Day 4, 5, and 6 in London

SO, I find it very difficult to find time everyday to keep this up, but I am doing my best to write down and remember things that have happened to me. SO here are the last three days from what I can get from the memories I have!:

Day 4:
Got up at 6:30 This was a pretty good day! We arrived at Mountview at 9am for warm up (which was ACTUALLY a warm up, and not slow-and-painful death) and got split up into our two different groups. The groups were named Kander, and Ebb, which was amazing because instead of group A and B we have the names of the creators of Chicago. I love musical theater! I am in group K, and it's a really good one, as we have all the boys in my group. Group G is an all female one. So the first thing we did was a singing tutorial. It was a lecture and practical lesson on Vocal Health, which is good. I felt super knowledgeable due to taking voice classes in school already, but little reminders are always a good thing, I think! So, not much to talk about in this one, but it was a good thing. And I took notes! The next thing we had was acting. We did acting through dance first, so learned the prologue to Chicago, and then had to make up a character with a secret and two different verbs to effect the audience, and dance with them. It was really cool. Then we talked about WHY the characters in musicals burst into song, and discovered it's basically because mere words aren't enough in some situations. Now, people who don't like musicals think it is unnatural for this to occur, which is true I suppose of some people, but I see 32 people in my class who burst into song at ANY occasion, so all of you musical haters have to get your facts right first! We did some scene work from A Chorus Line and West Side Story leading up to songs, and looking through intentions and motivations of character through the text and leading up into the songs. I made everyone laugh, and even got an applause when I was reading the West Side Story scene, and I only had one line: Woman's Voice: "Maria!" from the balcony scene. But I did it in the correct accent, and tone which took everyone aback, and then they ate it up, so all was well. Then we had lunch, and afterward we had rehearsals for the showcase coming up at the end of the course. For an hour we did acting improve. We were all split up into 4 groups, and had to do a scene on a street that lasted for 2-5 minutes. We were set in a hospital, and it was super stressful to get on it's feet, but I think in the end we did a pretty good job. Then for the last hour, we sang a couple of the songs we'll do for the showcase. We got Check it Out from The Life, My Body from The Life, and New York from On the Town. So it should be a good time. We all tubed and bussed from Mountview to Chester and had dinner together...oooooooh cafeteria food...and then gathered in the lounge area and sang musicals for over two hours. Then I came up to my room, and watched an episode of Dexter and went to bed at about 11:30.

Day 5:
got up at 6:30. This was my favourite day ever...almost of my entire life. I am SO inspired, and feel like I could take on the entire mother trucking world! SO, we get to Mountview at 9:30ish, and do a vocal warm up, and a bit of stretching. The firs thing we had today was individual singing lessons. I had a woman named Claire Daniels, and she was awesome. We did a bit of breath work, and support, and then started working on my belt. We then worked on Everything Else from Next To Normal, which I have wanted to sing ever since I saw it in New York. She says that my voice is beautiful and ready to mature and solidify now, and I am ready to take my singing to the next level. She ALSO said I should never, EVER lose my head voice, as it is resonant and very useful in the industry. I hit high notes I had never hit before...I was singing high E by the end of the lesson, which is really quite an achievement for my voice! Next was song presentation with Nick Holden. He basically wanted us to sing a song, but make it very relevant to our own lives so that the story portrayed in the song would be meaningful, specific, and personal instead of just dry text with a melody. He. Was. A. Sheer. F-ing. GENIUS. He was SO intuitive, and knew what to get out of each person, and how to GET it from each person, and cared so much about everyone. PLUS, he was the youngest person to ever play Jean Valjean from Les Miserables professionally EVER in the entire world. He was 22 when we played it professionally on the West End. So he REEEEEEALLY knew his stuff. I sang Everything Else, and my god...I have never sung a song the way I did when he worked with me. I was so pleased. I thanked him afterwards, and he said some of the nicest and most encouraging things to me, which I don't want to go into detail on here, but if you ask me I might tell you. But they were SO nice I wanted to hug him, or cry, or scream with joy. After that was lunch, and after that was a three hour singing rehearsal for our showcase.

We had all brought a change of clothes for after rehearsals, because part of the course was to go see a West End show, and tonight was the night. We got all dressed up, received our tickets from the Mounvtiew musical theatre director, had dinner at Planet Hollywood, and then got into the theatre to watch Hair. I was actually not all that impressed with the musical. The singing was INCREDIBLE, but I wasn't all that into the acting. Also I felt the story isn't too relevant with this day and age, but all the same, it was awesome to see some professional theatre, and at the END we all got to run up on stage with them for the final number. SO, I can actually say that I was in Hair on the West End this week! hahahah!!! God...I definitely picked the right business for me! SO basically after it was over, we tubed and bussed back, talked about if we did or didn't like it and then went to bed just after a shower around midnight.

Day 6:
Up at 6:30, and my voice is super scratchy today. I think it's from getting only 6-6.5 hours of sleep a night, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOTS of singing, and pushing my voice to it's limit quite a bit. I took it easy the whole day, but even now while I am typing this, it isn't feeling well. AH well, on to the events of the day. Got to mountview at 9:30 for a stretch and warm up. The first thing my group had was dance. We did a fairly intense warm up with the dance teacher, and then some across the floor stuff, which I felt pretty good about. Then we did a Bob Fosse-esque number to a swing dance tune. It was fast, it was sexy, it was stylized, it was full of character, and I LOVED it! I never wanted the dancing to end. Sometimes I get insecure about dance, because as you all know I am definitely not a stick thin person (as so many actors are...in the professional world, at UVic, and here at Mountview), but I got the steps down quickly, put my all into it, made a character, and I think it went pretty darn well for me. After that we had singing with the assistant music director/piano player for Jersey Boys on the West End, so we did two Jersey Boy songs. Our group as a whole was pretty unfocused just coming off from the jazz dance class, but I tried to hold myself in pretty tight, so I would make a good impression on everyone I come across here. So yeah, it was fun, but not as fun for ME as the dance was. then it was a lunch break. After lunch we started doing choreography for My Body from The Life that will be in our showcase. It is the girls number, about prostitution and how our bodies are our own business, and we don't very much enjoy being judged by pretty much everyone out there, including our clients!! SO it is all agressive and sexy, and I get to feel pretty womanly while doing it. I feel kind of intimidated by two of the staff here, but I try to get over as much as I can. Then we all joined together to be told what the rest of the showcase would kind of look like. Then it was an hour and fifteen minute music rehearsal, and finally we worked on My Body again. NOW, my voice is feeling like shit, and so for the last music rehearsal I was pretty much mouthing words, not singing, but getting the melodies in my head so that I don't lose my voice entirely.

I was supposed to go to see Jersey Boys tonight, but I thought I'd be responsible and go to bed SUPER early...aka around 9pm, so I can get a good 10 hour sleep, and hopefully if I do that, plus drink tons of water and don't speak one word until the morning, I will be alright to sing tomorrow. If I can't...and it's ruined itself, I might just cry. So yeah, me and the couple others who were NOT going to see the show came home, ate dinner at 6, and then I came up here and started writing this. My plans for the rest of the evening is to stay in my room so I am not tempted to speak, catch up on some of my tv shows, and then head to bed at the time most 6 year olds would sleep!

SO that is the last three days in a nutshell, thanks for taking interest, and I cannot BELIEVE it's been almost a week now. In some ways i feel like it's been just one day, and in others it feels like I've been here three months. I love the people, love the city, love the theatre scene, love musicals, and LOVE my experience so far. What a learning time it's been for me!!!

That's all I got, so I will try and update more frequently, but I am not promising anything, because it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO busy here! Love and kisses to all! <3 <3 <3 xoxoxoxoxo