The Rain In Spai...England Stays Mainly in the Plai...Maida Vale

The London Dramatic Academy does not mess around. Since Thursday I have certainly spent more waking hours in our Kensington classrooms than in my flat. We started orientation Thursday afternoon where we had 2 or 3 talks warning of the dangers of London while simultaneously being told that none of the dangers-terrorists, tea leaves (aka theives), ATM scams, exploding boilers, fires-would likely happen to us. The next day, we had our first taste of Richard Digby-Day, the artistic director of the program, and then later our Shakespeare Tutor/Tour Guide Michael Winter. Of the many pearls of wisdom they bestowed upon us some were: "We've banned the use of the word *awesome*, firstly because it means nothing, and secondly because things RARELY are", "You see the Victorians, they were so fussy. Horrible really,”, “Anyone who wastes their money on Andrew Lloyd Weber shall lose a grade.” All of the tutors are very prominently and delightfully British. It is sometimes easy to forget we are in London since we are around American students all day long. This morning we had diagnostic meetings for our Alexander Technique and Voice training. I’m not totally sure what the Alexander Technique is (google it, and I’ll let you know when I have a better idea) but the diagnostic meeting involved me bending my knees and picking up a chair. In my Voice meeting, the tutor listened to me perform 1 Shakespeare speech, put her hands on my ribcage as I spoke and told me everything that was wrong with the way I breathe and speak (shallow breathing, tight shoulders and talking too fast). Classes really begin in earnest next week, in fact after tomorrow I will not have a free day until February 7th, but the few tastes of LDA that I’ve had have made me very excited to get started.


P.S. Other adventures this week have included RAIN, learning how to use the Tube, being reassured by Uncle Kev, a drunk man in a pub, that he is not a threat saying “don’ worry ‘bout me, I en’t like that. You girls, I ‘ave kids yer age meself, yer like me babies. So don’ worry ‘bout them in this pub, I kill men like that”, Strongbow on tap, failing heaters and a crazy neighbor who calls the landlord when we slam the door.