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First week at LAMDA

Writer's picture: HannahHannah

Updated: Jan 29, 2024

On Monday January 8th, I had my first day at LAMDA. It was a whirlwind! There are 50 people in my semester course. The majority of us are from the United States, while about 4 people are from the UK and Europe. Most of the people are in University either at, Vassar, Boston University, Fordham, American University, and Belmont. The largest group is definitely BU. It is interesting seeing how different people interact from various universities. I was super nervous on the first day to meet new people, but it went really well. 

I arrived early to make sure I didn’t get lost. For all of the first day we were in one big group. We got a tour of the building, got our IDs, and did some paperwork. There is a coffee shop in the school that I can already tell is going to be taking a large bit of my money. (6 dollars for a panini and a coffee is waaayyy cheaper than anything at US coffee shops) The building is super cool. It is split up into the new building, and the old building (which used to house the Royal Ballet School). The school is about a 15 minute walk from my flat so I have the choice of walking, or taking the tube. Most of this week I walked but my legs are still getting used to it, so I did take the tube a bit too. Shout out to the amazing Shaun for my Oyster card, love ya! When people talked about how great the transit was here they were so right!! I have been loving how easy it is to get places. Personally, I enjoy the buses more and I wish there was one that went straight to my school but since LAMDA is right off the A4, it would be a bit difficult. 

Day two consisted of a couple of lectures and a 1-on-1 meeting with the head of the course. The first lecture was with Nick, who is in charge of the course. He discussed an introduction into Shakespeare. It was so fascinating! First off, Nick has one of those voices that makes you calm and intrigued at the same time. There were some things that I knew which was a nice refresher. But, there were lots of things I didn’t know. For example, in Shakespeare's time, when you were in a show you got your lines given to you in the form of a cue script. Which is where you have just your lines, and a three word cue line to indicate where you start talking. I bet you're thinking, but how do I know what to do? Well Shakespeare, being a former actor, is actually really helpful to actors in his writing. He will most likely verbally tell you what to do. One of the benefits to acting with a cue script is since you don’t know who you are talking to or why you have to actually listen and react naturally, thus making your acting more authentic. For those not interested in acting things I will move on but, I wanted to share where the term role and box office came from because when Nick told us I found it cool. Since the lines are on a cue script, which is a rolled up series of papers into a scroll format, it's called your roll (eventually role because of french influence in England). Box office comes from the Globe and theaters alike where you would pay to enter by giving you money over into the box, then during the show the box would be placed in the office. Silly I know but I thought it was cool! After my one of one meeting, we had our last lecture which was about the Kings of England. I’m not going to lie, I got lost quite a bit during that one but it was really informative. It did give me a good basis for Shakespeare's Histories which we will be covering first this term. 

The rest of the week we had more meetings that covered important things we need to know for the course like, EDI, library information, and academic services. We also had our first movement class. The class involved some fun games and exercises to create an ensemble atmosphere. LAMDA’s big goal is ensemble work, supporting each other in all forms of acting. On Thursday night, a group of my classmates and I got tickets to see Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theater. WOW! We were in the immersive standing section of the audience. The stage comes up from the ground and changes levels throughout the show. We got to move around the stage as the performers walked through us and interacted with us. I have to say that Guys and Dolls isn’t necessarily my favorite script but the way the Bridge Theater did it made it so intriguing, I think it would be a cool way to change up more classical musicals. Also the performers were AMAZINGGGGG! The vocal abilities of these performers were some of the best I’ve seen in a while. It was so great seeing such a cool show with my classmates! 

Finally on Friday we had a scavenger hunt to do. It was fun but, oh my goodness my legs hurt so much. We spent three hours walking around Hammersmith, Shepherds Bush, and Brook Green. I walked 13,000 steps! It was definitely a well done hunt but I was so tired, especially since we stood all night at the show last night. Hopefully this weekend I will rest up for the week ahead! My schedule for next week consists of class 9am-5:30pm Monday through Friday. I am excited to start learning more from these interesting and kind professors.


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