What the heck just happened?!

Well, I'm back!

Back from a whirlwind writing course in the Western English countryside and then back to London and now I'm down in Pulborough (not too far from Brighton). I emerged from near total isolation to find a very different airline situation. How in the world am I going to do work on the airplane if I can't bring anything with me?

Well, enough of that. I'll back up a bit to give you a brief overview of my Arvon Course in Totleigh Barton.

Evening 1: Meet the two tutors and 15 other students in the course. Eat dinner. Convene in "the barn" after dinner and introduce yourself to everyone, telling them what aspect of musical theater you'd most like to attempt-- dialog and story, lyrics, composition or everything. Being that I feel my musical background and musical performance phobia would be a slight drawback to composing, I said dialog and story and perhaps lyrics. I sat back down as the rest of the students told their preferences. At the end, Willy and Nick asked us what were the top 2 subjects of songs in musicals. The answers: No. 1. Love (of course), and No.2. was Place (going to a place, being in a place, coming from a place, wishing you were in a place). End of lecture... Now, everyone was tasked with going away for 45 minutes and to come back with a song written about a place... and then perform it.

In essence, my own worst nightmare. The only thing that made it any easier was that you could set it to a tune that already existed.

You might think that was a bit like being thrown into the deep end. I don't think so, because I know how to swim. It's more like being dangled over the edge of a cliff and being told to either plummet to your death or fly-- a feat I don't know if I can accomplish, as I've never tried.

My blood pressure rose, and my heart stayed pounding hard in my throat for the entire evening.

No one ran away from the challenge though some people refused to sing. I on the other hand, thought I'd be missing an opportunity if I didn't sing, so... (gulp) I attempted to sing it and accompany myself on guitar so I could keep the melody straight.

That was only the first night.

Day 2: Hang out with one other person until lunch, then go write a song based on something that person lived, said or sparked in you, AND write a short scene leading up to that song. After dinner, perform it.

Day 3: The tutors had created a story and divided it into 6 parts. A team of 2-3 people were to create the musical segment they were given. I was in a team of 2, and the guy I was with had to leave for about 1 1/2 hours while he walked up the road so he could have a job interview over the phone (no mobile phones worked at the cottage-- you had to walk about 1/4 mile up a hill to get any reception). So in essence, I had to do a little more than I would have if I had been in a team of 3. After dinner, peform it.

Day 4: No performance... Just write a piece that will be dialog and songs or all sung-through that lasts between 8 and 15 minutes long with 3 voices in it. In addition to this, you had to cast it, so that meant that you needed to find people to play parts in your piece as well as be available to be in someone else's piece. And have time to rehearse it. That day was crazy. I ended up being in 5 other pieces as well as my own! Definitely a crazy day!

Day 5: Present and critique the pieces starting at around 10:30 in the morning. We were to be done by 6:30 in the evening. At 9:00pm, we were to have a sort of celebratory cabaret where everyone who was interested was to get up and perform a piece that they knew or liked or... whatever. Just for fun. You weren't supposed to do a lot of preparation. I was going to recite the first 23 lines of the Prologue to Canterbury Tales in Middle English. At the last minute I asked them if they wanted a song instead. They wanted both, so I did 2 pieces... Chaucer and I sang (yes, sang--- and by this point I couldn't have cared less, as I didn't have to write the song) "By My Side" from Godspell.

Quite a feat, and quite a grueling week.

I'm going to need to take off a month to rest after this vacation!

Saturday, got a lift back to London, met up with Michael for dinner, then back to the Camden Town Flat to meet Ray (but his wife was asleep). The next day, dragged my stuff to Victoria station, went to the SW London Vineyard and met up with Lydia and Alan and had a wonderful lunch with them. Then back to Victoria to collect my stuff and take a train down to Pulborough to have dinner with Megs and Sheila.

Not sure what we'll do today, but so far, I've been catching up on Email correspondence and blogging.

That's all for now, folks.

I'm now looking at how to come back to the States with no carry on luggage. What is going to happen to my poor laptop!?

Thanks for reading,

Diane