New Year's Eve (2013)

The year started twirling a “glow sword”

Because in the land of the free and the brave

It’s easier to buy a gun than a sparkler 

We applied for a fiance visa. 

I flew back to London.

In February, I started house hunting,

Visited Brighton

And saw A Chorus Line at the Palladium

I watched women in black t-shirts and bright red lipstick

Rise and dance outside Parliament House. 

We had a bake sale at the theatre.

I wandered the streets of London 

Trying to feel at home. 

In March, I saw Liza Minnelli at Royal Festival Hall.

In the midst of a snow storm

I moved to Ruislip. 

Saw my friend’s play 

Nights of Enchantment,

And over noodles, had a long and delightful conversation

With an old friend. 

One bright chilly morning

I walked from Covent Garden to the Thames to Islington. 

In April, I did quite the unthinkable

And quit my job ushering

At a west end theatre

And prepared to walk 780km across 

Northern rural Spain 

I saw the Lichtenstein retrospective at the Tate Modern

On the 30th April I caught the Eurostar

From London to Paris

And spent the day on trains heading 

South across France to the Pyrenees

On the first day of May

I walked up and down the Pyrenees 

Crossed into Navarra 

And spent the next 31 days

Walking the width of Spain 

Until I reached Santiago de Compostela 

In June, I saw War Horse at the New London.

I flew over the Atlantic

To spend the summer with my love

We went to a wedding

And a Wesslmann pop art exhibit in Richmond 

Drove through Washington DC, Jersey, New York, and Connecticut

And arrived 

Home 

At summer camp 

We staged 2 full-scale musicals 

In 8 weeks 

I taught singing and voice

And melted in the heat

Watched Yo Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra

At Tanglewood 

And walked a rainbow chalk labyrinth

Smudged and glowing from rain 

In August

I saw Matilda, Once, and Peter and the Starcatcher in NYC

And wandered the streets of Manhattan praying for a miracle. 

I unwillingly flew back to London

And moved to the south east. 

I worked as a temp

At an international commercial property research company

Two finance firms

Two publishing houses

And spent my days behind reception desks around London

Writing and researching my play.

I saw Blue Stockings at The Globe.  

In September, I quietly turned 29

In one of the offices of London

And in the evening saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the 

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with my big brother

I saw Grounded at The Gate Theatre

And did a workshop on writing solo material 

I traveled to Bath to audition for a play 

I saw Once with my Australian singing teacher 

And remembered why I was doing what I was doing. 

I saw A Doll’s House at The Duke of York

And had to talk myself into staying for the second act. 

I went blackberry picking in Southminster 

And made a blackberry pie. 

In October, I had my interview with the US Consulate 

And was rejected

I waited for a piece of paper

Declaring my lack of criminal record

To be sent from Australia to the UK

Via snail mail

I waited for my file to be lifted from the hundreds of other files

In someone’s office

I saw Trevor Ashley perform

Liza on an E 

And Malala Yousafzai speak at Queen Elizabeth Hall

I went to the London Dungeon and SeaLife Aquarium with my first London friend 

I saw The Light Princess at the National Theatre

And a debate between the founder of No More Page 3 

And three playboy bunnies 

In Carnaby St. 

I went to Brighton with Mum and

Rode the carousel on the pier.

The next day I was the sickest I have been since moving to London

Ten months of waiting catching up with my stomach. 

In November, I saw Matilda at the Cambridge

One last time 

Walked along the Thames  

Saw the Christmas lights in Oxford St and 

Bid farewell to London.  

I flew across the Atlantic 

To be with my love

And, finally, 

We were married. 

In December 

I worked on my play

Went to my first American audition

And was cast in my first Shakespeare  

I discovered I could run in below freezing temperatures

Volunteered in a second-hand bookshop

Learnt to play the ukulele

Went to a Warhol exhibit

And wandered through Old Town admiring the fairy lights.

We started our happily ever after

The end. 

Blue Stockings at The Globe

from here

Suddenly you find yourself

Inside The Globe! 

The detailed recreation

Of what once was 

Shakespeare's playground

There is a feeling of exhilaration

The theatre has been beautifully re-created
The whole thing is utterly stunning
The grand columns
The box seats

The wide open space on the floor for 

The "Groundlings" 

The long and narrow thrust stage

Cutting through the middle 

The floor is concrete

You try to imagine layers of straw and dust and dirt and grime

At the apex of the stage
A balcony,

Its windows closed for now
It seems Juliet could fling them open and lean over the railing and "ah me" at any moment

The boxes right above the stage with their richly coloured frescoes 

You can imagine royalty sitting there

Sitting to be seen 

Even from the position of the pleb

You really can see everybody 

The audience watching each other

Playing a game of being

The audience 

The way you see sky when you look directly up

There's something dramatic about Shakespeare and sky together

The sky is pale blue

Translucent thin whispy clouds
It's the end of the day
Mild, not too hot, not too cold

Tonight's play is called Blue Stockings

Rear centre stage a small drum kit and a music stand
A small balcony above, more music stands, a trumpet, lights for the musicians

(You forgive the modern intrusion)

The columns have been made to look like book shelves

The play is about the fight for women's access to college education

And the fight

At the end of the 19^thC

For the right for women attending college to graduate

There is something tongue-in-cheek

About a feminist play being produced

At the Globe

It is beautifully produced
It is refreshing to see a genuine issue discussed, dissected
The relevance of women's education
The prejudice we faced
Still face

Through the play we see their struggle

And sacrifice

And we are heart broken

It is easy for a modern day, predominantly white, presumably educated audience to laugh at history

“I can’t believe he just said that!!”

Chortle.

But in this year, the year 2013

University fees are so prohibitively expensive

Many will not be able to attend university at all

Last year a teenage girl was shot in the head

For daring to speak out and fight for her right

To an education

And even still, today, right now

Men continue to try and ultimately control women

Deny access to basic human rights

Blue Stockings offers no solutions

Only that we must go on

Must continue learning

For the sake of learning

To inspire great minds

To allow people to go out into the world and achieve their fullest potential

To understand and to dream

I am incredibly aware of the privilege

That has bought me to be standing in the middle of The Globe

One night at the end of summer

The fact that I am a university graduate

With two degrees to my name

The fact I got to go to school at all

Is a fight

That was won

Before I was born

But is still being fought

In a treacherous warzone

History and story-telling

The stories that have resonated throughout

The Globe

To demand an understanding of history

So that we may imagine

The meticulous re-construction

Of a better place

The end. 

A Delightful Day in London

To wander the streets of London
From Holborn through to Lincoln's Inn Fields
Paying homage to the ghost of Charlotte Charke
First female actor-manager
Who in the 18th century wandered these streets
Desperate for work upon the stage

Down the Strand past the Royal Courts of Justice and
Onto Fleet St, where,
Somewhere along this road
Mordecai, relative in time, was arrested
Caught creating counterfeit cash and
Eventually tried at the Old Bailey
And shipped to Australia
The Royal Bank with a waterfall of tropical
Pink, orange, and yellow flowers
Cascading down its cold walls
Impossibly narrow buildings squished between
"Newer" edifications
Stone monuments that seem fairy-tale like with their
Statuesque dragons and winged horses

Down to the Thames
The buildings that grace its banks
The very sites that in themselves are the 

Synecdoche of London
Tower Bridge, St Paul's, The "Shard" 

The latter, still under construction
The city is still being built
Still growing above its labryntine streets
Winding paths that open to secret courtyards, squares, gardens
And ever more winding paths

To walk from Blackfriars as the sun is still rising
To see the world
"Half-way in shadow
And half-way in light"
It really is, as Bert describes,
"Coo, what a sight!"

The city made more real
By the previous experience of it in books, film, television, and art
To be here in the flesh
Wandering the streets of London
Smelling the city
Watching the workers scurrying away
Women in sneakers and stockings
Men in suits and ties
The same brands on nearly every corner

Stone and glass walls built side by side 

It feels like I must be in an elaborate set

Some two thousand years in the making

The end. 

New York, New York

Oh, New York, New York!

In one year from today we will live together 

You and I (and my love) 

And we will eat delicious foods

And be a part of wonderful theatre

And walk down your myriad of streets

And travel in your subways 

And marvel at your architecture

Just three short days this trip

Three shows - two Broadway, one off-

The remarkable talent to strut across the stage 

Stories told through song and dance and music

The sort of irony

That each show I’ve seen this time around

Strongly references/is set in

The UK 

Tomorrow I fly back across the Atlantic

But first,

Tonight, Matilda

To see a show I’ve seen

A hundred times before? 

Literally

Over six months 

In London

Eight shows a week

The routine of front of house

Bruce’s scene

Time to get ice creams for interval 

Counting money and re-stocking ice creams

During Mr Wormwood’s song about telly

And the swings

Back inside in time for 

Miss Honey to wander forlornly and to see

The acrobat and the escapologist! 

Revolting children the cue to 

Get out to the kiosk before the ensemble comes tearing out to change in the corridor 

Ready to be Russians 

When I grow up reprise

The cue to have the merch ready

For the outgoing

Tonight

I am just another patron

The thrill of being seated next to a friend 

From the other side of the world

Six years since we have seen each other? 

A total wonderful coincidence 

The lights grow dim

The opening is slightly different

No school bell

The orchestrations are ever so slightly changed

A slightly longer beginning

The tempos are different

The opening seems slower 

The parents’ singing more articulate 

The chokey song

Definitely slower, perhaps even by half

The set and costumes are the same

With minor adjustments

The fabrics more shiny 

More glitzy for Broadway

The wall of the Wormwood’s living room

A shiny green

The ducks seem bigger

Matilda’s bedspread, not just plain blue

It has texture

Some costume pieces are lined with glittering sequins 

The school desks are imprinted with letters on the inside

The chalkboard is enormous 

The English accents are excellent 

The show translates well

The laughs are big

The audience is very receptive 

And yet at interval

I’m shocked to discover the people around me are lost

Two patrons ask me what is going on

They can’t understand it 

I can’t understand them

In the second half the man across the aisle is bored and reading messages on his phone 

I want to punch him in the face 

At the end of the show

Standing at the stage door

I meet an aspiring actor

He is 17

He is auditioning for 19 drama schools in the fall

He has no idea what he is in for 

(Maybe, MAYBE, I should take everything I’ve learnt, and, and put it in a show!)

The fact that he has 19 drama schools available to him to audition for makes me laugh

Back in my day

Where I come from

We only had three drama schools to audition for

And only two had a musical theatre program

I love being in New York

I love walking through Times Square

It is everything I’m against 

With it’s blatant commercialism 

And wasteful energy consumption

And tourist-filled seediness 

And lack of trees

And yet I love the damn place 

I love seeing shows here

I love the quintessential New York smell that is hot pretzels and air conditioning vents and hot concrete and subway all mingled together 

I love the multitudes of people 

(And another hundred people just got off of the train)

Who come from EVERYWHERE to be 

HERE

I love that the Bronx is up

And the Battery’s down

I love that there are a million songs about New York

That get stuck in my head as I walk its streets

And they capture perfectly how I feel about the place 

(Oooooh, New York! Living in a town that is famous as a place of movie scenes...)

I love the people I can meet here

I love the pulse/vibe/energy

It is always alive

Never for a moment quiet or resting 

New York, New York

It won’t be long now 

The end. 

Opening Night

Perseid meteor shower

Opening night!

It’s opening niiiiight!

Well, almost

It’s also closing night 

Four weeks of rehearsal

Dancers drilled

Notes pounded 

Lights programmed

Sets built

Programs designed

Characters hones 

For one night of show

It’s also the end of the summer

Almost time to leave this happy place

My fifth summer in six years

Second working on the musicals

My “Buck’s Rock babies” 

As I call “my” kids

Over the years

I’ve watched them grow

Turn from awkward unsure ducklings

Into confident swans who know that

At least, if only here, 

In the middle of the Connecticut woods

They have a home

Where they are accepted for who they are 

Where they can express their creative selves

Freely and safely

Without ridicule 

My first summer

I looked at the long-time returners 

And shook my head

How could they keep coming back

Year after year?

Set up their lives around 8 weeks of summer camp?

But I too have kept returning

The one year I didn’t, a 

Miserable cold wet Sydney winter

I pined for my American Brigadoon 

And I returned

And fell in love all over again

With the place

With the people 

With my role in this community of artists 

Walking home from a late night tech

Beneath open night skies

Falling stars

And a maze of meteors

Whose lines are only sometimes visible 

I am home. 

This is Monday

Dinner at Belgos
Where the time you order
Is the amount you pay
For your main
Two mains and a dessert and drinks
For less than £30
In the heart of London
Not bad at all!
And delicious food
With good service
And nice company
Is always welcome

And then going to a new venue
The Arts Theatre
Not new at all
But new to me
To think I walk past it
Every single day and
Wasn't aware of the wonderland inside
Sparkling cupcakes
And hot chocolates with marshmallows
A cosy little theatre
In the West End
Showing
Off-beat work
Hard working actors
And musicians
And crews
Delivering
To half-empty houses

And still the vibe
Is pulsing
And strong

And tomorrow
Promises to be warm
The end.

West End Work

"Hello! May I take you to your seat?!" #stagey 

Tonight

I was selling programs
And a woman came up to me
And said
"Are you an actor?
You have a lovely theatre voice."
To which I laughed
In reply
And said
"Just about every usher
In the West End
Is an actor!"
And she laughed too
And we had a little conversation
And as she departed,
Program in hand,
She smiled and said
"Well, good luck
I'm sure you'll get work in no time."
And it truly made my day
To have a random stranger
Say something nice
Say something confidence boosting
To remind me
Why I'm here in the first place

The end.

Love, Actually

There is a couple in the foyer
The wife is crying
The husband lifts the hood of her jacket
Kisses her forehead and laughs

They come up to the kiosk
And the husband says
"I just gave her the tickets,
She didn't know we were
Seeing the show tonight"
He is grinning from ear to ear

The wife is in shock
She is still crying a little
Perhaps the husband has been terrible
And he's making up for it
Perhaps he has been away
And this is a surprise date
Perhaps he has told her
A hundred times
"We're not going to the bloody theatre
It's too expensive"
And all the while has been saving
To buy her a ticket

The husband asks for a program
The wife looks at it like it might bite her
She is not sure what is happening
The husband buys the program
He offers to hold it
"So you won't get it soggy
With your tears
Love"

At the interval
The wife looks more relaxed
She buys a fridge magnet
"Isn't it a wonderful show?"
The husband is still grinning from ear to ear
Secretly proud
His ploy worked

Love, actually
Is everywhere

The end.

You've Got a Friend in Me

image from here

I stood behind my kiosk and called out, 

Programs! £5! 

And one of the other ushers stood behind his kiosk and called out,

Drinks! Various prices! 

And we chuckled because it was silly

And he said

I’m determined to be your inspiration today

And he was 

Because sometimes all you need is

Someone else who is willing to smile

And share the ridiculous.

The end. 

Repeat

There is something comforting in the fact

That every day

A show is being performed

The people are singing

Masquerades are on parade

Children are revolting

Somewhere around the world

The story of a boy band is being told

In neat

Introduction, climax, denouement form

With feel good songs

And slick choreography 

Every day

The performers are singing and dancing

The costumers re-hanging shirts and wigs and dresses

The stage hands striking and re-setting props 

And getting ready to do it all again

No show is ever the same twice

The audience is always different

Sometimes a line is dropped

A prop forgotten

The cast slightly shuffled

And every day

There is someone in the audience

Watching it all for the first time

Laughing, sighing, gasping

And walking out of the theatre

Feeling happier

Feeling uplifted 

And I get to meet that someone 

Eight times a week

And I get to watch it all

Eight times a week

And feel comforted that 

Every day a show is being performed. 

The end. 

Going Home

So, you move half-way across the world

To be in theatre

And drama school is over and

You find yourself... temping.

Answering phones, writing emails 

Being part of the corporate cog

“Good morning, [insert company name]. One moment please-”

Transfering the call to persons unknown somewhere else in the building

And, for a bit, it was kind of fun. 

Seeing the insides of buildings across London

Meeting new people

A new job every day,

But it was also exhausting 

And a little depressing

So many people are just so unhappy

This daily slog. 

And one day you find yourself back in the theatre,

In front of house

And it was a job you did for seven years

Once upon a time ago.

And walking into your first shift

Even though it’s a whole lifetime/a world away/10,000 miles apart

It’s like coming home

The instant familiarity of it,

The rows of seats 

(A to H, no Row I so as not to confuse people, though this theatre has a Row O)

The smell of hazer

The smell of theatre dust. 

The instant friendship and family that theatre people become

The not insignificant army of people that make a show happen 

Consider before you’ve even sat in your seat

The book writer and composer and orchestrator and director and casting director and agents and actors and choreographer and musical director and musicians and designers and ops and builders and painters and dressers and stage managers and stage door persons and ushers and bar staff and theatre manager and a myriad of people have

Played their part

For the 7.30pm show start 

And the lights go dim

And you watch the audience watching the show

And, like Amelie who turns around in the movie theatre

To see the peoples faces,

You find a joy in watching their expressions

Observing their collective laughs and moments of surprise

And although you still want,

More than anything,

To be up on that stage,

For now, this is lovely.

Being paid to be part of it all

And knowing, at least you’re in your house

And this world

With its strange hours

And lack of sunlight

And legion of folk all trying to 

Make It

And the insistent dedication required to 

Make It Happen

Is the exact world you want to be in.

The end. 

The Stage

It’s when you get inside the theatre

And you can smell the hazer

And see the depth of the stage

That you remember what all these hours have been for

You walk through the wings

And stand under the glow of the lights

And feel a sense of relief

Feel like you’re home

The delicious adrenalin sheer hard gut busting work of it 

Because sometimes you do wonder why you’re here

Standing in line with hundreds of others

Belting as high as they can

Articulating gesticulating and explicating

But it’s the relief of being there

On the stage

Working with the director and the lighting designer and the costume designer and the stage manager and the musical director and the musicians and the ensemble and 

All the myriads of people who work unseen to make the magic happen

Not really magic

Just sheer hard work and determination

Hour upon hour of rehearsal

Sometimes you wonder where a whole afternoon went

Because when you look at the script, you’ve only covered a page!

But the continual repetition and drilling and finding meaning in the text

Is where you find the magic 

Meters of fabric

A team of dedicated souls 

And a room

Become transformed into countless other worlds

Where people sing and dance and act

Often at the same time! 

And it makes you so happy

Makes your blood pulse through your very being 

And reminds you why it is you chose to be here

The end. 

A Weekend in anoTHEr Country

In the morning you go out to meet another Aussie-expat and you go to a lovely Australian/New-Zealander cafe called Flat White and enjoy your renewed-found love of coffee. You make a note-to-self to find an alternative to espresso, as even four sugars per tiny cup seems excessive - though it is down from five. You enjoy delicious toast with homemade hummus and fresh avocado. It is the best hummus you have had in ages but you spend the rest of the day paranoid you reek of garlic. Afterwards you walk through beautiful St James's Park to the War Rooms. There are ducks and geese and swans and a woman is hand-feeding them over the fence. You think she is a bit mad, but realize that these birds are probably rather used to people hand-feeding them. 

The Churchill War Rooms are bizzare. They are secret bunkers for the British War Cabinet during The War. Small and slightly claustrophobic and when the war ended the people literally turned off the lights, walked out, closed the door, and didn't come back for decades. Now the rooms and corridors and bunkers are a museum and you can walk through and see exactly how it all was over seventy years ago. Imagine being in the rooms Back Then. The rooms would have been smokey because everybody smoked back then, and above you the world was falling apart and you didn't know if when you left work for the day (or night) if your house or even your street was still going to be there when you did. No one except the government was allowed to know that you worked there because it was Top Secret. If you were a secretary you had a special gas mask that allowed you keep talking on the telephone even during a gas attack. The War Stops For Nobody.  

You walk back to Soho to the Soho Theatre Bar to mingle with other drama students. You are late, but it seems you haven't missed much except a free drink. A casting director is giving a talk. She says things you have mostly heard before, but you're feeling light and inspired and you scribble down some of her points and feel a sense of renewed enthusiasm. Then you wander around the room and meet some of the other actors. They are all graduating this year too, ready to go out into the Big Wide World and try their luck at this acting thing. Will all this time and money and effort be worth it?

You meet a girl with Scandinavian/American heritage. She wants to move to New York and live the life of a starving actor. She knows it's a bit weird to want that life, but you understand what she means. It's New York. And then you meet a boy who gives you the feeling that he is on the cusp of something brilliant, but you're not quite sure what it is, but you're sure he is destined for great things. And then you meet another girl who is interested in verbatim theatre and using theatre to make a positive difference to the world. And it is nice to meet someone as excited and passionate as you about the possibility of theatre. 

You head home on the tube. And you get home and you make chickpea patties, which you haven't made in the longest time, and you make a big batch of quinoa and steam some spinach. And you spread a little beetroot dip from yesterday's cooking adventures on the chickpea patties, and you pour out a little sweet chilli sauce. And you sit at your desk to do some work and you breathe and smile and know that you have had a most wonderful day. 

The end.