Rocket Ships All Fall

Went to Rufus on Friday with Zarah!

It was wonderful!

The guy that opened for him wasn’t too bad either. His name is Scott Matthews- very chill music. Apparently he’s a big up and comer.

Theatre etiquette on behalf of the audience was…different. People just wandered in at leisure…AND took pictures with flash! I couldn’t believe it. They don’t have the whole photo and cell phone switch off announcement at the beginning of performances. But since people were taking pictures, Zarah and I felt free to do the same but WITHOUT flash. And a couple of videos.

Stacy, I did these with you in mind:

Please don’t “kill me forever” should History Boys be put up next term.

The goofy ginger-haired kid in the back with the reindeer bells is this local contest winner- if you enter on youtube the winner gets to do the whole “There is a river running underground” dialogue for Between My Legs onstage with Rufus!

He got a kiss on the cheek from Rufus afterwards. I’m so jealous.
This video's better...more close up. So close you can see his smile :)

And for his encore performance:

JUDY JUDY JUDY

I wish I had recorded some of his schtick between songs. Towards the beginning he was all “So I hear that Birmingham has more canals than Venice [it’s true]. How exciting for you… I have not seen one. But it’s a beautiful city it really is. [Audience awkwardly starts applauding for themselves]. Yay for Birmingham! [Scattered weak applause quickly dies out] Or not. [Begins playing] Okay, you had your chance. [Continues playing. Stops] Alright give yourselves a round of applause. [Applause] There we go: Yay Birmingham! [Begins playing again] This song’s about Paris.”

At the intermission (interval they call it) I said to Zarah "I wanna see him in his lederhosen!"

And then he came out in them for the second half. It was awesome!

Lovely man. Lovely evening.

I went home and put on the Halloween costume I bought that day.
I settled for pirate.
I practiced my makeup...went for the Depp Sparrow look:

If you're wondering what that line on my left cheek is, it's my attempt at a scar with the limited amount of makeup I had and my lack of proper tools. Maybe I should've brought my stage makeup. No- it has a good home with Hoffman.

I'm looking at your IV Halloween pictures and eagerly await for more. I'll post my pictures once I get them.
Happy Halloween!

"As If a Hand Has Come Out and Taken Yours"

Hiya!
This week so far:
Monday- Hester and Nix were hosting an open mic night at a pub in Selly Oak as a fund raiser for their production of Hamletmachine. It was good fun, some very talented guitar players and singers associate with the drama department.
The first guy that sang, had a wonderful voice, but I couldn't help but giggle cuz (Compound girls) I kept imagining a coke and Bacardi on the stool next to him:

Oh, my god, Barbara, I wish I got a proper picture of his face cuz he looks JUST like Beaver from VMars!

And this is Hester and Nix's flatmate, Anna.


She tried to make some friendly poke at me from the stage about there being nothing ironic about the song "Ironic" by singer, Alanis Morissette. Too bad Alanis is Canadian.

One of the directors of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg came up to me and asked if I was the girl cast in Oleanna and congratulated me. Their play is going up next week and they are both, quote, "shitting" themselves.

David, the guy playing the professor, was there. We had such the theatre person greeting (kiss on the cheek: "hello, dahling" only not the way American theatre folk try to play it up back home, this was real because he's actually British, and French so he kisses people on the cheek anyways) and we made plans to go over the script together during the director's absence.

That so-called reading was supposed to take place last night.
Course it didn't. Cuz you put dinner together with several bottles of wine (one of which was my contribution, btw) and musical theatre flatmates and no work gets done.
David mainly runs with the musical theatre crowd though he plays his part in Article 19 (the society putting on Oleanna), obviously (he is also part of the Hamletmachine cast).
One of his flatmates is the wonderful director of Little Shop who I instantly wanted to makes friends with.
And I definitely did last night. His name is Tommy. Tommy Benedict Chambers.
He's even better in person. So funny. So entertaining. And so so sweet.
Oh and SB friends: he decided he wanted to call me by my surname, so I finally have a friend to call me Gellner here to remind me of all of you (not that I need a reminder).
And with the accent he pronounces it "Gellnah" so it's the closest I've gotten to hearing my last name in an Australian accent; something I've been aiming for throughout my years as a university student.
At one point Tommy busted out History Boys and did some Hector monologues to try and motivate his friend Danny to audition should it be produced next term...cuz apparently it might and I SO hope it does!
The producer of Oleanna, Flo did a video of Tommy's little private performance, so when I get my hands on it I'll post it.

So yes at long last I have officially met and made friends with the Little Shop director and he is calling me Gellnah. I may try to bring him home with me so I can show him to you guys.
Oh and he has officially ruined my opening line for me: "What is a 'term of art'?"
His brother directed it for his A-levels and the girl that played Carol apparently put on a valley-girl-esque voice so now Tommy, when he practices his American accent on me, he talks like a valley girl and then says "Whut....is a 'term of art'?" in that voice. And I get in a laughing fit.
So yeah, the show is officially f***ed. At least the night that Tommy's in the audience- I'll say my first line, hear a snicker in the audience, I'll lose it, and then it'll just go downhill from there.
Brilliant.

Oh and Stacy you inspired me to Simpsonize myself.
I wasn't even bored. I should've been getting ready for bed but I just really wanted to do it.



Accurate, I think.

Clubbing and Rugby

This last week...

Thursday: Zarah, her flatmates, Preet and Bettina, and I went out to this place called The Works to go clubbing. Here's all of us primping:
The blonde is Zarah. The hair she's messing with belongs to Preet, from Vancouver.
The girl in the kitchen is Bettina- she's half Columbian, half French, and was born in Belgium...so she's special...or so she'd like to think. ;)

And here's us at the club:




Awesome view from the VIP room:



So yeah all in all a very good night.
Good thing Zarah and I only had to walk a short distance to our 12 o'clock class the next day.

Friday: After class Zarah and I went to the City Centre to get...

RUFUS TICKETS!!!!
woot woot!

I'm so psyched- this Friday, Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Now all we need to do is find Othello tickets...cuz I'm NOT missing Ewan McGregor as Iago.

Saturday: Rugby World Cup- England vs. South Africa

After a day of shopping at the City Centre, I got all our faces painted and we headed for the bar at the bottom of my road.




"Come on, England!"



The kickoff:



England lost though.
I think I jinxed it when I said I wanted South Africa to score first just to make it interesting...and gradually I started swooning for some of the players on their team.
We rushed out to avoid any riots. But apparently there weren't any. Poo.

"What is a 'term of art'?"

I got the part in Oleanna!!!!!!!!!!!
I found out today as I was walking to my Theatre and Cultural Politics reading group- I got a message from the director, James, telling me that he would like me to play Carol for him.

I just got back from the read-through and the play is more intense than I remembered it...about a year ago when I first read it before my second BFA audition.
It really is brilliant- for those of you who haven't read/seen it I encourage you to read it or I think there's a film of it with William H. Macy (who originated the role I believe).
It's by David Mamet (Mom, Dad).
The title of this entry is actually my first line.

So the voice coach they're bringing in is a professional (with a James Bond ring back tone, apparently) and the director is thinking of giving the professor a northern accent and Carol a southern one so the British audience will be able to discern their class differences.

Now that I think about it, I find it quite fitting for Carol. Not to generalize southerners in any way but I think the accent would definitely bring out her naivety and her manipulative nature that becomes apparent in the later acts.

So, yeah I'm really excited!
And it's gonna be in a newly renovated black box theatre in central Birmingham, I'm gonna have my own dressing room...oh my god I'm just giddy.

And the guy playing John, the Professor, is this really nice and handsome guy (half French actually- G. U. Y. and Auntie M) and I'm so psyched he got it- of the guys I read with he was by far the best.

On another random note: I know what my hair looks like straightened at the length it is now.
I was just dreading it was gonna come out all mullet-esque, but it's not that bad actually.



It actually kinda reminds me of Jodie Foster's hair in The Brave One (a movie I still need to see).
Here are some pictures to prove my point:



Eh? Eh? Ya see it?

Well that's all for now.
I'm going out for my first clubbing experience at this place called VodBull with Zarah and her flatmates...I should be seeing some of my block mates there as well.
I'll post pictures when I get them...if I take them.

Callin' Me Back Again!

Weather: very rainy.
I am SO glad I bought boots this weekend. Good proper footwear AND I can look awesome stamping through the puddles.

After Theatre Praxis and Lab I was kidnapped to this pub, the Gun Barrel ("Gunnies" they call it) at the edge of Selly Oak and campus. I'm glad I went- it was a chance to get in on the theatre circle- but god I wish I thought to change my shoes. Cuz the room where we have our Theatre Praxis/ Lab classes is like a few yards outside my flat so I just put on my flip flops...and afterwards trekked the 20 minutes onto campus in the rain with them. And when I left the rain came down even harder. I looked like quite the daft fool trudging along home with my trousers rolled up and my feet practically bare and my hoodie soaking through.
But in the end I think it was worth it. The British theatre students finally got to know me a bit better- they witnessed me in a laughing fit and were quite amused.

I got back home and tidied myself up a bit before my Oleanna audition. They talked about it a bit at Gun Barrel and Danny (one of the three theatre boys...who kinda looks like Ewan McGregor) told me I should audition. Of course I was planning on it but people kept bringing it up 'cause apparently they were going to do the play in American accents- hire a coach for the actors and everything.
Maybe they should think about saving some money ;)

So the audition went well. Afterwards I bought some wine to bring to Hester and Nix's- the "tea" party was in fact a dinner party- cuz Mum said to always bring something to a dinner party. Preferably wine.
I found a California white.

The dinner was lovely and while I was there I got a text from the producer of Oleanna inviting me to the callbacks tomorrow!
I am so happy about this one: this is a brilliant play and a role I've wanted to do since the time I used a monologue from it for BFA auditions.

All in all a very lovely evening. We topped the dinner off with a film: Drop Dead Gorgeous. My selection, of course. H & N's flatmate Anna shares my passion for it.

I'll leave you with the song that's been stuck in my head all day...


I HAVE to see this movie...soon...or I think something bad will happen...

Watching Rugby and Drinking Tea

So I went to the callback for Call for the Condemned. The director liked my British accent and told me to do it again. We explored the character of Jealousy a bit more and I had some good fun with her. He told me to give her a kind of tick and I gave her a bit of a neck twitch and some nervous thumb biting.
It went really well and he seemed to really like me.
After the callback though I was worried about how I might not be able to do Oleanna if I were cast in Condemned. So I was relieved when I got the email that they weren't able to offer me a role.
But in the email the director mentioned that he gave my name to the director of Oleanna and told him to keep a look out for me at the auditions.
The Oleanna director wrote to me later on facebook telling me about the venue that they're going to use:
It's this newly renovated place called the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham. They're taking ticket reservations for Oleanna already it seems.

For those of you who don't know it, it's a two person play; one male professor and his female student and it gets pretty intense. They have a good synopsis in the link I posted above. William H. Macy once played the professor.

Saturday:
Zarah and her flatmates, Bettina and Preet, and I went to BarOne to watch England and France in the semifinals. Bettina being half French was gutsy and wore a France shirt...that she made that day. England won and I don't know why I didn't think about how crazy the place was gonna get if England won before I went there.

Mmmmm...Johnny Wilkinson...

Finals are next week: they'll be playing South Africa (who won by a landslide against Argentina last night) and they'll be showing it on the BIG screen (as if their big screens in the bar weren't enough...and come to think of it they probably aren't) and I think I'm going. I'm even thinking of borrowing some face paint.

I then retired to my flat...for some English tea and video chat with my film making friends back home who were participating in this 24 hour Apple film fest. I'll post the link to their entry as soon as I get it; the official date to begin viewing is October 19th.

So there's that.
Oleanna auditions are today and tomorrow so wish me luck!
And Zarah and I are gonna try to get tickets to Othello in London (with Ewan McGregor as Iago...oh my god!) and Rufus!

"Are You a Tesco or Sainsbury Girl?"

Alrighty, so lately....
Yesterday I auditioned for a student-written play called Call for the Condemned which is about hell and I auditioned for the deadly sins of Jealousy and Gluttony (I thought they'd be amused to see an American play that sin). Afterwards the director kept me in for a while to make sure I was available from 5 to 7 every evening and that I could do an English accent (cuz one of the male characters is supposed to be American). A bit embarrassing but fine. I have callback today which should be fun.

For my Theatre and Cultural Politics reading group this week we went to this girl, Helen's, house which was gorgeous! Lovely garden and interior and there I had my first cup of English tea in England. :)

In theatre lab we did some rather abstract stuff exploring the body and space around it. We took a simple action and turned it into little dances basically making the initially simple, recognizable action completely unrecognizable. I was miming tying my shoes and at one point the teacher Mollie (who reminds me so much of my music teacher, Carol, red hair and all) had a little chat with me encouraging me to explore the space more. As she was doing this I felt Hester and Nix (the girls directing Hamletmachine who thought I was pretty good at physical theatre) looking right at me! I was a little embarrassed; like they wouldn't expect me to have one on one time with the teacher or something...course that's just me being silly.

I met two of Zarah's flatmates, Preet and Bettina. Preet is from Vancouver and I was so psyched when I finally heard her say "eh?"

I went shopping at Sainsbury's today. The title is a quote from Nix during the break between Theatre Praxis and Theatre Lab. I had made the rookie mistake of not bringing anything to eat and I was then asked "Tesco or Sainsbury's?" I tried out Sainsbury's today; it's less hectic than Tesco and they had whole wheat products so. ..I think I'm the latter.

Before I went shopping, after Acting class, Hester approached me and said that she and Nix were wondering if I would like to "pop over to [their] flat for tea someday". I told her I would love to!
It was such a sweet gesture, I had to make note of it.

And Halloween is approaching. Zarah already knows what she wants to be (Alice in Wonderland) and when I stopped to think about it I found that I've pretty much been everything I've ever wanted to be for Halloween. I was fresh out of ideas so I went perusing through the internet, went through the adult costumes (which really are adult) and came across this:



I wouldn't wear the F***Me boots though (Mom, Dad)...that's the main thing that makes this costume slutty. Those and the trout pout.
I figured it's fun and more original than say a bee or the playboy bunny. Plus let's face it, Robin IS a girl.

It's Autumn in England

Took some pictures walking about the Vale Village today...

~*The most gorgeous autumn tree I have ever seen*~

Fall is here!! :)

Hamletmachine: callbacks went well and were lots of fun. I didn't get cast but the girls directing, Hester and Nix, told me I had a wonderful audition and it was really really hard to let me go. They were surprised I had never done physical theatre before. They're such sweet girls and I cannot wait to see what they do with the play- I have a feeling it's gonna be awesome!

The Day of Three Name Tags

It's true- yesterday I had to make myself three different name tags for three separate occasions.

The first:
I got up early to go into town with Junko and Ai. I wanted to get my phone fixed and Junko mentioned something about a thrift store called BCEC.
I was tricked....
I soon discovered that it stood for Birmingham Chinese Evangelical Church.
Despite my terror and awkwardness they were extremely nice, even when I told them that I don't go to church but that I can appreciate religion. And the fact that I wasn't the only non-Asian person there made it easier too. I met some very nice people. The "thrift store" Junko was referring to took the form of a charity table, basically, where she spotted a kettle to take for our flat.
There was lunch afterwards...and I ate a lot of Chinese food.

We then continued to the Bullring Shopping Center where I got my phone fixed. I was tempted to do some shopping for clothes since I brought barely anything, but I managed to resist.

The second:
I had an audition for the physical theatre piece Hamletmachine which was a good audition experience. I feel myself letting go of my inhibitions more and more.
At the end of the audition we were called in one by one to say a line from the play in three different ways. Mine was "I am Ophelia, the one the river didn't keep."
When I was finished I was on my way out to call in the next person but the directors (one of whom is in my Theatre and Cultural Politics reading group, Hester) stopped me. I hadn't put down my mobile phone number cuz, well, I didn't remember it and I wasn't sure if it was working properly yet, so they said they wanted to tell me right then that they had already made up their minds about me and wanted me to come back for callbacks the next day (today)!
So that was awesome! These girls are really cool and as weird as I've heard the play to be, I think it will end up a great production.

Here's a taste of a past production of it done in London:


The third:
From the audition I walked into Selly Oak to meet Ai and Junko and my newest Japanese friend Chihiro at a bar called Archies. I'd forgotten what we were doing there (I must stop accepting invitations and following blindly) but soon found out that it was a meeting for the Japanese Society.
So I thought to myself, great I'm gonna be the only white person here, but once again I was wrong. A first year named Paul approached Junko and introduced himself. He's an International Business/ Japanese major and it was so awesome how much he was into Japanese culture (I think I found a British version of you, Billy...only he's blonde).

We had a few drinks and Paul lives near our building so he walked back home with us.

And that was my day of three nametags.
I have the callback today, I'll tell you how it goes, and my mobile is up and running again...not that I want you guys to blow a couple of bucks to talk to me for like a minute but should you like it here it is:
(011 44) 790 051 8941

"Shark Armbands for 45p? Brilliant!"

Okay so yesterday: nice day.

I at last took a stroll through a typical British neighborhood; all the brick houses crowded together along a narrow street. I met with my reading group for my Theatre and Cultural Politics class and finally had a look inside a British apartment. Very cozy.
After discussing our discussion question for our next class we just got to chatting. There's a great chain called Sainsbury's that I should check out, apparently. One of the girls Roxanne told us how she bought floaty shark armbands there for 45 p. "I don't even need shark armbands, but I had to have them. They were just 45 p!"
It was just too adorable for words.

Later that day I had the dance portion of my Little Shop of Horrors audition.
And oh my god it was intense. First off we were split into two groups. My group were first tested on our harmony skills. That went well. Then we had a break and at the end of it we managed to catch a portion of the other group's dancing audition. And the dance looked pretty tricky.

We then went in to learn it and it was pretty fun. It was to the opening number of Little Shop (duh) and I'm thinking of recording of myself doing it for you guys before I forget it. But we'll see.
It was so funny hearing the choreographer say the lyrics along with each step. It was "Little Shoppe of Hor-ahs". So dainty sounding.
I was doing well but once I got up in front of the panel with two other girls I was concentrating too much on attitude ("Attitude guys!" the director always said) so I fumbled a bit on both chances I had...but I kept going of course.

Before I went the second time this girl came up to me to tell me that she really liked my style. I couldn't tell if she was joking or not but she assured me she was serious and proceeded to tell me about a guild dancing team she ran and she encouraged me to join. Her friend seemed enthusiastic for me to join as well. It was quite flattering. But they're British; their standards are low.
I'm still interested though- it'd be nice to get dance training of some sort.
So you'd think that would've gotten me all inspired before I went to dance the second time around, and it did, but in no way did it improve my technique.

It was still fun!
And afterwards they named out all the girls they wanted to see for principal callbacks. I wasn't named off but they encouraged us all to check the list they'll put up on Monday to see if we're on the ensemble. As the director stressed this he looked directly at me, and now like a silly person I'm hoping that meant I had a good chance of being in the ensemble. All I know is that I want to play one of the three narrator-Supreme-type girls that weave in and out of the story.

Now the director of the musical; I can't tell if he's gay or not but either way I love love love him. He just cracks me up and whenever he spoke I just couldn't keep from smiling. He was so enthusiastic. And for one crazy second I swore he looked a bit like Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Anyways so there's that.
And last night was the fifth (er so) night that I've had a drink and chat about men with my flatmate Junko from Japan. I may have said this before but she and I have the same taste in men...so it's a constant giggle fest.
I should learn some Japanese while I'm here.

Today I had my Acting Class and once again it was in a room other than the one that is listed on the official timetable. Zarah and I took the bus so it wasn't too hard getting there. The class seems like lots of fun- we started out creating these four tableaux of a fairytale we were assigned (my group did Goldilocks) and from there it got interesting. First there was general conflict among us as the characters within the story and then there was conflict between us as performers, so it got pretty farcical as you can imagine. The idea was to see how real life personalities blend with personalities onstage. The class focuses on Performative Naturalism. It's gonna get really interesting I reckon.

And I discovered they sell liter bottles of Strongbow at the store down the road.
Uh oh.
I'm in trouble.

Lots of trouble.

Oh, Jerry, Please Help Me!

For my melodrama class:


I cried thinking of you, Stace!

What I wouldn't give to have Paul Henreid hand me a cigarette like that!

"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted
Now Voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find."
~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Back on My Acting Feet

Oh my god the first blog of October...whaaa!
How is it October already?

Anyways, had my second day of classes (er, lectures) here today. I only have class 3 days of the week and two of those days I can literally roll out of bed and stroll a couple of yards to class because you see that big tall building in the picture that I showed you of where I live?....

That tall building is where 3 of my 5 classes this term are. And I'm in the building hidden behind the trees on the left.
I'm still gonna have a lot of walking to do though. Like today, one of the classes that will be close by to me had its first day on the campus of Selly Oak miles away. Dunno why.
For my Theatre Praxis course we're gonna be doing a lot of reading of plays and we'll be performing scenes at the end of the each term, the second one being the biggest. We'll have our own lighting plans for it and everything. I have to go in for a fitting for my black scene clothes! Oh my god!!! Why is this theatre department so awesome?
So yeah that's exciting, and in my Theatre Lab course we'll be practicing performance without text.
We started right away unlike most of the other courses where we just did an overview. It reminded me so much of the exercises we did in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Summer Seminar. It was just refreshing to get back on my feet again and doing practical theatre.

Later today I went to two auditions. One was for the "straight" theatre guild, Article 19, for the play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. The second was for Little Shop of Horrors. Originally I wasn't planning to audition for Little Shop but one of the other CalEx drama students talked me into it.
I chose my usual audition song (I Dreamed A Dream) from a pile of sheet music they had.
I hadn't warmed up or anything. I stumbled a bit in the beginning cuz singing with a pianist with whom you haven't rehearsed is always weird. But then I got to singing and I'm not gonna lie, I surprised myself. I hadn't sung for an audience in so long, and with accompaniment for that matter.
All in all both went pretty well.

And there are even more auditions to come.