Plays, Plays, More Plays, and Changes on the Horizon?

Hey there, I think I have figured out this public computer thing. The key is to wake up at the crack of dawn because everyone else is asleep and therefore you have the computer for as long as you want, which is what I am doing today. Yesterday, today, and this weekend is our first "travel break" but since I love London so much, I decided to remain here and also save money that I would have been spending to go elsewhere. I sort of wanted to go to Ireland on one of our breaks but we checked and the tickets are like 2oo American dollars just to get there, so I decided Id rather stay here, take in shows, and experience London more in-depthly (blah blah blah...)

So lately I feel like my life has been consumed with seeing theater shows, which I couldn't love more. Two days ago I got to see a matinée and an evening show (I was a busy girl). The matinee was a show called Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. Its a show about two time periods first is a Victorian time period, and the other modern. Two of the characters Hannah and Neil are trying to figure out a mystery of a supposed "murder" and who committed it, you find out through your time with the Victorian period that most of Hannah and Neils assumptions are in-fact in wrong. Really the show has sort of this message that the more time/things change the more they remain the same. I really enjoyed the show, although there were a few points when I was thinking, now what the heck is going on I am so confused! lol There were also a few cool moments when Stoppard put both time periods on stage at the same time, and some of the modern characters were dressed in Victorian attire for a party and one of the Victorian characters was working on a schoolbook behind a present day laptop so she appeared to be in the modern times, talk about keeping your characters straight sheesh! The cast was awesome too, and laden with cute boys which only helped the production in my opinion hehe. And for all you Harry Potter fans, I got to meet Collin Creevy (aka little blond boy who took lots of pictures of Harry in Order of the Phoenix.) Believe you me, colin creevy is not a little boy anymore ;) lol, but off of my ever present boy watching...

The next show I saw that night was Jersey Boys, which was AWESOME! I have to say this was one of the most fun nights of theater I have had in a long time! For all, Jersey Boys is the musical story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, its the story of how they formed into a band, and what happend, before, during, and after their success. Really the show is more like a rock concert than a West-End Musical, but man I didnt care what it was, it was just fun. The four guys sing some of the most popular Four Seasons hits like: Walk like a man, Sherry, Big girls dont cry, Oh What a Night, Beggin, Dawn, Cant Take my Eyes off of you, Rag Doll, and Who Loves you. This show was also technically amazing, I have not ever seen people change scenes like that in my life. Cast and crew were essentially running from scene to scene in a blink of an eye, I cannot imagine how tired everyone was at the end of the night. There were also things being constantly flown in from the ceiling, brought up from trap doors, being slid on, or wheeled off. They also had live feed cameras attached to some of the props that fed onto huge monitors to show the real cast performing in black and white, to give the appearance that they were on American Band stand, or the Ed Sullivan show. It was just such a well thought out piece, and to top it all off all the actors were British; so not only did they have to sing and run amok the whole show they also had to speak in Jersey slang the whole time. I was completely convince they were all American born but when I met some of the after the show (more on that later) I was shocked to find they were all British, so cool! The actors were great too, and the vocal pipes on the man that played Frankie Valli were incredible, I just cannot see how he can sing that high night after night. We actually got to see the original London cast of Jersey Boys except for one lead that was played by a very cute swing, because the show to my surprise has only been open for about a year.

During the show, I found an ad for an acting school that one of the members of the cast (actually the cute swing I was telling you about) had recently graduated from. Which has gotten my thinking that maybe London is the place for me after school, and perhaps the reason I love this place so much is because its where I am meant to be to continue my studies in Theatre. I have spoken to mom and dad about it and I am hopefully going to continue to look into schools here, and try and find out all I can about international studying and what sort of postgraduate programs they offer. Who knows what will happen after I graduate, but this summer in London wont be my last...

Anyway, last night the 7 of us who decided to remain in London got cheap tickets and saw our first show at the National, which was All's Well that Ends Well by William Shakespeare. The basic premise of this play revolves around Helena, who cures the king of an ailment and the king rewards her by allowing her to pick any man in his kingdom for her husband. You see Helena has been a ladies maid for Count Rosillion all her life and she has developed quite a crush on her son Bertram so obviously she picks him for her hubby. Bertram is none to please about this so he goes off to war and leaves her a letter that says, A) if you can get my ancestry ring off my finger, which I never take off and B) If you can get yourself pregnant by me than I will love and accept you as my wife ( I know real gem isnt he?) Obviously this appears to be impossible since he is in a war zone and she is in France, but for Willy Shakes anything is possible and in the end Helena does do both these things (sorry if I ruined it for you). This production was really cool, and their set was probably the coolest set I have seen in a long time, and the production was heavily laden with cute boys again so you cant go wrong. I just still cannot get over the set I saw last night, they used every inch of that stage for set and it made everything look so grand and immense, very neat. They have this large barricade type thing that forms one moment and then a second larger mountain behind that in the set and two large castles that are flown in, and behind all that is a large curved projection screen from which they project seasons changing, aninmals, weather and all other neat type things. They also had a lot of neat effects dropped from the ceiling (like rose petals at the end of the show, very romantic.
If you want to see more about it, here is the National's website. They have a trailer of the show which I am sure is really neat, but I cant watch it here cause this computer is crapt so let me know what you think! http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/49017/alls-well-that-ends-well/about-the-play.html

Ok, now that i have utterly bored you about my theatrical escapades, here I need to go in the search of breakfast. Today we are hopefully seeing the Imperial War Museum and the Cabinet War rooms, and then tonight its another play yahoo!

Sending you all my love!
Sara