London Broil - July 19

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, but Conor rightfully answered for all of us and said, “No, we would like to eat inside.”

Liselle asked us to share some information about ourselves in the typical form of Name, Pronouns, and something we were hoping to get from this time in London. There were lots of great answers that showed there are lots of ways that we, as a group, can support our quests to learn and grow here in London. It’s a powerful reminder that sometimes one of our greatest strengths are each other. (PS Wro, don’t forget to dig up your SEL work from the certification you had to get as an administrator in Massachusetts for Jonathan.)

After our chat with Liselle it was time to work with Caroline Griffith, who used script from a play called Bogus Woman (I can’t remember the exact name; I didn’t write it down.) I’m not sure if she ever said it was written by Debbie Tucker Green, though that’s what it said in our daily planner. Caroline’s background is as a dancer, but she shifted to acting and has kind of combined the two worlds. She works at UEL, teaching level 3 and other classes at the university.

Anyway, we jumped into the physical theatre work right away with a game. It’s the same kind of energy that Rob Leeman talked about starting classes with at the Young Lyric. Using games can be a great way to build trust, fun, and energy as you start to work with a group of people.

After engaging with a fun elimination game where she said either red (stop), green (go), blue (get a partner) and yellow (make a group of three.) If you messed up any direction or didn’t make a pair or group in time or had no one to be in a pair/group, with you were out. This is a fun game and it was a blast to use this one with students.

*2nd page of text given to us

Next, we were given text from the play and we created a gesture for several of the lines. Then, we were given a partner and, with the partner, we combined our gestures. From there, we added lines back in to go along with our gestures. Shortly thereafter we were combined with another pair to run our pieces at the same time. I found this part lots of fun. There was a time crunch to it and the fear of dropping lines, but to me it seemed that everyone was working hard and having fun.

See a quick montage of these moments below.

We were given sets if we wanted, with chairs and tables. My partner and I chose to go without. Half of the groups had a new piece of text and each part was a piece of a whole moment in the play.

* groups working with set

Finally, the two halves were allowed to join and work together to create moments that went along with our vision. I loved the autonomy and the challenge of bringing together many minds to create a single combined moment. My group worked well and we had fun bouncing ideas off of each other to create our new unified play.

*Stills from the small playlets

After showing our pieces we went back and quickly ran our original movement pieces for Liselle. It was a cool experience to go back to the beginning and run it again after having left it and developed so much more of the story. I only wish we would have had more opportunity to process each other’s work. Time is always precious in a classroom.

We had a great lunch with some delicious snacks provided by Liselle. What an amazing host! We were all scattered about the room, engaged in deep conversation.

* deep lunch conversation (note my foot)

When lunch was through we gathered with Liselle and she talked to us for a bit about UEL and how she was looking for work that connected to something important rather than just a conservatory experience. The school’s ACI (Arts and Creative Industries) program covers a lot of areas and she mentioned that it has one of the strongest dance programs in the UK. We also got to see a video featuring Mia Cunningham talking about UEL’s strengths.

* Liselle discussing UEL with us

When Liselle was through, and after a few technical hiccups (tech is always so willing to work when you need it to), we were able to have our Zoom conversation with Carl and Ali. We talked about Open Drama UK, the structure of UK drama (especially at the secondary level), and the current state of affairs of drama programs in the UK. Open Drama UK aims to be a resource for theatre educators across the UK. It was interesting to hear how another country is approaching the work and fascinating to engage in a pedagogical discussion around work we care deeply about. It was sad to hear how the current political climate is not valuing certain aspects of their program and has been cutting funding: a battle that teacher’s in the US have faced for a long time.

When the workshop was done, we made a quick dash home and then pretty much headed out the door again to go to the Lyric Theater to see their production of Closer.

It was a sweaty and smokey theater, but we enjoyed ourselves and had lots of great conversations around the aspects of the show we enjoyed. Tamara was extremely helpful as the resident Closer (film version) expert. She answered many questions about differences in plot and who portrayed each role in the movie. It was great to see the ensemble members that Rob Leeman talked about engaging in the production. What a tremendous opportunity to get experience working in professional theatre.

* poor photography skills by Wro

It was a long day, but one filled with lots of information, good conversations, and even better people. Thanks to the group and our leaders for the wonderful experiences.

Have a great day,

Wro

See below a video on our group’s answer to the question of the day!