Shakespeare and sunny days in Walpole Park

This week has already been great! Monday Chris Pickles and I sat down at his kitchen table and spent five to six hours cutting and reworking the script to Shakespeare's Keeper. I felt good at the end. I think it could be shorter, but I do think improvements have been made, and it is shorter. So, we will start rehearsing in a couple of weeks. The London run is still uncertain as to where and how long. But, Pickles is calling it a preview instead of an actual run. A preview to prepare for the tour in the Fall. Other than that I have been teaching and directing. The weather has been glorious as well. That's very good, because I've been riding the scooter I'm borrowing, so, no wet and super cold days on the scooter yet. The scooter takes my commute from two hours to forty minutes! In fact the weather was so nice today, I took my last two improv classes out to Walpole Park and we did an hour and twenty minutes of improv and ten minutes of a game they have invented called ultimate frisbee. Needles to say it was spectacular! It truly look like the inmates had been let out of the assylum for the day. Tomorrow I should be seeing an Alan Bennet play called Enjoy. It's playing in the West End. I've promised myself that I will see a play a week. Let's hope it's a promise I can keep. Did I mention I miss my wife in a previous post? If I haven't...I miss my wife!

A Bohemian Evening in Hampstead Heath

I wrote this last week but couldn't post it till now.

After an arduous week of teaching directing and sitting through a very bad student production of Winters Tale I deserved to have a very lovely evening with my friends who live right next to Hampstead Heath...so I did. Ian, my fellow drama school grad from 1997, and I went over to Guy's(his brother)house and had a lovely meal last Thursday night. It was very cool. Everyone there was an artist and we talked politics, art and life in general. It was all very grown up and civilized. I felt like I was properly in London. Of course, the next day I had a ridiculous hang-over and vowed never to drink again...until the next night when I accompanied a bunch of friends to the pub where several people that had worked together (at The Oxford Shakespeare Company) were having a reunion. But, Saturday I didn't drink at all I swear! I stayed home and did nothing all day and night...very nice.

Refreshed after a weekend in Cumbria

I have just come back from a weekend with Emily's parents at there home in Gamblesby. Gamblesby is a small village in the Eden Valley right at the beginning of The Lake District. We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I came up on Friday afternoon on the train and am writing this on the train back to London, Sunday evening. I, of course, ate like a champ and rested wonderfully. I went for a three mile run on Saturday and then later that day we headed over to North Allerton in Yorkshire to see Anna (Emily's sister) and her family. It was great we spent the afternoon with the kids and had a meal (Indian) then drove back to Gamblesby. Other than that just sleeping late, walking the dog and hours going through old pictures from Emily as an infant up to their first visit to see Emily and me in New York. It was a truly wonderful weekend. I really did win the lottery of in-laws.

I have been enjoying London. It's been strange to be a teacher where I was a student and to now see things from that side. I am teaching improvisation on a new two year course that Chris Pickles has created at the school. Until this year there have only been one year students, so it's interesting to see the adjustments that the faculty have to make. The students are great. There are twenty-four of them and I teach all of them twice a week in two classes of twelve on a Monday and Wednesday. We are still in some real basic exercises, but they all seem willing and clever. I am directing half of them in what's called scene study 3. Meaning, this is their third attempt at rehearsing and performing. We are tackling scenes from August: Osage County and we have only had two sessions of that. We read through the entire play then I did a cutting and we read through the cutting doing some basic text analysis. Finally, with about an hour and a half left of our last rehearsal they got on their feet and we started blocking the scenes. It is, of course, early. So, I think that it has the potential to be great. We'll see.

I'm supposed to have a meeting with Chris about Shakespeare's Keeper details this week. Hopefully, I will have something to post about that next week. I hope all is well with everyone back home.

Adjusting and Drinking

Well, It's late Friday night or early Saturday morning depending how you chose to look at it. I have been here since Wednesday morning and I think I have had more drinks bought for me in the last three days than in the last year. Old teachers, former students, present students, current teachers etc... Everyone has welcomed me with open arms or full pint glasses! I'm having a great time. I saw the students I will be directing in scenes from August: Osage County today. They performed scenes from different plays for the school. Then I took part in a staff meeting where I was told by their teachers what they needed in the next block of scenes.It's very cool to see the process of my Drama School from this side. It gives me an appreciation for my time here on a whole deeper level.

I've been staying with two former teachers since I arrived, but tomorrow I move in with an old fellow alum for the duration of my visit. So, it will be nice to have a room of my own and sleep on a bed instead of a couch. I've also arranged to borrow a friend of a friend's scooter. So, I will be zipping about London on a scooter for the next few months. Very cool indeed!

It is way too late to be blogging. I'm out.

I'm Here!

Well I arrived without a hitch and am exhausted. I couldn't sleep much on the plane. I'm an insomniac any way and with all the noise and excitement etc. So, I'm here and will be going up to my old Drama School to meet up with some of the staff and poke around a couple of the old haunts. Then this evening I will be meeting up with one of the producers for Shakespeare's Keeper.

London is damp, grey and chilly...shocking I know. All the same it's nice to be here and I'm stoked. I already miss Emily and the comfort of what I know and love in Dallas. However, I know that I am really lucky to be doing what I'm doing and can't wait for the adventure!

More later.

I depart DFW on Tuesday February 24th at 11:40 am.

I will be teaching and directing for Drama Studio London in March.

I will be running Shakespeare's Keeper in London in April and/or May.

The website for Keeper is http://www.shakespeareskeeper.co.uk