It’s a little strange to be back in the states after being abroad for so long, but I am starting to adjust to the 6 hour time difference and the chage in setting. We start classes today and I just moved into a new apartment. It was a really amazing experience which I wouldn’t have changed for the world (except maybe breaking my elbow the week before we left while I was ice skating). I can’t believe it is all over so soon. I can’t wait to go back and visit some day and to see everyone from the group as we travel all over the states to catch up.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a safe and Happy New Years at home!
Best Wishes!
Nichole

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Not much has happened since my last update, but I felt like I should post at least once more before I leave tomorrow.
We finished up finals and had a end of semester party. The party was a lot of fun, they fed us (free food!) and there was karaoke and we got yearbooks.
Thursday night I went to The Nutcracker with a few girls. Stephanie and I spent a little more for our tickets and made it our Christmas present to ourselves. We were sitting on the main floor in the 8th row. It was awesome. It was a very different interpretation in comparison with everything I’ve seen before. It had a very Dr. Seuss flavor, but I really like it. Lots of color and lots of fun.
I managed to fit almost all of my stuff into my suitcases. I only have to leave behind a few shirts and one pair of pants…not too bad.
I can’t wait to go home tomorrow! London has been a lot of fun, but I miss my family!
Cheers
Macia

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Update time!
Last time I said I was going to see Schwartz Stories at the King’s Head Pub Theatre. It was surprisingly good. Reviews tend to be really cheesy and ruin really good songs. This one only ruined one or two songs and was fairly cohesive!
Saturday, I saw Cabaret. I’m still trying to decide how I felt about it. It was a very good production, but there were a few things that seemed a bit pointless…such as generous amounts of nudity. But the show as a whole was really good, despite a few of the director’s choices.
Didn’t do much else until Wednesday. We went to the Tower of London. I’d been there before, so we didn’t spend a huge amount of time, but we saw the Crown Jewels which are absolutely amazing! After lunch we went ice skating outside the Tower in the moat. It was cool…but it would have been more fun if I had been allowed to do something besides skate in circles…I got yelled at when I did some hoppy turning things…
Today, Friday, we went to a performance of Lysistrata at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. It’s a Greek comedy about women witholding sex from their husbands to get them to stop the war. It was really funny, but got a little uncomfortable from an audience stand point a few times.

Tonight, I saw Dirty Dancing which is now a musical in the West End in addition to the movie. It was fabulous, despite the fact that I wanted to shoot about half of the audience for singing along to every single song for the whole show!
The time has come to finish up working on my finals…blah..
Cheers!
Macia

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Another week and many more shows…
Saturday I saw Love Song. I went opening night for only £15 and sat on the main floor. On top of that…there are four lead roles in the show that were played by Neve Campbell (Party of Five), Kristen Johnston (3rd Rock From the Sun), Michael McKean (Laverne and Shirley), and Cillian Murphy (Red Eye)! It was an awesome show! Really funny and well acted.

Wednesday we went to the British Museum for BLC. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already spent five hours in the museum back in September.
Wednesday night the North Central gang saw Spamalot starring Tim Curry! It was absolutely hilarious! We were sitting on the far right side, so there were a few parts of the stage that we couldn’t quite see without standing up, but the show was definitely worth it!
Last night, Thursday, I went to the ballet! Stephanie Brown and I saw the Royal Ballet’s performance of The Sleeping Beauty. It was so beautiful…I wish I could dance like that!
Tonight I’m going to see Schwartz Stories at the King’s Head with some people, and tomorrow night I’m going to see Cabaret. This weekend’s all about theatre!

Cheers!
Macia

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You guys are never going to believe what we wandered upon in Leceister Square this Thanksgiving weekend! A Movie Premier! Brendan Wischweh was visiting from Leceister, where he is studying abroad as an exchange student and we were just casually walking and they were setting up lights and stuff, and me, being the theatre tech geek, had to stop and ask what was going on there. We found out it was going to be the Premier of Happy Feet the movie, so we came back as it was starting and we got to see a bunch of celebs, and we got pretty close with a few slick maneuvers and a nice zoom on the digital camera. Check it out!

First to arrive was Nicole Kidman who does a voice for one of the penguins in the movie.

Then Robin Williams showed up to a bunch of middle-aged women screaming.

Then Elijah Wood showed up and I started screaming.

Then the tiniest of all, Brittney Murphy showed up.

Other folks were there from the director and a few other musicians and minor celebs, but these were the best pictures and the biggest names. I hope you are as excited as I was. Just think this is what can happen when you are just running around this amazing city!

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Happy Thanksgiving!
So, The Lion King was pretty good. It would be an excellent show to take kids to.
I saw Avenue Q on Friday. It was hilarious! I absolutely loved it! We only paid £20 and we had awesome seats. We were dead center on the main floor and just far enough back that we could see the whole stage without turning our heads…perfect!

Wednesday we toured the Inns of Court. It was pretty cool. There were lots of beautiful buildings and architecture. We got to sit in on a couple of cases that were going on. The cases themselves were pretty boring, but it was cool to see the barristers and judges wearing wigs and capes.
Wednesday night we saw Drunk Enough To Say I Love You? It’s a brand new piece by Caryl Churchill. It was interesting…only 45 minutes long…which was good because I don’t think I could have sat through much more of it! I think the two actors were supposed to represent America and Britain and their relationship with regards to the war…but I’m really not sure…
Yesterday…turkey day…I saw Chicago! It’s hilarious to see what the film industry has done to some of these shows. I was sitting next to an older couple from Canada and during the break they were talking about how much they liked the show and the actors and the guys says, “I really like the girl that’s playing Renee Zellweger.” He was totally serious too! It took all my strength to not start laughing! The show itself was pretty good to, although I was a little dissapointed by some of the choreography…and Velma wasn’t a very good singer…but besides that it was pretty good.
Cheers!
Macia

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Forgot to mention in my last post that we saw a show at the Old Vic with Kevin Spacey in it and we got to meet him after the show and I have his autograph in my program. He was very nice, but would not allow photos. Sorry to disappoint guys. The show, A Moon for the Misbegotten, was amazing as well, and the leading lady is a very well known British actress, Eve Best, that has won several awards. I got her autograph as well.

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My parents came to London to visit me and we had an amazing time. We traveled all over the city and did some amazing things that even I had never done before. We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, which was pretty cool with the Queen’s Guard Band and all of the Guards dressed in their Bear fur hats. We also took a ride on the London Eye, and saw the whole city of London. We also took a night time river cruise on the Thames and saw the city at night, which is really beautifully lit.

They attended some theatre tours with my theatre classes to The Restored Shakespeare’s Globe and The Royal National Theatre, which was very interesting. We also saw Wicked while they were visiting, which is a spectacular production, even though Idina Menzel had to duck out halfway through the performance because she was not feeling well. Her understudy did an amazing job, and she will be taking over when Idina goes back to New York in January.
We also toured the Tower of London, and Kensington Palace and took a trip out to Hampton Court Palace on the train to see a few more historical royal palaces. The gardens were still beautiful in November! I can’t believe it.
After a week of playing tour guide with my parents, my sister and two of my aunts came to London for a visit on the same day my parents were to leave and the adventures started all over again. Same stuff with slightly different theatre.
Instead of seeing the changing of the guard we were able to see the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Centograph which the Queen and the entire Royal family attended as well as over 1.5 million retired service men and women from the armed forced and police services. It was a very Long, but impressive service, and we were only a few meters away from the Queen!

We also saw productions of The Lion King and Phantom of the Opera while they were here, both from amazing seats on the floor. Both shows were good, but I had previously seen them here or in New York, but it was still nice to be able to go out and enjoy myself with my family.
And what girls week would be complete without tons of shopping? We hit Covent Garden Market, Camden Market, Picidilly Circus, Leicester Square and the Strand. I have never seen so much shopping going on that they had to bring extra luggage home. Well they also took some of my shopping home, but it was a lot of fun.
It was relly great to see my family and it will make this last month in london a little easier, but I am still looking forward to going home for Chirstmas and seeing the rest of my family, especially with a new baby on the way in the family any day now.

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I was determined to post on here once a week. I guess I lose…because I’ve not updated anywhere near that often! Life is just crazy over here!
Since last time…

We took a trip to Oxford and Bleinheim Palace. Oxford is gorgeous. I’m now thinking about going to Oxford University to get my masters…we’ll see. Bleinheim Palace is still a private residence, but there are parts open to the public. It is the home of Winston Churchill’s family. The palace was cool, but the gardens were amazing! They still had roses in November and they had a secret garden that was really cool.

I saw The Alchemist at The National Theatre. The set was really cool and the acting was really good, but it was really hard to follow.

I’ve been touring theatres like crazy. We toured the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, The Globe Theatre, and The National Theatre. They were all awesome spaces and all good tours in their own way. For instance: we got to go into a dressing room and onstage at the Haymarket, we got to go onstage and had a workshop in Shakespearean acting at the Globe, and we got to go backstage and into workshops at the National.
One of my classes met with a couple of North American (American and Canadian) students from LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts). It was really cool to hear about things from the actor’s point of view, but it made me even more terrified about what I’m going to do after graduation.

I got up ungodly early on Friday to get tickets to La Boheme at the Royal Opera House. The opera was amazing. Probably one of the best I’ve ever seen.

We then toured the Royal Opera House on Monday. Found out a lot about the history of the theatre. Walked around backstage and into the hats and jewelry department. We even got to see a couple principle dancers from the Royal Ballet rehearsing for Sleeping Beauty.

Yesterday we went to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was a bunch of rocks…I’ve been there before and it hadn’t really changed…so I guess I wasn’t all that excited about it. Bath was really cool. The Roman Baths were interesting and the city itself was beautiful.

After we got back from Bath, I jumped on the tube and headed over to the Old Vic Theatre to see A Moon For the Misbegotten starring Keven Spacey!!! It was an amazing show. The actors were all spectacular, a couple even outshined Spacey…although I must admit that Spacey’s acting brought me to tears a couple of times!

I just got back from lunchbox theatre at the Bridewell Theatre where we saw two one acts by Christopher Durang. It was pretty good, although I’ve seen both of the pieces they did at NCC before…and I think the ones I’ve seen at North Central were better!

I’m going to see The Lion King tonight and Avenue Q tomorrow. I guess I’m doomed to always live in theatres whether I’m working in one or not!

Cheers!
Macia

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Break is officially over…*sigh*
I spent our midterm break travelling with my mum, which was tons of fun! We spent a day in Dublin. It was awesome! I would love to go back there sometime.
We met up with my grandparents and an aunt and uncle in Galway, Ireland. They were on a tour of Ireland focused around traditional Irish music. The one free day they were supposed to have was the day we met up with them, but the weather forcast was for huge storms with gale-force winds, so the tour arranged all kinds of stuff for them, but they let my mum and me join them! We visited the Gaelic Crystal factory and a marble factory. It was pretty cool.
After Ireland, my mum and I flew over to Rome for the rest of the break. We stayed at this beautiful bed and breakfast a short walk away from the Roman wall. We saw the Colloseum and Roman Forum, Vatican City (and missed the pope by a few hours!), the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and tons of other things. We got tons of looks from guys as we walked around since both my mum and I have blonde hair, which is pretty rare over there. It started getting a bit obnoxious, until we noticed a couple of police officers doing it, then it was just funny!
The only bad part of our trip was when our plane back to London was delayed five hours, but we made it back. Mum’s back in the states now, and I’m back in London going to classes.
Last night I went over to Royal Albert Hall and saw Orff’s Carmina Burana performed by a choir of 400 people! It was amazing!

Cheers!
Macia

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We’re officially on midterm break and students are off travelling all across the globe. Everywhere from Greece to Italy, to Paris and Ireland.
I, however, am stuck at my internship working 40 hours this week. It’s not all bad, this allows me to have time off while I have family visiting in a few weeks, which I am really looking forward to.
This weekend we are taking a day trip to Whales where we will see the coast and spend a few hours in the capital, Cardith. It should be an adventure, and it will be our first trip outside of Great Britain.
All things aside this week gives me an opportunity to catch up on some papers and other miscellaneous homework as well as journals for my internship.

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This has been a crazy few weeks with midterms approaching and everything happening all at once. We have been to more theatre than I could have possibly imagined while I have been in London. Last week we went to see Woman in Black with Jack’s Theatre class and it was the best experience I have ever had while being scared out of my seat for over half of the show. The show was so good and it only had three actors technically, the woman in black never spoke, she just appeared on stage. I have never jumped, screamed or plugged my ears so much while I was in the theatre and enjoyed every minute of it.

On Saturday we visited one of London’s many free museums and spent almost 6 hours at the Museum of Natural History. It was full of interesting animals and dinosaurs and different things about the human body and the earth.

On Sunday, Diana and I travelled down to Camden Market and wandered through another maze of vendors selling everything from clothes, to candles, to Hookah’s.

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An update is long overdue. I’ve just been so busy!
Since my last update…
I went shopping in Covent Garden which was great fun…although I probably spent too much money!
I saw Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was really cool. They did a lot of the show in the yard where most of the audience stands, so we got pushed and shoved a lot, but it was really exciting.

We went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. There were some interesting things, but the exhibit on Victorian Britain, which was the topic for our lecture that week, was closed until December.
I saw In Extremis at Shakespeare’s Globe, which means I saw half of the season! It actually wasn’t a very good show. It was way too long and the acting wasn’t all that amazing.
We went to Leeds Castle, but it was raining all day, and the grounds are supposed to be the best part of that castle, so that was a bit disappointing.
Jack and Julie, the professor from NCC and his wife, had all the NCC students over to their flat for dinner last Sunday. It was a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of people from home, and to not have to cook my own dinner!
We went to Dover and Canterbury on Wednesday. Dover Castle would have been a lot cooler if it hadn’t been raining…again. They say that on a clear day you can see France from Dover, but it wasn’t a clear day when we were there.
Canterbury Cathedral was…big. I’ve seen lots of cathedrals, and they’re all starting to look the same to me. I guess it was cool, it had some of the oldest stained glass in Britain, and that was cool. Canterbury itself is a really cute little city. We ate lunch at a little greasy spoon that had fabulous fish and chips. We finally found a craft shop, you have no idea how difficult it is to find cross stitch and crocheting stuff in London!

Last night, we saw The Woman in Black. This show has been running in London for 18 years, and now I know why. It was the scariest show I have ever seen. They used a lot of recorded sound effects, which I though were going to be really lame, but actually were extremely effective. The whole show only has two actors who are telling the story of this man’s experiences in this old house. There is a woman who plays “the woman in black.” She’s dressed completely in black and her face is almost white. So when she came onstage you couldn’t always tell she was there. It was really dark and if she came onstage with her back to the audience you couldn’t see her until she suddenly turned around, and then she was almost like a face just floating there. It was terrifying. I would not see it again, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone!
We spent some time shopping at Camden Town today…which was a little creepy. Everyone was very punk and gothic and I felt sorely out of place the whole time.
Tonight I’m going with a friend to see Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in a pub theatre. Should be interesting!
Cheers!
Macia

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It’s been a while. I’m really bad at keeping this updated!

Thursday I saw Les Miserables. It was awesome…as expected…I cried like a baby…as expected…lol
It was pretty cool. I bought the program and found out some interesting facts. Four years ago I saw Les Miserables when my family came to London for vacation. The woman I saw this time as Eponine was Young Eponine last time, Javert was Jean Valjean last time, Marius was Marius (and he was in S Club 7 which was this lame Saturday morning tv show I used to watch with my sisters), and Fantine was Eponine. I was really surprised at the amount of cross over from 4 years ago, most of the people have had other jobs in between.

Friday I saw “The Comedy of Errors” at the Globe. It was phenomenal! Probably the best theatre I’ve seen so far! They took a little bit of a cartoonish angle on some of the physical comedy, but it worked. The best part was during the part where Dromio is talking about this woman who loves him and how large she is and Antipholus is asking where different countries would be located on her. In the middle of their conversation someone from the audience shouts out “Where’s Spain?” It was hilarious! Both of the actors onstage broke character! It is one of the lines in the conversation, but it was about two lines too early and was just hilarious coming from the audience!
The Globe was awesome, and it was really cool to watch the show standing in the yard, even if we did get rained on a little! I’m going to see “Titus Andronicus” and “In Extremis” and The Globe next week. In one week I will see half of the season!
Cheers!
Macia

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We saw two amazing shows this week in London. The first was a classic, Les Miserables, at the Queens theatre. It was an amazing production with some very great performers, but it left me to question whether Brian Lynch would have been a better Jean Valjean, but this actor did a magnificent job and brought many of us to tears at the end during a moving performance of “God On High.” It was certainly a spectacle of a show and a very touching story. Now I can finally understand what Brain goes on endlessly about all the time.

The other show we saw this week was a much smaller production and much less of a spectacle, but possibly even more moving than the larger more well known production the night before. The Last Five Years at the Menier Chocolate Factory Theare was an amazing show with a cast of only two actors. The intimate setting made the intense emotion seem more real and the flow of the scene changes was flawless. The theatre was set up in an unusual manner with the pit orchestra of 5 musicians set up behind the action on stage concealed behind artistic black screens that were used throughout the show to change scenes without the music ever stopping. The performers were amazing and with only two in the cast, there was no break for them and no moment for them to be off their game. It was a truly amazing night. I would recommend this very new musical to anyone who has not heard of it and even this production but we saw it the night before it closed.

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I can’t believe how busy we have been ever since we walked off of the plane at Heathrow.
It seems to be one never ending walking tour around here. This weekend we went down to the markets on Portobello Road and walked along the winding streets full of antiques, art, clothes, crafts, amazing produce and food. The place was packed with people and some of the most interesting artistry I have ever seen. We walked down the road looking at shops and vendors lining both sides of the streets for over a mile before heading back with our arms full of bags of fruit and other fun purchases.

Among our favorite items found among the streets were bracelets finely sculpted out of 100-year old silver forks, juicy peaches, sequined Converse high-top sneakers, and freshly squeezed lemonade.
And who could forget the famous song from the 1971 Disney Musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks starring Angela Lansbury? Diana certainly could not. She sang it all day and every time we saw a road sign.

Off to another busy week in London and it’s my birthday on Tuesday! Fun times to be had by ALL!
Nichole

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I’ve been so busy lately!
Wednesday…we went to Warwick Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Warwick Castle was really cool. We climbed up to the top of the tower and it was the most beautiful view. It’s run by Madame Tusaud’s so there were wax figures in all the rooms…which was kind of creepy…but effective. There was a display of costumes from the Royal Shakespeare Company which was really cool. Stuff that Ben Kingsley and Ian McKellan wore…it was awesome.

At Stratford we were kind of rushed through Anne Hathaway’s cottage and William Shakespeare’s birthplace because the bus of people who were not staying to see The Tempest needed to leave at a certain time. The rest of us had a couple hours of free time so we went to Holy Trinity Church and saw Shakespeare’s grave and we ate dinner at The Falcon pub where Shakespeare supposedly died.

The Tempest was amazing! Patrick Stewart played Prospero and was phenomenal. The guy who played Ariel was even better. It was a very unique interpretation. It was placed in the Arctic in modern times. Ariel was more demonic than spirit-like but really amazing.
It was a really long day; we didn’t get back until 1 AM.
Thursday…classes and Madras House
Jack took the Fringe Theatre class to see this show called Madras House. It was really interesting; all about men’s attitudes towards women and the British suffrege movement at the turn of the century. The acting was great. It was theatre in the round and we were in the balcony so we could see everything really well. The best part was the costuming. These costumes looked so authentic, and I know the actors had to have been dying because it was sooo hot in that theatre. But it was really good.
Friday…

A group of us went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard and the state rooms. We got there about an hour before the changing of the guard so that we would have a good spot to see everything from, stood there for almost an hour and it was cancelled because it started raining. So we went to get our tickets to tour the palace but had to wait until 3 to go in. So we went to find somewhere to eat and stayed there as long as possible without being rude. Then we went and sat at the bus/train station for two hours until we could get into the palace. We would have walked through the park if it hadn’t been raining, but it was seriously pouring.
So Buckingham Palace is absolutely beautiful. The special exhibit was 80 of the Queen’s dresses since the 1940s…it was amazing. It was super crowded. But it was cool. It stopped raining by the time we got out which was nice.

Saturday…
We got tickets to see Guys and Dolls (my second time!) with Patrick Swayze, but had to find something to do to kill time until the show. We decided to check out Covent Garden, which was totally worth it!

We saw this guy in a skirt balancing on a ladder and juggling three knives…he was a little crazy. We also found this shop called Octopus that was really cool. It had lots of everyday items that were really unique and colorful.

Guys and Dolls was even better the second time. I think a few of the actors must have been having off nights when I saw it last weekend. This time was so much better…and I had thought it was amazing the first time!
Well…there are papers to write and shows to see today so I should get going!

Cheers!
Macia

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So I am a Psychology much to many of my theatre professor’s dismay, and I have a very amazing internship here in London. I must tell you first, due to the nature of my internship, that I have had to sign my life away in confidentiality documents, and will not be able to give you any patient details.
I’m working at the PROMIS Counselling Centre in South Kensington. It is an addiction treatment center that deals with many different types of addiction from eating disorders, nicotine, alcohol, illicit and over-the-counter drugs, and love and relationship addictions. The center is a very elite center that does not accept any type of insurance and must be covered out-of pocket and caters to a very elite clientele (I can only say that I have seen some of these people before).
The program that they offer is based on the 12 step program followed in all AA, NA, and OA support groups, and treatments range in service from full-time in-patient detoxification treatment, Halfway House residential treatment, residential day care treatment, and non-residential follow-treatment for all types of addictions treated at the center.
This far I have been working primarily in the registration office setting up patient files, dictating counselors notes, and registering new patients. I have also been able to sit in on group therapy meetings for both the Halfway House and day care treatment centers.
So far it has been a very unique learning experience that has taught me a lot about how some addictions can be treated through the 12 step method of treatment.

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Yesterday was awesome.
We went to the British Museum, and got a little lost on the way. We saw the Rosetta Stone and lots of old stuff. I got a little bored, not a super museum type, and it was really crowded.
After the museum, we found our way over to Leicester Square planning to buy tickets for Guys & Dolls at a discount ticket counter, but they were sold out when we got there. So we backtracked a ways until we found the theatre in Piccadilly. When we got to the theatre we found out that the only tickets available were standing, but we bought them anyways. So we saw Guys & Dolls but here’s the best part: Nathan Detroit was played by Patrick Swayze!!!!! It was sooo awesome!

More exciting things to come!
Macia

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Monday we toured the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with the Exploring London’s Theatres class. We went backstage and under the stage and heard all about the history of the building and the previous buildings (this is the fourth) and about the different people who worked there as actors and managers and in other professions.
Monday night a group of us saw The Producers at Drury Lane. It was absolutely hilarious. We were sitting in the top balcony but could still see everything fine. It was probably one of the best shows I’ve seen.

Today we toured the Tate Britain. The Tate Britain is an art museum of all British art. There were lots of beautiful paintings, and our tour guide told us lots of stories about the artists that were interesting, scandalous, and entertaining.

More to come soon!

Macia

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