First Day of Class and the West End

Today was such an amazing day! First, we had class at the Hyde Park Chapel (which I forgot to take a picture of, but there will be one in the future). The excitement in the room was absolutely amazing! I love both of my professors; they're both so full of life and passion for the theatre and all art. The discussion was really interesting, and everyone was completely willing to participate. There was a long discussion on what is good and what is evil, and the line between the two (in relevance to Shakespeare's The Tempest), and it was interesting to hear everyone's ideas and opinions.

Once class was over, I came back to the flat and finished unpacking. As soon as I was finished with that, I set out on a mission: to find and buy tickets for Much Ado About Nothing starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

For those of you who don't know, David Tennant is a huge British star, and an extremely talented actor!! You would know him from the TV show Doctor Who (he was the most recent doctor before this one) or from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (he played Barty Crouch, Jr, the one who was pretending to be Mad-Eye). I couldn't believe it when I heard he was going to be performing while we were here in London, and was not about to pass up the opportunity!

Unfortunately, however, I got lost multiple times as I was trying to find the theatre...I know now that I passed it multiple times, but at the time I didn't see it. As I was walking around, however, I did find the theatre where they play Agatha Christie's Mousetrap, and immediately went in and bought two tickets for Tuesday at 3:00 PM (I still need to find who wants to go with me...lol). Mousetrap is the longest running show in history, and I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, so I was planning to see it while I was here. It was exciting to just stumble upon the theatre!

Shaftesbury Avenue (equivalent of Broadway)

When I finally did find the theatre for Much Ado, I was only able to buy one ticket, though I knew multiple people who wanted to come, and it wasn't even available until Friday the 28th of May. Yikes! Even over the next week, there wasn't a single day with more than one ticket available! Needless to say, I bought mine immediately.

Once that was settled (I'm so excited!!) I headed towards Queen Theatre in London's West End to see Les Miserables! Since I was slightly early for the show, I spent some time in Chinatown, which is just off of Shaftesbury Avenue, and had some great Sweet and Sour Chicken at an authentic Chinese Restaurant. It was delicious, but I wasn't able to finish all of it, and so I have a set lunch for tomorrow!

Me in Chinatown

Les Mis was at 7:30, and the entire experience was wonderful! I was sitting in the third row center of the Upper Circle (balcony) on my own; there were other people from the program who were there, but we couldn't all get seats together. I had a great seat and could see everything from where I was. I'd seen Les Mis before on Broadway, and it was even better then I remembered. I hadn't noticed before how amazing the lighting was in the show, and I was just in awe the entire time.

Overall, just an amazing day! Tomorrow's the royal wedding, and there are some girls in my program going crazy. There's actually a group going to Buckingham Palace tonight and camping out--insane, but I'm slightly tempted to join them....don't think I will though ;p

Until tomorrow then!!