing is first though, I must answer the question, "What did I just see?"
• Also, during these three weeks I have grown a much deeper appreciation for plays. When I would tell people that I was coming here for a theatre program they generally assumed it was to see big musicals. I don't blame them though because musicals are generally the most well know type of theatre in the US because it is what is most readily offered to us other than film. Here in London, that is not so much the case; only one of the 13 shows we saw happened to be a musical. I now really enjoy sitting and watching a play and can honestly say I would never have guessed that I would sit, or stand, and watch multiple 3 hours plays and thoroughly enjoy every minute of them. There is something indescribable about how they made me feel. Maybe it is so indescribable because I genuinely felt as if I were in these different fiction worlds with the actors in front of me.
• Lastly, and probably most importantly, I tapped into an appreciation that I had felt inside of me before, but was not sure how to form with words. It has to do with actors. I have had so many people ask me if I have seen anyone famous on stage since I have been here. I hate this question. To me acting is not about the fame. Sure it is cool to see someone that is also on TV, but what is even better is that I saw actors like Anne Marie Duff and Cush Jumbo that are of the highest quality and talent level there is. I am not sure that I will be so fortunate as to see actors live on stage that are of this caliber in a long long time. They are better than most famous people that I could have seen. Anne Marie Duff said in an interview about playing Saint Joan that one night before going on stage she felt so immersed in her character that she could feel the French soil beneath her bare feet and in that moment she remembered why she was a storyteller and it is what she was meant to do. All of the bullshit of show business (the fame, money, glamour, beauty, etc.) was stripped away and she is there to create a world for people and to really, really tell someone's story. This is acting, not the beauty and money. I wish this is something I didn't have to explain every time I tell someone I want to pursue an MFA in acting.

Oh, I can't forget to mention that my professor, Christina, was really sweet and took us to high tea at the Wallace Collection today and whilst we were there she gave each of us a personal gift based on what she learned about us from our journals and spending time with us here. I got the four pictures of things I love: Lady Di, Winston Churchill, the Lyttleton Theatre at the National, and the chapel at Hampton Court Palace; my favorite English candy bar; and some other small things all of which can be seen below! Christina is such a caring, passionate, and dedicated person. It has been such a blessing to learn from her!

So friends, this is it for my time here in London. I will try to post again soon! Also, I will definitely be back with new on St. Andrews which becomes my home in three short weeks!

Speechless

My time here in London is going way too fast! I only have a week left and it makes me so sad to know that in a week's time I will probably not see the friends I have made for over a year and that this journey is coming to an end. While I definitely saw more sites in London last summer, I have had a much richer theatre experience this summer due to the style of my class. A show literally everyday is such a weird concept. At first it seems exciting, then it starts to get a little overwhelming, then it flips again and all of the sudden I realized how intensive this experience is and how much I am really taking in because of it. There honestly aren't words to describe how I am feeling and what I am experiencing right now. All I know is that I wish is could feed my passion like this all the time!
Since my last post, I have had the opportunity to sit through a Q and A with Sam West who is a talented actor and very eloquent speaker. His answers to our questions were so well thought out and strung together that they seemed as if he had been thinking them through for months and wrote them down ahead of time. (I started writing down some of his one liners they were so good!) He knows this business inside and out and it was a once in a lifetime thing to hear from an insider like Sam who's family has been part of British theatre history.
Other than Sam, I mention that on Tuesday night our class was heading back to the National (my new favorite place in London) for Othello. It was an amazing production that was extremely well directed, of course, by the National Theatre's Artistic Director, Nicholas Hytner. Everything from the set and cast  were well thought out down to the sound and intermission. There was only one thing in question for me, but it cleared itself up at the end! I also appreciated that this was a modern take on Othello and due to this is emphasized certain themes. Shakespeare is truly timeless. On Wednesday we did somewhat of a marathon. We had class outside of the globe. We then got in line about four hours before Midsummer Night's Dream started since we were groundlings and wanted the best standing spots. We got right up on the stage and were able to lean on it the whole time. This particular version of Midsummer is the funniest that anyone in our class has ever seen, including our professor. There were so many great decisions that were clearly not in the script, but brought to the show through the actors' ingenuity. These things included the mechanics being clog dancers, amazing body language from Bottom and Hippolyta that conjured loads of laughs, to simply great acting that clearly established characters unlike any others in the show. The cast was also very interactive with the audience and we were in the perfect spot for it as they talked to us and gave us multiple props. What a fun experience. I honestly felt like I was in a fairytale movie. On Thursday was our last show of the week. We went back to the National, sadly for the last time, to see Liola. It was a decent show, not my favorite, but I likes the stylistic choices made with dancing and perfectly imperfect music.
I have learned so much in the last two weeks about the reality of my future in theatre, but also about everything involved in a production. Most importantly I have had the opportunity to day after day focus on actors, their choices, and their development throughout a show, in a wide variety of shows. I am sad, and bitter, that I am not able to go back and see my favorite show, Strange Interlude, because with the way the National works it is Liola's turn in the rotation to be on stage until the day I leave. Strange Interlude ends two days before I return to the UK. I don't think I would be so bitter if I knew that I could see the show again, but it is a show that is rarely performed and I also don't think anyone could do it justice quite like Anne-Marie Duff. Hopefully I get over it in time; my professor had something similar happen once, but she said she is still bitter...uh-oh! Anyway, I already know I am coming back down to London sometime this fall to see a show. Much Ado About Nothing is being directed by Mark Rylance and is starring James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, so basically it is a must see! My professor kindly asked for a review of it too.
All in all, so far I have learned to really love Shakespeare now that I have seen it done right three times this summer and once last summer. I have learned loads about my future career. I have come to have hope for theatre as an art in the states. I have built up confidence about what life could be like as an actor. And last, but surly not least, I have come to have my life changed in this city by some once-in-a-lifetime experiences, shows, friends and the sweetest, most passionate, and caring professor ever!