Drama and Youth - NYU London 2022

 It's July 25th and all good things must come to an end. Today is the second to last full day of the Drama and Youth program and the last blog post. It's fitting that today we again meet with Will Barlow, digging into process drama with 17 more days of experience in our minds. Will's workshop is titled "Transitions", it's a process drama brought to life with us as his students. We're taking on the role of 5th graders about to leave elementary school and make the jump to middle school (that's leave primary school and start secondary school for you Brits). These students are in the midst of a major transition, a transition that can have expanding impacts on a students life. After some introductory exercises designed to give Will some ideas that he will draw out in the meat of the process drama, we create a set for a bodega out of chairs and post it notes. This location will serve as the starting point for our story about Sam, a student struggling with th...

  Dawn and eyes both crack, The night before no solace; Rest when you are dead. It’s 9:30 am and I, like several others, was up until the wee hours finishing process drama unit plans for the esteemed Will Barlow. After staring at the ceiling for longer than I’m proud to admit, I roll out of bed and take a moment to appreciate just how exhausted I am. I’m soon joined by Daniel, and we go about the day: a stop to Waitrose for tangerines (for today’s workshop) and premade sandwiches (Matilda’s not gonna keep ME from eating!); a saunter to Antalya for a Turkish mixed grill and baklava; and it was time for our second encounter with the man, the myth, the Oily Cart driver himself: Mr. Tim Webb! Today’s afternoon session gave us an opportunity to take a stab at creating immersive sensory theatre in the style that Tim spoke with us about last week. He had not come empty handed, and had a table full of stimulating objects for us to use: spray bottles, hand warmers, bubble makers, hand...

  Welcome fellow traveler! Picture it...Me..writing this blog...a fellow traveler!     We must have bumped paths because of our shared interest in the treasure, that is, theatre.  As we head to Stratford-Upon-Avon in the wee waking hours of the morning, I prepare myself for a day full of Shakespeare.  As Jonathan Jones once said to us, Shakespeare set "off to the war of theatre" which is what we are about to do today, be the Shakespearean crusaders.    Above you see above the beautiful swans that were once said to be the theatre mongrel's pets.    Shakespeare loved playing with the swans and ducks between writing the tragedies that are King Lear and Richard III.     I, too, love watching the swans glide through the river like beautiful olives in a martini.    With the rise of the alleged "swanpox" and "bird-flu" outbreak, we all made sure we took all of our sanitary precautions when feeding the beasts. Follo...

I wake up to the clattering of dustbins, reversing trucks restocking Tesco shelves, and the murmur of footsteps as people start trickling through Clerkenwell Green on their daily commute. Since I have a family in tow for this class, I’m living outside of the NYU residence - a stone’s throw from what, I am shocked to learn, used to be “the most disreputable street in London” in Shakespeare’s time. How scandalous!                                               Early morning in Clerkenwell Green - my little piece of London Today, though, Clerkenwell is a quaint, leafy patch of life that is hidden from the bustle of the city. It feels like a village. There’s a grand church perched on a hill and lots of pubs with flowery facades that attract larger congregations than the parish. And I’m smack in the center of all this, sandwi...

On the second day of the hottest weather ever in the UK, our brave band headed off to UEL (University of East London) campus once again. Fortunately, the air conditioning at UEL is strong. If not, we might have all melted like a lonely sticky toffee pudding.  * picture on left Oh Crap it’s Going to be Hot Today, London, 2022 (ps it’s in Celcius) * picture on the right credit NYTimes morning headlines email newsletter I arrived in studio one and moved some chairs to help set the mood for the work ahead.  *Chairs in an expectant circle, London, 2022 At the start, Liselle came in to help explain what was going to happen for the day. We were to work with Caroline Griffith on physical theatre and text. From there, we would have lunch together, she would get us some snacks, and then we would have a zoom meeting with Carl Dunnington and Ali Warren from Open Drama UK to talk about the UK educational theatre system.  When talking about lunch she asked if we wanted to go outside, ...