London 2017

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Research Project Materials

City Map:

https://fusiontables.google.com/data?docid=1WnP2Px8xqWQrS-Z68p0Qxtuv9tLLFqBkN_vu1Olr#map:id=3

Data Table:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/198vrcoQKiXegoKoIVRnZIZnDWmwtuu9YTIN-VVGVb6o/edit#gid=0

Research:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1faThuwyb3DcSCuDpQZQgeXDlqy9s1Y0GWPN2MQVYsE0/edit

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From Londinium to Westminster: The Remnants of the Roman Empire in Contemporary London

The research that I conducted this semester originated from pure curiosity and the spirit of discovery, nothing more. The day after I arrived in London, our group participated in a walk around Southbank. I made my way all the way down the cobblestone path that lined the Thames until I got to Tower Bridge. After walking across the river and past the Tower of London, I walked past a tiny courtyard with a statue in it. Thinking nothing of it, I continued to walk until I realized what exactly I had just passed, and doubled back to take a closer look. It was a statue of the Roman Emperor Trajan, and the courtyard wasn’t a courtyard at all. The massive, crumbling stone wall that towered above me was one of the best-preserved ruins of the ancient wall that once protected the city of Londinium. I was in awe that I was actually in the presence of something so old, a relic right there in the middle of the city. Stumbling upon the wall planted the seed in my mind that although London was a city with such a deeply-rooted British identity, its beginnings were purely Roman. I decided to find out for myself how many other clues from the Empire were hidden around the city, and why.

A great deal of research came from Professor Matchette’s Art and Architecture course. As a student who has never formally studied either topic, it was daunting at first trying to comprehend the different styles that evolved throughout history. The one that clearly stood out, however, was the Neoclassical movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. Visiting the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square was one of the first instances in which I was able to observe the Neoclassical style in London. It immediately struck me as resemblant of the Roman Pantheon, which is no coincidence. I was fascinated by the way that Victorian British architects paid homage to the titans of culture that their society was built on. Later on in the semester, my visits around Westminster to sites like Somerset House and the British Library allowed me to identify common architectural similarities between the buildings, and from that I was able to further my visual research.

When I had the idea to study different historical sites across London, I immediately knew what medium I wanted to use to highlight my data. I was aware that Google had designed their fusion tables because I remembered using it in another class freshman year, one that covered religion and the printing industry in Renaissance London. Although it was a time-consuming process, I finally was able to figure out how to make my own fusion table and turn it into an interactive map. I knew that this would be the best way to showcase my data because it allows the user to not only read the information for each site in a condensed and concise way, but it creates a visual aid as to where each location is relative to each other in the city.

I was fortunate enough to have a plethora of resources for my research into Ancient London. The Museum of London proved to be an incredible source for historical relics, with their large collection of Roman households objects and building reconstructions from the first and second centuries. The detailed timelines I found there painted a detailed picture of the layout of the city during that period, which functioned as a stepping stone toward other sites. I explored the Guildhall in Moorgate, as well as the ruins of the watchtowers that once joined the northern and southern city walls together. The informative plaques and pamphlets that littered these sites were incredibly useful for piecing together the ancient city and gave me the information that I needed to complete my fusion table.

Finding a topic that sparked such high interest was a stroke of sheer luck that motivated me to dig as deeply as I could. London is a city with an incredibly rich history and even richer access to museum and historical sites that allow any common person to investigate into its past. The story of the city origins, I learned, is anything but outdated; the ideologies and standards of beauty are still similar to the way in which people view the world today. In others words, the rise of Neoclassicism in the 18th and 19th centuries was no accident. The Roman style is widely accepted in the West as aesthetically pleasing, and various scholars such as Murdoch and Vaughan that I also used for research have indicated that the utilisation of such styles reflect positively on the cultures that reuse them. I predict another movement in the next few hundreds of years that looks toward these antiquated societies and seeks to emulate them; after all, the Romans started the city of London, and their legacy has not yet been forgotten to this day.

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A Day About Town // November 2017 From the West End to the East End, the City to Southbank, I was all over the place. Half the day was spent at the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, then down on the bus to St. Paul’s where I headed over Millennium Bridge and went for a run; Shakespeare’s Globe to the Palace of Westminster.

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Saturday afternoon on the High Road // November 2017

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The Suppliant Woman

Oy vey. I wanted to like this play, I really did.

Unfortunately, the elements of the show I enjoyed somehow got lost in translation. My favorite part, by far, was the curtain speech in which the Archbishop poured out an entire bottle of red wine across the stage in honor of Dionysus. I was both shocked and amazed that such a high-ranking Catholic official would publicly pay tribute to a Greek god, but it was actually quite a powerful gesture. From there, I found my investment in the events on stage slipping in and out.

The translation used was quite good; easy to follow, with elaborate imagery. The pacing, for the most part, was quick and smooth, but stumbled a bit whenever a chorus member acted out of sync with the rest of the group. It seemed as though for every girl that was rather good, there were four that were terribly overacting. This proved to create a strong community theatre essence about the show; mediocre and lacking. It was clearly that the primary chorus member, the redheaded actress in the navy tank top, was a paid cast member, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was compelling and she moved incredibly well in the cramped space; she was both engaged and engaging, a pure delight to watch.

The two-man band was quite impressive, and I found their music to be the most useful technical aspect of the production. It was fascinating to listen, sometimes even with my eyes closed, to the complex beat the drummer created to keep the rhythm of the lines moving evenly.

There were, indeed, some very interesting stage pictures created in spite of the sub-par performances by the chorus. The burst of confetti into the air, the painstaking process of creating a great cow that took up the entirety of the stage in soot. I especially enjoyed the modern choreography, I thought it fit well with the contemporary costumes the actors wore.

In spite of all of this, I found The Suppliant Woman to be disappointing. The production quality was noticeably uneven; the rich gray stones that made up the floor were magnificent in comparison to the dingy pajama-like costumes of the chorus. The strong contrasts between acting styles of the actors was distracting, and drew attention to the weakest links rather than the shining stars.

Perhaps it was just this particular bunch of girls, that the show will improve on tour with a new chorus.

Or maybe not.

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Oslo

I was very moved by this piece as a whole. With the exception of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, this was the play this semester that I felt the most connected to as an individual. I must admit, my knowledge beforehand of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was pretty lacking, so the experience that I had was probably quite different than somebody who already knew the outcome of the historical events. As somebody who comes from a family that isn’t quite Zionist but supports the nation of Israel, we do not talk about it much in my home. My brother is strongly anti-Zionist, while my extended family has so much love in their hearts for the nation, the heated arguments that could ensue are usually merely avoided. For this reason, I didn’t know very much about the specific people involved like Arafat and Peres, and I certainly had no idea that the Oslo accords ever even happened, let alone came so close to achieving peace.

It was a surprisingly funny show that somehow maintained a great deal of lightheartedness in spite of the serious subject matter. I found myself laughing out loud more often than not, becoming visibly angry, and leaning forward over the balcony bar, desperate to know what would happen next. As much as I like to think of myself as a pacifist, I was rather ashamed at how I tried to mentally justify some of the acts the Israelis had committed. My subconscious bias was something that certainly affected the lens through which I watched the show, even if I didn’t want it to. For example, a joke that was called back several times throughout the script was the matter of Jerusalem; both the PLO and the Israeli negotiators wanted the Holy City for their capital, causing the Israelis to scream out “NO!” each time it was suggested in negotiation. I felt the exact same way-- as if that was our city, and it needed to stay that way. Non-negotiable. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a play during which I had such a strong preconceived notion as to how I wanted the plot to proceed, and it truly was a slight distraction to watching with an outsider’s eye.

The production itself, I thought, was quite tasteful. The use of projection was spot-on and not at all overused, and the costumes were very telling of each character. Larson, the professor, wore an elaborate three-piece suit, indicating that he thought very highly of himself and wanted to put an emphasis on appearing proper. This can be surmised in other points of the show such as when he becomes outraged that he was not given a seat at the White House ceremony, at which Mona must remind him, “It is not about you.” Subtle design elements like this really tied the show together for me and made it quite easy to digest visually.

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Notes from Brexit Debate

Brexit would destabilize the EU: 6.6% of goods gets imported to the UK, UK exports 51% of goods to Europe

The EU: An Obituary

The EU is, at best, a “half-built house”.

EU Budget: The budget is seriously misaligned. “It is not designed to maximize economic returns across Europe, but to balance a range of interests between member states and cover the mounting costs of the Eurocracy;… the 750-member Parliament… in Strasbourg… stands empty for 317 days and costs 62.4ME to maintain…”

SEM: not entirely as simple and easy as it’s made out to be (there are still trade barriers for industries like energy telecommunications, transportation, energy, etc.)

-promised to reduce unemployment--did not.

-extra-European exports have grown worldwide, but it’s unproven whether or not this was because of the SEM

-could work with “fiscal harmonization; reduced environmental standards; infrastructural investment; the elimination of ‘cohesion’ policies”

Bottom line:

Pro-Brexit

Britain can negotiate new trade agreements without being bound by EU law w/ top traders (US, Australia, Gulf states)

BJ says Britain sends over 350MGBP to Brussels every single week as an EU member (actually about 190MGBP/week after rebateNYT) That’s 25-30% of England’s entire comprehensive school budget. Imagine what we could do with that money to better the UK from within instead of letting the continent bleed it dry? (science, infrastructure, transportation, etc.)

Why would we want to be in a dying club? Greece is slowing down the European economy

Being part of the single market means freedom of labour mobility AKA weakening UK borders to foreign workers

Anti-Brexit

By staying in the EU, UK doesn’t need to pay exporter tariffs (thx single market).

British households pay 340GBP/year to the EU (ACCESS TO THE SINGLE MARKET DOESN’T COME FREE)

Britain’s trade with EU countries has risen since 1973 thx to being part of the market

Without a new trade deal, the UK may be subject to high export tariffs--terrible for farmers especially. Agriculture= over 60% of UK exports-- affects the food industry, tourism, etc.

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Brexit Debate

 I think it is safe to say that this was one of my favourite events from the entire semester. In high school, my mock trial team placed #14 in the nation out of thousands of schools, so I was very confident in my ability to think on my feet and articulate my argument in a short amount of time.

Preparing for the debate was incredibly similar to prepping for a trial. It was helpful to meet with the entire team beforehand to discuss stragegy and talking points, and I think it was a smart decision on our part to work on our statements as a team. This way, we could reference arguments our teammates had made as well as run ideas past each other in real time.

I was very appreciative toward Jake for taking the initiave to check out a series of books for our team. The book I primarily drew from, The EU: An Obituary by John R. Gillingham, was able to put the complex concept of the SEM (Single European Market) into layman’s terms; as the team member who would be arguing for the benefits of Post-Brexit economics, it was crucial that I understood the fiscal consequences of leaving the European Union. We worked well into the night, and I must say, it was an exciting process. I found it thrilling to be learning so much about European economic trends; this is a topic that I have always assumed I would never be able to understand, but I was pleased that I was able to comprehend a book about something I’ve never researched before. Learning something new is always a treat, but learning something that had previously baffled you and actually getting it-- that is unmatchable.

In the end, our team ended up winning the debate. I think both sides had some really excellent points, and it was clear that a lot of well thought-out research had been conducted. After my turn, I wished that I had been able to participate even more! I’d forgotten how enriching debating is, and I wish Drew had a team now more than ever.

The following statement is what I prepared for the debate:

We can talk about a lot of things when it comes to the future of Britain’s economy in the face of Brexit, but the bottom line is that leaving the European Union will give the one thing it needs to prosper: OPPORTUNITY. For too long, this country has been told what to do with its money and how it must be spent, and that has held Britain back from joining the big leagues of global trade.

The EU has been around since the period after World War, but the Single European Market (SEM) is just 25 years old. When it was completed in 1992, EU leaders told the countries involved that it would greatly reduce unemployment--which it did not. Sure, while it enables the free movement of labour between countries, as my opponent will tell you, but the fact of the matter is that the Single Market’s successful reputation has been blown out proportion. What exactly does that mean? Let’s take the movement of goods, for example. While most goods can be traded “freely” across the EU, it’s not entirely as simple and easy as it’s made out to be. There are still a number of trade barriers for huge industries like energy telecommunications, transportation, energy, and the list goes on. According to Historian John Gillingham, the SEM could work in Britain’s favor with “fiscal harmonization; reduced environmental standards; infrastructural investment, etc.” but the fact is that right now, these industries are suffering due to the incomplete deals that the EU has not made to help Britain.

Furthermore, the EU is a top offender of draining money out of British pockets to fund their owned unbalanced budget. According to Gillingham, “[the EU budget] is not designed to maximize economic returns across Europe, but [instead] to balance a range of interests between member states and cover the mounting costs of the Eurocracy”. In other words, the EU’s primary fiscal interest lies in self-sufficiency rather than profit for its members. Just one example of this misuse of funds, for example would be one of the European Union’s Parliament buildings in Strasbourg. “The 750-member Parliament… in Strasbourg… stands empty for 317 days a year out of the 365. And YET it costs 62.4ME to maintain… So that’s where British money has been going? We’ve all heard of Secretary Johnson’s agenda to take the 350MGBP that the UK gives to Brussels every week and give it back into the British healthcare system. Now, this 350MGBP has been debunked-- it's actually closer to 190MGBP after rebates. But 190MGBP. That’s almost 30% of the entire English school budget. Imagine what we could do with that money to better the UK from within instead of letting the continent bleed it dry? (science, infrastructure, transportation, etc.) Access to the single market is anything but free.

There is a bottom line to all of this. For just a second put aside the promises for the single market that the European Union was never able to keep, put aside the billions of wasted dollars that the EU has sucked out of the United Kingdom. This is a chance for Britain to become independent from this economic crutch. This is an opportunity to negotiate new, fairer  trade agreements without being bound by the rigid, unfinished EU law. By choosing to leave, the UK can build a relationship w/ international top traders (US, Australia, Gulf states), and put its name on the map again as a global superpower.

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Sunday Roast // November 2017 Despite our flat’s tiny kitchen, I was able to make a full Sunday roast this evening. Had I a proper roasting tray, I would have been able to make a gravy from the drippings, but I’m still pretty proud nonetheless. Next stop: Thanksgiving (?)

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Bonfire Night

In the fourth grade, I had a penpal from Plymouth who wrote to me about going out with her family for Guy Fawkes night to light a bonfire under the fireworks by the sea. It sounded incredible. Since then, I’ve always been curious as to how the Brits experience and celebrate Bonfire Night every November.

The concept of celebrating the anniversary of Fawkes’ attempt to blow up Parliament always struck me as rather grim. The idea of 21st century Englishmen and women burning effigies of a man from 400 years ago seems a bit like overkill, but I was willing to keep my mind open.

We could hear fireworks in the neighbourhood for a few days before the fifth, but there was a nonstop crackling and popping virtually all day. Around 17:30, my flat, bundled up in hats and coats to brace ourselves against the frigid November night air, made our way to the bus stop. We stopped at the convenience store around the corner from the flat to pick up some snacks for an exquisite 2-cent picnic of old pepperoni & cheap wine and hopped on the 31 toward Camden.

The first thing I noticed about the firework displays was that they were actually very badly arranged. From the top of Primrose Hill, we could see across the entire city to the East. Most of the displays seemed to take place North of central London near Camdentown; I couldn’t see any fireworks around the Thames, which was surprising because I would have assumed that it would have been a hot spot for tourists visiting for the holiday. I thought back to the end scene from V for Vendetta in which an enormous explosion of fireworks can be seen over the Palace of Westminster for everyone on London Bridge to see-- but it seems as though that was just for the movie. The thing about the fireworks themselves, across the board, is that they were very spaced out, and there was no sort of pattern to them. It dawned on me that this day was probably one of the only nights per year, excluding New Year’s Eve, that displays like this occurred in and around the city of London. There’s no Fourth of July in the United Kingdom, no day in which the British can celebrate an independence day. I found these fireworks, in comparison to the highly calculated and choreographed fireworks of America, lacking. 

Nonetheless, it was quite fun to join the hundreds of Londoners atop the hill overlooking the city we all inhabited. The buildings, tall and small, glistened and glowed in the dark night, and one could make out the shapes of the Gherkin or the London Eye on the horizon. It was really a fantastic view. As the sporadic fireworks continued we walked around the north part of Regent’s Park a bit and saw some fellow audience members lighting off their own fireworks. However, in a moment, chaos reigned as the plastic stands that straightened the fireworks tipped over under the weight of the fat rockets. Fireworks quickly shot into the crowds, exploding into the grass in brilliant shades of scarlet and emerald. Groups of people scattered and even dove out of the way as the bright colours were launched in every direction, accompanied by deafening shouts and bangs. As terrifying as it was, I was both amused and entertained. Even in the midst of scurrying sideways behind a bench to avoid getting hit, it was a hilarious disaster that had grown adults slipping in the grass and stumbling over their own feet. The rogue fireworks ceased as quickly as they started, and everybody slowly peeked over to see if the worst of it was over. The teenagers that had set them off had booked it out of the park, probably in their best interest, as the Metropolitan Police were already marching up the path to confiscate their contraband. 

We made our way home on the bus and crunched through the yellowed leaves on the pavement. I had expected Guy Fawkes Day to be a slightly bigger event, but in the end, it seemed as though many people in London couldn’t be bothered it. I would consider it to be in the same vein as Halloween; people are aware of it, and some participate, but it really depends on the person.

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Community Engagement

Week I: Holy MOLY was I nervous. I didn’t know much about Meisner, but I was well-aware of its reputation for making people cry or become enraged or some other powerful inner emotion, and I was scared. It was probably mostly in part to the fact that, walking into class, I was one of the youngest students by about ten years. There were other people in their late 30′s and even their 40′s, actors and opera singers and performers who had been working professionally for years already. How was I supposed to match them? Luckily for me, we didn’t dive right into the thick of it right at the first week. We began with our names and why we decided to take the class. I told the class of how I felt like I’ve been lacking structure in my work because I’ve never properly studied any sort of technique. I was looking for a new way to approach my work, and this seemed like a good place to start. We concluded the class with a preview of the repetition we’d be doing in the weeks to come, and a sense memory exercise. The instructor of the class, Alex led us through a story with our eyes closed in which we were to envision a loved one falling ill and eventually dying. It was a moving  

Week II: We finally began rep! I was so incredibly excited to try it out. I’d never gotten a chance to do one-on-one repetition, even at Drew. Unfortunately for me, the partner I worked with was one of the most rigid actors I’ve ever seen. He found it difficult to take direction, and it made the instructor focus more on loosening him up than giving me prompts. I had to come to terms with this-- after all, it’s his job to work on everything at once, not just me. It was just a slight disappointment that I didn’t feel that I’d absorbed a great deal from that particular round. I must say, however, I was rather pleased that I found several ways of pushing and prodding my partner out of his comfort zone. I liked the creative ways I approached the rep, such as using ultimatums and mocking.

Week III: I felt ready this week. I wanted to make some sort of breakthrough that I hadn’t gotten to before. I was slightly disgruntled to be working with Hannah; it was a completely different dynamic doing your second rep ever with someone you’ve known for three years. That being said, I was shocked when I was able to use that during the exercise. Typically, I hold myself back from getting truly angry, both in real life and on stage. I never allow myself to reach a 10 on the Unofficial Rage Scale, but Alex implored me to keep pushing. In fact, he counted from one to ten as Hannah and I duked it out, challenging us to top each other. I found myself pushing through and reaching a level of power and intention that I rarely felt. It was as if a white light popped in front of my eyes for a split second and suddenly the moment had changed; I had won, both in the rep and against myself.

Week IV: Another week of pure rep. I approached the exercise I did with my partner with an open mind and allowed myself to be made uncomfortable. I really decided to work on staying presenting and observing this week, and it helped me react authentically with organic intentions. I put most of my energy into noticing, something I had really struggled with in the weeks prior. Alex would always stop me and put a hand on my back to ground me.

“Stop trying to figure it out. Stop trying to create a strategy. Just let it happen, notice, and respond.”

I had been looking at repetition too much like a game of chess. It wasn’t about winning, or figuring out where my partner was trying to take the journey. It was about the series of moments we were creating together.

Week V: I wasn’t looking forward to doing rep this week at all. I was bored of it, which made me feel oddly guilty. Perhaps guilty isn’t the right word. Maybe more... embarrassed? Like the feeling when you’re not pleased to be going home for the holidays. You know that you’re supposed to look forward to it but in reality, it brings on a sense of dread more than anything else. In any case, I was pleasantly surprised when we didn’t jump right into rep upon arrival. In fact, the first half of the class was dedicated to something entirely different. We (that is, Alex and the students in the class) made an enormous list on the whiteboard. Well, it was more of a verbal explosion, really. We blurted out everything we’ve ever thought that made us think that we couldn’t be a proper actor. Though there were some expected reasons (too masculine, not masculine enough, not pretty enough, etc.), there were certainly more that were funny, even if still true. Among the most memorable were “hands too sweaty”, “awkward sexual tension”, and “horrid eye contact with strangers”. After over an hour and a half of spilling the ticks that mentally obstructed us on stage, Alex turned to the board and simply said: “Fuck off.” He encouraged us to do the same, building from a one to a ten, and we obliged. I’m fully aware of the cheesiness of the entire scenario, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t liberating. After the break when we did our last few rounds of rep for the class, any time I would have an invasive thought creep in from the back of my head, I could hear a stronger voice telling it to “fuck off”, and it became just another phrase on the board. I’m not sure why this final exercise had such a massive impact on my work, but it was incredible how much it helped my focus and presence during rep. I look forward to using it in rehearsal in the future.

After the final class, we all went down into the theatre lobby and had a drink. The conversation shifted from acting to politics and nightlife, and we talked freely to each other as people, not as scene partners. I really had a fantastic time in this class, and met a dozen or so really first-rate London-based actors. I listed the top takeaways I got from Meisner I in a previous post, but other than those key lessons, I made a group of friends in the industry that I can turn to in the future.

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Cambridge ii // November 2017

On the advice of Susie, Saad, Matt, and I decided to check out a small pub in Cambridge called The Mill. It proved to be the perfect spot for our sleepy afternoon. We snagged a cozy wooden table in the back room and settled on Monopoly out of the pub’s wide array of board games. As we unpacked the board, we realized that it wasn’t traditional Monopoly that we would be playing-- it was the London edition! I studied the board and noticed that everything was nearly the same except for the property locations. Instead of Atlantic Avenue, there was Leicester Square and Piccadilly, Oxford Street instead of Pennsylvania Avenue. I decided to only invest in properties that I had been to in real life. Needless to say, I didn’t do so well.

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Cambridge i // November 2017

Taken at King’s College Chapel. There was a series of fantastic little exhibits off the main walkway of the chapel about the history of the building, as well as the impact that the War of the Roses had on Cambridge. In Room Five there was a breakdown of the architecture that made King’s College Chapel unique, with model examples in a glass case adjacent.

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Barry Gardiner notes // November 2017 I probably learned the most in our meeting with Gardiner. I appreciated the great deal of time he spent answering my question about a potential new single global market, as well as the others. Gardiner was thoughtful and charming, but had the genuineness of Carol Monaghan; perhaps it’s a Scottish trait. By far, I found it the most fascinating the way he explained how during the Brexit negotiations, too many MP’s are trying to increase trade regulations for political reasons without recognizing the significant economic repercussions. He used the example of small-operation sheep farming in Britain vs. the commercialized sheep farming in New Zealand. His message? Trade agreements affect a lot more than just the trade industry.

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Community Engagement

I really think I got a lot out of my community engagement this semester. Back in early September, I signed up for a technique class at a theatre off of Edgeware Road called The Cockpit.

I was rather relieved to be doing the class with Hannah; it’s always difficult to put yourself out there with a bunch of strangers, especially when you know you’re going to have to open yourself emotionally to them.

We were two of the youngest people in the class, with the exception of one other girl our age, Emma; everyone else was late 20′s to mid 30′s. That was probably the most daunting part of it all-- we walked into this very hip theatre lobby, with its soft hip hop playing and its dim lighting reflecting off the tables by the bar, and sat down among these working actors. Many of them had already studied Meisner or at least other techniques like Uta Hagen or the Method.

As the weeks went by, I found myself progressing slowly, but by the end, I really saw a large difference from the start. Here are some keys lessons that I took away from my five weeks at The Cockpit:

1. Simple choices lead to complex results.

2. Love/Hate AND Mad/Sad/Glad (AKA The Bathroom Mirror Test)

3. The two impulses: Deepen or Defend?

4. Fuck polite.

5. Observe. Notice. Let it go.

6. Be you. (That’s that hard part, but that’s what we want to see)

7. Forget about “why”. Don’t try to figure it out.

8. Fact, feeling, opinion. (I still don’t really understand this, but I’ve got to remember that it was still just an introductory class to the technique.)

9. See where being gentle can take you.

10. Bigger extremes lead to better results.

11. MAKE THEM GET YOU.

12. Every scene, line, bit of a line should progress the journey.

13. Fuck the audience.

14. Constant change.

15. The Grand Master List of Things That Get In the Way.

To most people, these probably don’t make a lick of sense. To me, however, they’re valuable tools that I picked up thanks to Alex, our incredible instructor. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to have taken this course, and it was really a fantastic way to meet about ten Londoners in the process. We all grabbed a drink after the final class and I might even go out later this week with the girl that was around our age. It was something that not only helped me get out into the community, but gave me resources to use once I get back to Drew. Truly priceless.

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Questions for Barry Gardiner

1. In the event that a trade agreement couldn’t be reached between Great Britain and the US post-Brexit, how difficult would it be to create a new single market network with the world’s other top traders like Australia and the Gulf states?

2. As a Scottish-born British Labour MP, do you ever find yourself having to choose between your loyalty to Scotland and loyalty to Great Britain as a whole?

3. If a hard-Brexit was to occur, it could be catastrophic for the Scottish economy; do you foresee teaming up with the SNP against the Tories to stop this from happening, or does Labour have its own plan to navigate a post-Brexit Britain?

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Salzburg // October 2017