The kids put on one of their best shows this morning, getting acollades and a standing ovation from the small morning crowd, mostly made up of a high school from Hawaii.

Edinburgh is a beautiful and old town. The entire city is filled with Georgian brick architecture and gothic cathedrals, which seem to be every couple of blocks. Near our theatres is an intersection called "church's corner," where you can find no fewer than six churches within half a block and not one of them was built after the 19th century.

We did the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle last night, full of marching bads, bagpipes, and, suprisingly, some teenager motorcycle stunts.

Best of the Fringe for me so far-

ONE NIGHT STAND - Improvised musical that was as amazing as it was gut-bustingly funny.
BETWEEN THE DEVEIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA - Ingenious melding of cabaret, silent films, multimedia, and live tehatre.
WHAT IF? - Performed literally in a shipping contianer with about 30 seats. Nice small play about the perils of online addiction.

Harry Potter!

Surprisingly enough, Natalie. Annie and I have been touring the many Harry Potter landmarks of Edinburgh (which, by the way, seems to be the 'Austin' of the UK). We've visited the cafe JK Rowling wrote the 1st book in, and the Balmoral Hotel, where she wrote most of the sixth and seventh books (we also left a note for Jo at the concierge desk!). The last thing we did was visit Jo's presumed neighborhood where we went into the nearest Starbucks (obviously) and were told that she comes there quite often! So we kept the cups, and found her house (we think)! That's all for the HP tour!

So, you might not believe this but today was the very first time I got to watch Reckless from the audience. I never did last year when we did at the school or this summer when we restaged it at McCallum in preparation. After being with the show from the beginning of the season selection to this point and through the entire nomination, application, and fundraising process I have never seen what it was we were selling. Bits and pieces of course...so since February 2006 when we started this whole thing this was the first.

In short, I was truly moved. I, of course, love watching the students perform on stage. They are always having so much fun, working so hard, problem solving left and right, and making the story come alive for the audience. But today, at our 10 am performance at Church Hill Theatre, it really hit me nicely. By the end of the show Rachel's story arc in all its insanities really proved that the past is something we wake up to every day..but it's not a nightmare. Things happen, we meet people, we know people, we lose people, we move on, we rekindle, we champion ourselves, we protect each other. etc etc etc.

The show that we started as a fun little romp with American craziness ended with a heart bigger than anyone expected. It took three directors, loads of students, many parents and all of our friends to get us where we are. I am so proud to have been a part of it...and I hope your students share with you their experiences with the show and the trip when they get back to the states.

Highlight of the past 2 days (show wise):

Rhino Provino was superb, excellent, clean-cut, passionate, cathartic and inspiring. An AHSTF show from Portland, Oregon's Grant High School.

Lowlight: Waiting for Groucho.

Three reviews from other viewers:
"Keanu Reeves was born for this play. More people walked out than laughed."

"Too much ambition, not enough talent."

"I hate you [said to the show itself]."

(Tatum's note: Not everything at the Fringe is a winner...some people can just afford the space.)

Greetings Mates!

We’re here in not-so-sunny Scotland. I don’t think it really hit me until a couple of days ago when I watched your kids do their final tech rehearsal on the stage of the beautiful Church Hill Theatre. They didn’t see, but I had more than a couple of tears to wipe away as all of the hard work and money and heartbreak over the last 18 months that all of you have put in finally came to some resolution. This was what it was all about: these kids performing their craft in a theatre that was probably already old before Texas became a state. I am so honored that you allowed me the privilege of working so closely with your kids over this last week. It’s been amazing.

I even ate some haggis.

So first things first: my apologies for the lack of blogs. The short story, it’s been very busy. Like…VERY busy. I have been doing bed check every night..which means I do not get into bed until very close to 1am (if not later). We have very planned days each and every day. There is always some show to see or rehearsal or performance, so the students time is pretty well booked full. When not they are eating, sleeping, or seeing shows at the Fringe. And from what I hear, some truly amazing shows.

Because I haven’t had time to personally update the blog, I’ve asked chaperones and students alike to give me a blog entry letting people know how things were the first week. As they pour in, so will the blogs, so definitely be looking for all that!

Wow that was a lot of travelling!

We arrived at the Austin airport at 9:45am, pushed all our travelers through the ticketing and security (only a couple of overweight bags) and got a plane to Cleveland at 11:55. I'll be honest...it was a small plane. But that just means we filled most of it, which was fun.

Cleveland is not a super happy place, if you've never been. Although very busy, it was rather quiet. Everyone decided they needed some food and fanned out around the concourse to nourish themselves. A couple hours later we were back on a plane...this time to London!

After a decidedly easy customs and bag claim process, we were met by our Blue Badge agent 'A'....no she wasn't a secret agent, she just had some issues with her "boy" name Adrianne. She was full of information, a wry sense of British humor, and exeedingly protective of our students.


We drove into London and stopped at Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard. We managed to get a very nice standing area and were treated to most of the ceremony. 'A' even kicked out some mom with two small children when they tried to infilitrate our sweet standing spot.




We took a walk through Kensington park, had a bit of a picnic lunch, walked through another park (while seeing a TON of historical stuff) and then headed onto the bus for more touring. We stopped again at St. Paul's, we walked by Westminster Abbey, we drove through the West End and Piccadilly. At this point, most of the students were passed out. Those who took the advice and slept on the plane to stay awake were doing ok and most of the chaperones were hanging on by a thread (cat naps dont count right?).





We finished up the bus tour and arrived at Bankside house. Not too shabby. The group unloaded and got in their rooms with time for a freshen up before our dinner. Most students went to bed after dinner though many went on a little walking tour around the Thames giving them a peek at what was to come the next day...an open day in London.




And after my 8 hours of sleep, I'm feeling much more like a human...of course I cant quite speak for everyone in our group, but I imagine the zombies are in the minority.

-Tatum

Labels: london theatre trip