Summer 2014

Hello everyone J Hope you’re all well.

Considering I am working full time, I’m actually doing quite a few other exciting things this summer. Firstly, I am visiting my friend in Surrey for the weekend to celebrate her 22^nd birthday, which I am so excited about. We’ve done the same thing for her birthday for the past two years, gone up to visit her and had a barbeque and chilled out day on the Friday and gone out the Saturday night. This year I’m a bit more excited than I usually am as I haven’t seen her for ages and I miss her lots.

Another thing I am so excited about doing is going to the National Theatre to watch Billie Piper in a new play by Richard Bean called ‘Great Britain’.

The play is an anarchic and foul-mouthed satire about the press, the police and the political establishment. Billie Piper plays Paige Britain, an ambitious young news editor of The Free Press, a tabloid newspaper locked in a never-ending battle for more readers. I absolutely love Billie Piper in everything she does so I am very excited to see her live. I’ve liked Billie Piper ever since she was a singer with her first single, Because We Want to!

Other than that I am going to the cinema a lot as there are a lot of cool films out at the moment and Orange Wednesdays are awesome and make going to the cinema really cheap.

It’s only a short one today, but I thought I would just let you in on what I will be getting up to this summer.

Until next time J Goodbye!

Becoming a Grown-Up

Hello everyone J Welcome back. Today I’m going to talk about real life and becoming a responsible adult now that I have officially finished University L

June 4^th 2014 was the final day of me being a student, which is quite sad considering I have been in education for a full 17 years (6 years primary school, 5 years secondary school, 3 years college and 3 years university). It’s really odd because I started education all the way back in 1997 when I was just six years old, so really education is all I’ve ever known and now I’m being forced out into the world to become an adult and a part of the grown-up society.

I am the sort of person who will freak out at the slightest hint of change. I like to know what I’m doing with my life and when I am doing it, but at this point in my life I don’t know what to do. I’ve never experienced being a responsible adult before. The good thing is that I have received my Degree Classification and I will be graduating with an Upper Second Class Honours Degree (2:1) which I am over the moon about and it just means that I have more options when it comes to looking for graduate jobs which is fantastic.

Another thing I’m not looking forward to is having to leave my job at the Enquiry Unit, I have worked here since March 2013 (which doesn’t seem that long ago) but when you work every week it seems like a lifetime (in a good way)! Once my reign as a University of Greenwich student ends in October, so does my reign as a University of Greenwich employee which is rubbish because I love this job. When I first applied I wasn’t looking forward to it because of all the information I would have to learn and when I first started I didn’t like speaking on the telephone. Now that I have been working here for over a year and am just about to enter my second year as a Clearing Assistant I really enjoy the telephone and I’ve been trained on various other things such as Emails and our LiveChat system. But I am so happy with the experience I have gained over the past two years and I look forward to using that in my future job applications.

Anyway, that’s all from me this month. My next blog will be mid-July where we would have just begun Clearing 2014 J

Thanks, Terry

Rhinoceros

Hello everyone, I know I haven’t blogged in a while but I have been SUPER busy with rehearsals for Rhinoceros J But I’m back now!

I know I always talk about the play I was directing but this will be the last one as the show is now finished L After a seven-month rigorous rehearsal period, I can now lay back, put my feet up and relax. The show concluded on June 4^th at Greenwich Theatre, and what a show it was! I am so proud of my nine cast members and nine members of the crew, they all did amazingly well in their own ways! Here is a picture of me, the crew and our supervisors.

As you can see we were quite a large bunch, as a director I can tell you first-hand how hard it is to try and control and calm down a bunch of hyper-active students! They were a pleasure to work with but what a lively bunch they were J

Both shows went amazingly well! The final night was such a treat for me because I felt that it went the best it could have ever gone and for me to sit back and watch the masterpiece being created was such a joy. It was quite emotional watching my baby come alive (the show) after all the hard work myself, the cast and the crew put in to make this show a success.

I know this is a very short blog, I just wanted to share with everyone how proud I am of all the people involved with the show.

Speak soon J

Bathway Theatre Festival and No More Coursework

Hello everyone, welcome back, in case you haven’t noticed most of my blogs are about my Drama course or about the fact that University is coming to an end. This blog is going to be no different.

Firstly, I wanna talk about the fact that I have officially finished all written work for third year! It was a struggle but I finally got there.

I had a 3000 word research project, 3000 word log book, 2000 word research essay and 4000 word placement report all due in within the same week! You don’t know stress until all your work is due in at the same time! But it’s all over now so no more coursework ever for me! But now that all the written work is done I now have my end of year show to focus on.

My show is the 4^th and last play within the Bathway Theatre Festival, so far I have seen Love and Information by Caryl Churchill and Road by Jim Cartwright. Next week is Red Noses by Peter Barnes and then the Festival concludes with the play I am directing, Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco.

I know I have mentioned it lots before but tickets are now on sale at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk and it would be brilliant if you could all come see it in support of myself, my wonderful bunch of third year actors, the amazing first year technical crew and the University of Greenwich’s Drama department.

I am very excited for the show and we have 400 seats per night to sell, which is worrying, but I’m staying optimistic about it.

That’s all for now. Speak soon J

Here Comes the Sun

Hey folks,

So for this blog I chose the title “Here Comes the Sun” for a few reasons. Firstly, it is one of my all-time favourite songs from The Beatles and secondly the sun has come out a lot lately, although it’s still breezy from time to time the sun is definitely on its way. J

So this blog is basically going to be all about how much I love the sun and things I like to get up to when the sun is shining down. The sun is one of my favourite things EVER because it rarely is hot in this country so when it does come I do tend to get really excited like a kid at Christmas.

This year I think it is going to get very hot, I don’t know why I think that, I just do. So if the sun keeps up it’s good work this summer then there are lots I plan to do. Firstly, I plan to go and visit my friend for her birthday in Surrey, we’ve done it for the past two years and it’s fun as we just chill in the garden and have a barbeque and play a bit of badminton… Then the sun goes down and the party animal in me comes out J As I said it’s for her birthday and birthday’s aren’t complete without a party. Below is a picture from me and my the birthday girl two summers ago when she had planned to have a fancy dress birthday party and as I am notoriously rubbish at dressing up, I simply found a witch hat, a black wig and a cloak in her house and pretty soon after that the Witch King was invented. 

I honestly could not tell you what I was thinking… All I can say is that it was a night to remember. Also this summer I want to go to London Zoo as I’ve never been and also spend a lot of time either at a beach or at a park. All whilst working full time for clearing 2014… Gonna be a hectic summer… But a fun one!!!

Speak Soon folks J

Last Week of My University Experience!

Hello everyone :)

Today I’m going to talk about my last EVER standard week at University of Greenwich!  I know a lot of my blogs lately have been regarding the end of Uni and what the future holds, it’s just because it’s a big thing on my mind at the moment and it’s kind of life changing.

So it’s going to be quite a long week, it kicks off with my exam on Monday, which is for my course Other Stages. Last term we did an Avant Garde piece so it was really weird and strange and this term we are doing an African Theatre performance equipped with African drumming and African dancing, which I am looking forward to A LOT.

Then Tuesday I’ve got Rhinoceros rehearsals which is going to be a long day, but a fun day none-the-less. Wednesday is my only day off so like all days off I will be doing coursework (YAAAAY!!!) :( Then on Thursday it is back to our Rhinoceros rehearsals, which I'm so excited about because we are doing a full run through of the show, I understand it’s going to be very basic but at least we have something to work with.

Friday will be completed with a lecture/seminar for Contemporary British Theatre which is in the same room as our first ever lecture was in first year. So it is like we are going full circle, which is nice :)

So yeah, that is a brief account of my final week of University :) Speak soon :)

Future Career!

Hello, hope you’re all well J

Today I thought I’d talk about my future career and what I plan to do once my degree is complete.

Well first I would like to start with saying that right now I am very unsure on what to do but here are my options that I would like to go into. Firstly, I would love to try my hand at film and TV acting… but mainly I just want to be in Eastenders J The reason for me wanting to do a bit of work in TV and film just comes from my enjoyment of watching a good film that makes you feel about five different emotions within the space of half an hour. I just think it would be so fun to be a part of a TV series or a film.

Another thing I would like to go into would be more of a backseat of the acting world, and that is Directing and Stage Managering. In my first year I did an assignment called Making Theatre in which I stage managed for a third year production of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht and this was my favourite course so far at University because I enjoyed it sooooooo much. Also, this year I am directing a production of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, so I have had my fair share of experience within both of these fields and I have really enjoyed them. Therefore I would love to experience more of this at a more professional level.

My ultimate goal in life is to run my own theatre company, I have been involved with various theatre companies before such as Second to None Productions, where I was lucky enough to perform in the musical Rent which is actually my favourite musical of all time. I have also been involved in Royal Road Productions where we did a modern musical version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a humanised version of The Jungle Book and a production of The Little Mermaid which was all fun and gave me the opportunity to co-direct with the Founder and Director of the theatre company. The reason I would like to run my own theatre company is just because I enjoy theatre so much but more importantly I enjoy bringing out the best in people and watching their confidence grow as rehearsals go on and to think that my support has helped them grow as a performer and a person would be a brilliant feeling.

So that’s it really, TV/film acting, directing, stage managering and running my own theatre company is what I aim to try my hand at in the future. It’s going to be hard work but I plan to put my all into it and hopefully make something of my life. Speak soon J