LAMDA DAY 1

Today was my first day at LAMDA for the 8 week Shakespeare Course. I had no idea what to expect, but I was amazed by how incredible the program is. Class starts at 10 promptly and goes till 530. We have a 15 minute break in the morning and afternoon, and an hour from 115 to 215 for lunch. The 3 Year BA/BFA students at LAMDA are in school M-F 9 am till 9 pm, so I think 10 to 530 isn't too shabby. We spend half the day doing Shakespeare scene work and the other half doing two of either Historic Dance, Text Analysis, Acting, Voice or Singing (for those of you who have heard me sing... oh boy). Today was mostly orientation work, but tomorrow morning begins with Text/Singing.

There are 24 students in the workshop from literally all over the world. We spent the morning getting to know everyone and in the afternoon divided into the the groups that we will be working in for the next 8 weeks. I completely lucked out and am the only student from Dartmouth in my group; the other six Dartmouth students are together. It's really great to work by myself because I had the opportunity to meet so many new people. I was assigned the role that I'm going to be working on for the next few weeks-Portia in Merchant of Venice. My scene partner is a junior at Yale. There are 3 other Americans in my class, a boy from Dublin, a girl from Istanbul, a girl from Malta, a boy from Paris, and four kids from England. I found out that I am not only the youngest in my group, but that I also have the least experience acting Shakespeare as well (I have read more than most of the group, but as my professor dropped out of school at 14, he doesn't care much for Shakespeare as literature). My scene work professor, John Link in addition to being an actor/director/producer/teacher, is also an artist and his portraits of Shakespeare's characters are on exhibit at theaters all over London. LAMDA is one of the best acting conservatories in the world (I learned from a first year in the 3 year program that roughly 3000 auditioned for the 27 spots) and their alumni are all over the world.

Hopefully school stays as promising as orientation made it seem.