"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.