Photos are up!

If you want to see the last of my photos from Chicago and LA, they are up.

The fat lady has sung

The show was great!

Our suggestion was polo. We made a polo mint. Which was a tad disorienting for those who thought of shirts or the sport. It mattered little because we evolved into a sacrifice scene which became a museum piece and an outcast school girl.

It's interesting how the adrenalin of a show pushes some people forward and others recede. It was hilarious. The audience of parents and friends laughed.

We didn't do as much beautiful musical stuff as we had done in class. But it was a great show. Didn't organise to get a dvd of it, but somewhere in the world there is one.

So I see my last improvised Shakespeare tonight and fly home tomorrow.

The Last Post

Here as the last image from the US, LA International Airport (where the big jet engines roar!).



I have been disneyed within an inch of my life. Apart from the Tiki Tiki room for which nothing prepared me (singing flowers? So what), I loved it. Especially the Alice in Wonderland teacups, and oddly enough the carousel.



I think I got a little tired after so much improv, of not having to make it up myself (Disney is about dreams, and they fill in as many of the blanks in the imagination as they can).



It was great to be amongst the excitement, seeing tiny kids freaking out to meet Snow White or Ariel or Buzz Lightyear. I did go on the Buzz Lightyear ride twice (it involved target shooting with laser guns - who could resist?).



Also visited Disney's California Adventure - an excuse to divide the park in two and get two admissions while continuing to market your DVDs and related merchandise.



It was a remarkable experience, I walked 18k steps yesterday and 14k today (6k is my normal). My feet are looking forward to a good rest. I did stop just before lunch for a stupidly expensive foot and shoulder massage in the beauty salon at the hotel, and it was worth it.



My plane leaves at 10:30 tonight, Monday. It's 6pm now as I wait for the shuttle to the airport.



By 10am Wednesday I will be sleeping in my own bed!! Yaaaa hoooo!!!

Welcome to Disney

Well, I made it to Disneyland.

I am sitting in the gutter in the middle of the roundabout just in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. There will be fireworks very soon. I arrived about 30 minutes ago. The place is buzzing, the conversations around me are very "family".

In the shuttle from the airport, I heard a radio ad for a Bank of America Dodgers card "show your devotion" was the catch phrase. You can get the Dodgers logo on all your banking products (or 99 other sporting teams!). We have so much to learn!

Disneyland has changed a little from when I was here in 1985, but is essentially the same. Mary Poppins' merry-go-round seems to have disappeared, maybe because Mary Poppins is so out of date! So far it looks pretty much like Hong Kong Disney did last year when James and I went there. The difference is the Americans.

Went to a class party last night after the improvised Shakespeare. We had a "mini-Olympics" on the roof of the Brits' house. Canadalia, or Austranada (me and 2 Canadian women from Calgary) did pretty well in the Beastie Boys rap competition, bummed out on the leap frog/name a country comp, and KILLED in the musical hot spot using only Canadian or Australian songs or artists (although it was close). For the sake of the competition the Californians seceded and made a separate team. The UK included South Africa, but I think the USA won overall (it got a little foggy by the time the closing ceremony rolled around). The opening and closing ceremonies involved passing a lit candle along a self-perpetuating human line to the sound of Chariots of Fire. Once again proving that improvising is like being at a 5 year old's birthday party!

Got home round 2:45, and woke at 9am to juggle my luggage and get to the airport by midday.

Arrived here at 5pm (7pm Chicago time). So I've spent most of the day travelling. I have watched all but 70 minutes of season 2 of Dexter, and 3 downloaded episodes of the Gruen Transfer (on the ipod).

Disney is open till midnight, my hotel is a cushily refurbed motel with HBO and great beds. I have a 3 day "multi-park" pass (there is a 2nd park called Californian Adventure, which is a mini-California (hmmm), with rides. So much to discover.

Surgery and History

Spent the morning at the Surgical Science Museum and the Chicago History Museum.

I saw an iron lung, the history of eyeglasses, various "stones" (from kidney to ovarian), an apothecary's shop and a magnificent mansion built to mirror the tirelessly coped Petit Trianon.

In the Chicago History Museum I realised how much I have absorbed about Chicago over the past 5 weeks and my assorted tours.

But I did learn that both Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book were headquartered here, that the band Chicago is actually from Chicago, and was reminded that Ferris Bueller's Day Off was set here. (And My Best Friend's Wedding, the Blues Brothers and While You Were Sleeping).

The 1893 and 1934 World's Expositions featured heavily. I climbed into the engine of a train, and pushed all the buttons in the Chicago Diorama, itself a museum piece, created in the 1930's to show the history of Chicago.

Now off to get ready for the show!

Treasure Island

Treasure Island, according to this sign, is America's most European supermarket. Hmmm. Not sure what that means. Maybe you pay in euros. Maybe farmers protest there by dumping vegies. Or is it just that people drink aperitifs?

It is now Friday morning. I didn't blog yesterday's class because it was mostly just play.

We had to agree on a form for tonight's show. In true improvisational style we settled on a "formless" form. Rather than get caught up in where we are in the form, we're just going to make it up as we go along. When fettered by form we hang back. When not beautiful music results (sometimes literally).

So I have 4 hours of touristing, then call time is 5pm. Cross your fingers.

Faith and Group games

I just love that the Faith Tabernacle Church is right next to an ihop, which is a diner chain.

This afternoon was more group games. Group games are filled with anxiety (am I the only one who doesn't know what we are doing? Will anyone follow if I make an offer?), and it showed today. Very competent and talented people were freaking out big time.

Here are some words from Jason on the topic:
- in group games say (make a sound) AND do (because not everyone can see/hear you
- if you are bored, heighten or evolve
- if you want to remember bits from the opening for later scenes, just remember what one person did, and bring back their ideas (not just your own)
- if the group game has a character through it, we want to see that character again in the next group game
- make comments to the fourth wall/to the audience, not to each other
- sweep edits are ok for group games (it's the smoke grenade, abandons all finesse)