Music and Theatre

So this post is going to talk about my first live music and live theatre experiences during this trip in london.

First, I will start off by saying I got to skype with my parents earlier today which was very nice. (Enjoy the shout out mom and dad?)

But last night I got to see a musician by the name of Ben Howard perform at a record shop in east london. He was fantastic. It was SO cool to see an up and coming musician starting his career. He was surprised by the amount of people who came out to hear him play. And I was surprised when almost all of those people left before the main band started. It's cool when the opening band attracts a bigger crowd sometimes.

The next day (Wednesday) I had my second class called London Theatre. The class is 1.5hrs and sparks a discussion about theatre and what it means to us and how it affects us. Every week we go to see a show at night and then talk about it the following week. So basically, I get to see 10 shows without paying anything extra. Tonight we saw our first show which was called Decade.

Decade was focused around 9/11. It was a brand new piece that started from the one year anniversary and had scattered stories throughout going back in time. The first thing that we all wondered was, "Is it too soon to have a piece like this?" We all varied our opinions. It was however 3 hours long, which I didn't love. The piece had a small cast and used music, movement, lighting and a very specific setting to present the story. The setting was the restaurant at the top of the world trade center. It even had views on two sides of what it looked like from the top. That was kind of eery. I thought the piece was well put together and was not too offensive. I'm not sure if it could make it in the US. I don't think that people would be ready for it there. After the show, there was a talkback session with the director and a few members of the cast. It was interesting to hear how it was put together. There were tons of writers from the US and the UK which I think is partly why it was so interesting, because there wasn't simply one writer. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the show, since I have to write a journal entry about it for class....so I'm going to save most of my opinions for that. But, it was a very interesting piece to see.

I was talking to my friend Steve just a few minutes ago about how the idea that we are going to be away from home for so long is starting to really set in. What's nice is that I'm with people who I can spend a good deal of time with before I get too sick of them. And if I do, I can hop on the tube and visit the people at Queen Mary and be fine. Still, it's going to be very hard leaving this place....and it's only week two....