Lamb Chops

I was thinking to myself last night "Ah, I must remember to include Roy Williams in my blog" and then I suddenly realised that it was THURSDAY and I have gone nearly five days without updating. Sorry about that...I have been working on getting all my interviews transcribed from Derby. So far have over 60 pages, and that's just the stuff I can hear.

Monday we had a guest lecturer, a London playwright named Roy Williams who has written for the Royal Court Theatre as well as the National. He usually writes plays about young black people and their experiences in London, and he was very good about sharing his ideas as well as his process--although I seriously doubt he actually types for 10 hours a day. One of the points I thought was pertinent was, when asked about the importance of having a play be identified as a "black" play: "I think that we should just put the shows on, and do them well, and THEN let people discuss them. But do them first without worrying about, 'Is it a black play or what.'" I agree. More theater is never a bad thing.

After class our tutor asked myself and another student to join her and Roy for lunch, so I suddenly found myself in the position of being able to ask a current, published, accomplished author any question I wanted. Oooh. *shiver*

We ended up talking about musicals. :)

No, seriously, Roy was very quiet actually, outside the classroom setting, but we did get to get a little deeper into the issue of race and theater and when black theater is necessary and when it will become obsolete.

Tuesday and Wenesday were completely given over to catching up on homework and doing laundry. (and if you think you don't need to devote an entire day to doing one load of laundry, you've never done it at Raymont Hall)

Tuesday night I did manage to go see a play at the Royal Court Theatre (which does a lot of new work, with student tikkies, so they're getting a lot of press in my blog) called "My Name is Rachel Corrie." This play is taken from the writings of a young American woman who went to Palestine to stand between bulldozers and Palestine homes and was run over by one of them. It was an incredibly powerful piece and it has stayed with me still. The fact that Rachel had the courage and the conviction to go abroad and actually make a change was uplifting and heartwrenching.

Which brings us to today. Thursday. Ugh. Am sleeping in tomorrow. I am a little despair-y about one of my projects, which doesn't seem to be doing anything New! but may just be a rehash of some of my old ideas. Am paranoid that I lack the life experiences to do new and startling pieces of work. (thx Sam) :) Luckily I have a couple weeks to fix it. I got my second paper back, a B-/C+, so am preparing to leap off of Tower Bridge any minute now. (to get joke, see below) And I also got to meet my partner for my last project this year, a collaboration between an MA writer and a MA performer, in my case, a very excitable Greek named Niko. Am suspicious that the teachers may have paired us up due to unfortunate alliteration. ("Niko, Nicki")

And, excitingly last, I finally bought and cooked my first meat product here in Britain, which was--you guessed it--lamb chops.