The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue is currently playing at the Vaudeville Theatre starring Academy Award winners Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl, Mel and Edna Edison (you would probably recognize Goldblum from Jurassic Park). The tickets were only £12 and definitely worth it. The American play set in New York City was very well done. The entire play took place in the Edison's apartment and over five scenes and followed Mel through his midlife crisis into a nervous breakdown after losing his job. Even though the subject doesn't sound like the most hilarious two hours, Goldblum's antics, annoying neighbors and ridiculous siblings kept the audience laughing out loud the entire way though. By far my favorite play yet!

Stratford-Upon-Avon

Our entire LAMDA group went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Wednesday to Friday for a jam packed three days. I really liked Stratford and got to see pretty much all of it: you can go down every street in the entire town during one 30 minute run.

On Wednesday afternoon we went on a tour of The Courtyard Theatre, which is the Royal Shakespeare Company's temporary 1000 seat theatre. The RSC has been undergoing reconstruction for the past four years and is set to reopen their main location in November. Rather than close for four years, which would be devastating to a town that usually takes in £50 million in tourism each year, the company built a completely recyclable temporary theatre across the street.

This theatre is where we saw Morte D'Arthur and Romeo and Juliet. Morte D'Arthur is the story of the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table. The play was very well done, but both incredibly busy and long (4 hours! 3 parts!). Guiltly, I only stayed for the first two... that is an awful long time to sit still. Romeo and Juliet, however, was absolutely amazing. Sam Troughton, who played Arthur the night before, was Romeo. The director had Romeo and Juliet in modern day clothing (Juliet in converses and skinny jeans, Romeo with head phones) and had the rest of the ensemble in traditional Tudor clothing. However, when Romeo and Juliet died, everyone switched and they were dressed in Tudor while the rest of the cast was in modern clothing. The woman who played the Nurse, Noma Dumezweni, is an Olivier Award winner. Her performance was extremely impressive and her humor was much more sophisticated than the typical little old English ladies that play her character.

While in Stratford, we attended a drama workshop with an RSC affiliate and our instructor was Arthur/Romeo's mother. I also went on a tour of Anne Hathway's House, Shakespeare's Birthplace and the town of Stratford. We went to a pub called "The Dirty Duck Pub" that serves all the RSC actors and my friends actually met some of the cast members.

On the way home Friday, we stopped by Warwick Castle, which is a medieval castle. The first grounds there were created in 714, but the stone castle as it stands now wasn't built till 1260. Now the castle has a princess tower, a joust tournament and a dungeon ride... It has basically been converted into a tourist trap, but the castle itself was very cool.

Stratford was filled with stores named after Shakespeare's characters, plays, etc. This particular store, Romeo and Juliet's is an adult store, filled with everything you'd expect to find in an adult store.

This is Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare's grave lies.

This picture is from the garden's at Anne Hathaway's house, Shakespeare's wife. The first part of the house was built in 1463.

This is Shakespeare's birthplace.

This picture is of me and some friends at Warwick Castle. In this picture, you can find an American, a Turk, a Mexican, and Irishman, a Frenchman, and a Brit!

Les Miserables featuring Nick Jonas

I went to see Les Mis this evening at the Queen's Theatre. Les Mis is an incredibly beautiful show, and this evenings performance did not disappoint. The show was directed by Trevor Nunn, who was the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford for almost twenty years and directed the very famous Ian McKellen-Judi Dench Macbeth. He has currently been directing Les Mis for 25 years.

Nick Jonas (one of the Jonas Brothers) played Maurice and delivered a surprisingly good performance, despite the large number of teeny boppers there to see him. Eponine, played by Samantha Barks, stole the show in my opinion. She sings "On My Own" which is my favorite song from Les Mis and delivered a very breathtaking performance. Barks is set to play the leading role in a Disney TV series set to be released in 2011 (quite a Disney Channel heavy cast). The only issue I had with the show was Cosette: Camilla Kerslake, who is relatively famous English singer played the role, and I thought her performance was rather vain. And she was a blonde-Cosette is almost always played by a brunette! Fortunately, after July 12, she is being replaced with Lucie Jones from the X Factor, who will hopefully much better. The tech for the show was great, and included slow motion movements for many of the battle scenes.

Nick Jonas came to sign autographs after the show. The younger brother-the bonus Jonas-was there with him.

Overall, I loved the performance (cried a little). Definitely one of my top five favorite musicals.

Grace Kelly: Style Icon

I went to visit the Grace Kelly exhibit at the Victoria and Albert museum this afternoon. The Victoria and Albert Museum itself was free, but the Grace Kelly exhibit cost £4 for students. Inside the exhibit, there were two movie reels playing clips from her films and original newsreels, a wide array of hats, dresses, jewelry, gloves, shoes and sunglasses, and originally magazine stories that followed her life.

Grace Kelly was in 11 films from 1951 to 1956 and helped pick out her wardrobe for many of them. She became an ambassador to the world for simple American fashions, like the shirtwaist dress and casual shirts. The exhibit contained a lot of clothing from her Hollywood days, including dresses from Rear Window, The Swan and High Society (MGM gave her all her dresses from High Society to keep). The exhibit also had the dress that she wore to the 1955 Academy Awards where she won Best Actress for Country Girl (pictured above).

Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier on a business trip to the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. After they were married, she became a big supporter of the arts and brought back grand balls to Monaco. The exhibit had many of her ball gowns, including 8 designed by Marc Bohan for Christian Dior. She also had many dresses by Givenchy, Balenciaga and Coco Channel. The exhibit also contained the coat that she wore when she landed in Monaco in 1956 by Ben Zuckerman to be greeted by a crowd of 50,000.

The exhibit also had a Givenchy dress that Grace Kelly is wearing in this picture from a 1961 White House lunch.

Unfortunately, I wasnt able to photograph her clothing, but here's a picture of the V&A!

Top 10 Observations of weird things in London

So I've now been in london for a full two weeks and wanted to send out an update about some of the interesting things I've learned so here are my first 10 observations!

1. Pop (or soda, as many of you may call it) is called "fizzy drinks" and Frosted Flakes are called "Frosties". Cookies are called "digestables" which makes me not want to eat them. Soccer is called "football" and is the most important thing in the world. It is also, apparently, more manly than American football.

2. "Chips" mean "fries" and "crisps" mean "chips". Doritos are still called Doritos, but they taste different-slightly better I would say. Also, instead of Lays or Jays British people eat Walkers chips and they come in hamburger and steak flavor, but not in BBQ.

3. People drive on the wrong side of the road (get it: not the right, but the WRONG! side)!! HAHA! i keep thinking little children are driving but then remember that the driver sits on the right.

4. the bright red telephone booths you think of when you think of London are everywhere. And inside, are covered with ads for escorts and pictures of naked women.

5. The subway is called the Tube as said "Tyoobe" (as my voice teacher her taught me). A subway is a walkway under the street. Likewise, gas is called Petrol and is sold in liters.

6. Students think nothing of buying premade sandwiches at lunch from the gas station, the supermarket, etc. No one brings their lunch to school so most working people and students after age 15 buy these sandwiches daily.

7. There are no stopsigns. All places where we'd have stopsigns are roundabouts and scary. There are a lot of stoplights, and not only do lights turn yellow between green and red, but they also turn yellow when changing from red and green!

8. vegetarians are sometimes called "vegetablists" and veggie fish and chips = fried cheese.

9. England is filled with lots of Americans therefore the bakery on my block sold 4th of July cupcakes. England also has lots of American shops and food places under slightly different names, like "Tennessee Fried Chicken" and "T K Maxx"...

10. Big Ben is actually not that big so I don't really understand why they call it Big Ben. Baker tower might be as big as big ben.

Also for all my acapella friends!! I realized that I do sort of know how to sing. I never realized that we're supposed to sing notes like you play on a piano (I just thought the notes were like a scale for high and low), but now that I have made that discovery its like a whole new world!

Wireless Festival

I went to Saturday of the 3 day Wireless Music Festival in Hyde Park yesterday and had a blast. Artists I saw yesterday were Missy Elliott, New Young Pony Club, Snoop Dogg, and LCD Soundsystem. Missy Elliott was pretty good-she was earliest and wearing a sweatsuit in the hot sun and dancing pretty much as you'd expect. New Young Pony Club was really good. Their lead singer reminded me of Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their keyboardist was very cool. Snoop Dogg was much better in London than he was in Chicago at Lollapalooza last year. He did a lot of his songs from the early 90s and put together a solid set. Interesting note: Snoop Dogg is only 38 years old (I guess drugs make you age more quickly cause he looks like he's at least 50). LCD Soundsystem was really disappointing and I was so upset! I'm not sure if its because they were last and the crowd was dead or if it was their performance... but they were almost boring. They didn't play "Someone Great" which is my favorite song by them.

I went to the concert with my friend Senam from Lamda. She is from Istanbul but has gone to college in London for the past year and is really awesome. We met up with one of her friends from Istanbul and his friends for the concert and it turned out all of his friends were American! I was hanging out with two Vanderbilt grads, a guy from New Jersey and a half French, half American girl for the concert. So even though some of the bands were not the best... it was a lot of fun!

Snoop Dogg playing "Gin and Juice"

LCD Soundsystem

Me and my friend Senam

Women Beware Women

I was back at the National again this evening (well, technically yesterday evening because its now 1:30!) with the entire LAMDA group to see Women Beware Women. The play was written by Thomas Middleton, one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, and was very much the 16th century equivalent of Desperate Housewives: the love affairs of two 16 year olds, an uncle in love with his niece, a Duke who steals a peasants wife, and a mean, manipulative widow who causes the death of pretty much everyone in the play.

Rather than taking place in the 16th century, the director set the play in the 1950s. The costumes were all representative of '50s characters and during intense scenes, a band played slow jazz (sort of Godfather-esque). I thought the whole show was a bit corny, but I was surprised by how easily the show transfered to a modern time.