potions class and the rest of the weekend

so, friday...normal day...you know...oh wait, no, silly ellen, alan rickman came!
he came to do a q&a session, since he could only stay for an hour. so he walked in with this very stern snape-glare on his face. and i was scared. either he was going to take over the building (and since we didnt have bruce willis, what were we going to do????) or he was going to make us make a polyjuice potion, and i haven't praticed that one. but no, he immediately began answering questions, and was very kind, very funny, and cracked lots of jokes. here are the words of wisdom i gleaned from him:
put 120% of effort into everything.
after you've done that and put in the discipline, comes absolute artistic freedom.
take risks, and dare to screw up and be bad
listen very, very closely, and non-judgementally

after this, we were all on an absolute high. me and the boys in the flat next door went for a post-alan pint in camden, and then came back to watch lord of the rings. becuase we have these moments when we're overwhelmingly cool...

the next day, i decided to actaully get out into london, and went to the tower of london! we took a tour with a very friendly and boisterous beefeater, ran after the ravens, and saw the crown jewels. then we came back to all go out to dinner for jason's big 21st birthday dinner and went to the moose, a good local pub, to finish off the night.

sunday was a restful day, with some cheap shopping at primark.
so all in all, a perfect weekend!
love,
ellen

stonehenge and bath

yesterday we (me, harrison, and sam) decided that we needed to get out of london. so what did we decide to do on such short notice? go to stonehenge and bath!
on friday night, we found a little tour company to take us on a bus. we called them up, booked tickets, and rolled out of bed at 7:00am saturday morning to get to the bus station. after procuring coffee, we rode on the bus for about an hour and a half to get to stonehenge. upon arrival, we spent about an hour and a half walking around stonehenge and listening to our audio guides, which told us that no one really knows what the hell stonehenge is. it was awesome.


then, it was on to bath, which a really, really, really old city. there are hot springs, and it was oringially settled by celts, but when the romans came they really settled the place and built a huge temple to minerva and lots of baths and bath houses. hence the city's name. we had three hours in the city, so we toured the bath house, went to the abbey, had fish and chips, and walked along the river bank. it was beautiful.
sorry i have been a little slow about posting, life has become very busy! today we have a master class with alan rickman--and i am SO excited! this weekend will be pretty low key, as we are all preparing for auditions next week. we're grabbing dinner tonight in camden, and tomorrow i'd like to visit the tower of london.
i will update on sunday with the weekend's adventures and stories of snape...i mean alan.
love,
ellen

pictures!

picture time! this is an obligatory photo from london bridge, taken on the second day we were here, from a bus tour. this is billy shakes's grave (kind of morbid, i know) taken when we went to stratford. trinity church was beautiful.
this is the royal shakespeare company's current theatre in stratford, as they are renovating their other one. this is where we saw "a midsummer night's dream". they own the theatre world. i adore them.
this is my favorite group picture, taken at the volunteer, one of our local pubs. on the curve from left to right, it's jason, sydney, harrison, amy, pat, drew, amy, annie, me, lindsay, anne, will, tess, russ, and conrad. i LOVE these people so much!

xoxo,
ellen

how on earth is it october 10th?

i don't know where all the time is going! we're finishing week 5 of classes--here is the class round-up:
shakespeare: we're doing scenes. i'm juliet in the juliet/nurse scene in romeo and juliet (how many times can YOU say juliet in one sentence? also--did shakespeare ever realize he'd named a character juliet capulet? ew.) and celia in rosalind/celia from as you like it. LOTS of fun!
high comedy: i'm working on lady fullbank from aphra behn's 'the lucky chance'. it's a kind-of forgotten restoration comedy by a female playwright, and it's great. our teacher kathryn was in it with 'alan' (rickman, that is).
modern physical: we're doing mask work!
stage combat: basically, you all should be very scared when i come home. very, very scared. i could kill you with my dagger and rapier.
tutorials: i've got some mean monologues from richard the third and the merchant of venice.

for a life round-up, i'm going to barcelona and berlin during our week long break with my roommates, annie and ritu. ritu has friends in berlin, and i can speak spanish, so that's how we chose those two cities.
this weekend, the portobello road market is on the to-do list, as is a visit to the tate modern and brick lane for indian food.

my replacement camera battery came today so i will post pictures as soon as i can!
love, ellen

and today, we saw alan rickman

i think spoiling the end of your story is one of the first things they teach you not to do in writing school. however, i am in drama school. and i recall something called foreshadowing. so think of the title as foreshadowing.

SO about 5 other students and i were headed to the donmar warehouse in the west end, where we were going to see 'creditors' by alan strindberg and directed by alan rickman. anne, who is one of the most laid-back people in the entire world, said as we were walking, "wouldnt it be great if we saw HIM?" anne is...obsessed. as are, all of us, but anne especially.

so we were running a little late, of course, and we were walking down earlham st with the donmar in sight, and right there, in front of a small restaurant a few buildings down from the theatre, is alan, chatting with some friends. drew and i walk right by, trying to keep our cool but stealing sidelong glances. anne, however, freezes. drew and i turn around, and we see anne approaching very slowly. she says "um, mr. rickman...hi, um, my name is anne, and we're all acting students at bada and i just wanted to say i really admire your work. we're on our way to see the show right now, but i just wanted to let you know how much i look up to you." to which alan replied, "oh, why thank you so much. isn't it 7:15? shouldn't you get to your seats?" anne smiled and said "yeah, we're hurrying! thanks so much! and...you should do a masterclass!" to which alan smiled and said "oh, yes..."

yes, yes, the show was wonderful. but we saw alan!!!

in moments like these, the only thing i can do is think 'snape...snape...severus snape....DUMBLEDORE!'