Because most of my classes are Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday I had a chance to relax a bit, and my friend Bjorn and I decided to go catch the Happy Mondays and The Sunshine Underground show at the university’s Refectory:
Happy Mondays has been around forever since getting big in the 80s, so there were quite a few forty-somethings in the crowd enjoying themselves...The Sunshine Underground, on the other hand, has only been around for a couple of years, but they were AMAZING. I had known about them before I came to Leeds so I knew I wanted to see them live, but they really blew me away. I can’t wait to see them again soon; they’re from Leeds so I hope they play way more gigs here. Sadly, the Decemberists concert I was anticipating so much that was supposed to happen Saturday got cancelled at the last minute because of one of the band members being sick. There’s currently no rescheduled show, unfortunately, so I’ll have to try my luck later this year. Hopefully they come back!
On Thursday I got to try something new—OperaNorth put on a sort of Introduction to Opera night for students, where you pay 10 pounds and receive a pre-show talk, two drinks, and a ticket to that night’s performance of Falstaff. It was my very first opera, and I loved it. The production in itself was very well done, and Falstaff the opera is rightly famous for being so entertaining. This version was sung in English, thankfully, so that helped our understanding quite a bit! Here’s the lovely cover art of the playbill:
On Friday we were supposed to go out and enjoy Light Night, an annual event in Leeds that’s full of free activities and shows on the city streets. It’s Leeds’ 800th birthday this year, so Light Night is bigger than ever; but at the last minute, tired from the last two nights, we decided to stay home. But we heard great things ... hopefully there are more events to commemorate Leeds’ bday!
Saturday my friend Eleanore and I caught the England vs. France rugby match at a bar in Headingley (a suburb of Leeds proper that’s mostly student-inhabited). If you’ve never been in a relatively cosy English pub with a couple hundred rowdy English rugger fans, you’re missing out. It could be compared to being in a Canadian sports bar when Canada’s in the gold medal hockey game, but with more singing and more pints of Guinness involved. I was a bit torn at who to cheer for: England seemed the logical choice, given my surroundings, but because Eleanore’s from France, I cheered for the French too ;). It was a really cool thing to see England win though- if you saw the game, you saw how last-minute the win was; needless to say, this tension led to a massive outpouring of English patriotism after the match, although, I must report, no hooligans/shenanigans to be seen. I'm actually a little disappointed about that. We'll have to see what happens after tonight's final between England and South Africa...
Sunday (sorry, my week was busy, alright? ;)), I met with my friend Marcie from home and 10 other North American girls to plan our trip to Barcelona on Nov. 9th... we’re getting so pumped to go! We’re staying for the weekend and coming back (hopefully) in time for classes on Monday. And did I mention that our flight cost us ONE PENNY each?? I love RyanAir. Sunday was also Bjorn’s birthday, so a few of us went out to see Die Falscher, a German film about Jewish prisoners being forced to make counterfeit British currency during WWII. Bit of a depressing birthday movie, I have to say, but interesting enough. It’s kind of nice to watch something that’s A) Not on your laptop and B) Not found on YouTube.
This week’s been a tad quieter than last, but I did manage to get to a LUU Backstage stage management workshop on Thursday. It’s fantastic to get some thorough training on how to manage a show; I’ve never been really taught how to do it. Everything I’ve learned so far, as it is with most stage crew, has been learned on the job. The jobs for first semester’s shows got doled out too, and happily, I’m the asst. stage manager for the production of Honk! (click here if you'd like a summary) coming up at the end of November. Now I just have to figure out how to build a set ... ;). Also, last night we headed to Fruity Disco again and had a great time. The theme was Barbie/Barbarians... I didn't pull off the Barbie look, necessarily, but I think my friend Nick did Barbarian rather well:
Annnnd up next week: reading more Renaissance drama and starting my three essays that are due early November. That’s the plan, at least. I can’t say if that’s going to be easily derailed or not... but you know me. Stranger things have happened.
Also- CONGRATS on your grad, Richard!! I wish I could be there to help celebrate! My big brother’s got his BA :). Have an awesome day with everyone!
Oh, and I wanted to mention this too: there’s a show on CBC right now called Triple Sensation, where really talented young theatre performers compete to win a $150,000 scholarship from Chapters Indigo to study anywhere in the world. In FANTASTIC news, Anwyn Musico, who Richard, Bryan and I went to elementary and high school with, made the top ten last week! The finale’s on Sunday night on CBC at 8 pm. Just wanted to let you know so you can cheer for Anwyn too :). What an amazing opportunity. Here's the site: www.triplesensation.ca for more info!
And that’s it for the terribly long blog post. I’ll talk to you all soon!
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