"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." --Merchant of Venice 1.1., William Shakespeare 

This may be the only week in my entire life during which I was sick (don't worry Mom, just a cold), sleep deprived, and dressed in all black but completely and utterly happy.  Let me explain:

I just finished my first week of LAMDA classes.  My morning starts at 6:45am when I grasp around on the floor next to my bed for my iPhone that is buzzing and jumping energetically, accidentally picking up my chunky rental phone, which resembles the indestructible but aesthetically unfortunate phone I owned eight years ago.  I shower, eat, pack my lunch, gather my books, check for my tube card, and head towards the elevator in order to catch the 7:55 shuttle that takes residents of the Nido apartment to the two closest tube stops, Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate.  I'm dressed in an actor's "blacks," an ensemble of black pants, a shirt, and white shoes in order to create a feeling of neutrality in the classroom and discourage clothing distractions during class.  The shuttle has 16 available seats.  The bad part: there are 22 LAMDA students staying at the apartment.  Even though I'm not a math kid, even I know that I need to be downstairs in the lobby at least 10 minutes before the shuttle arrives to get a seat on the shuttle and not be one of the 6 who must find another form of transportation to school.  By 8:25 we've made it to school and get to hang out before class starts PROMPTLY at 9 (If you're late, they hate you.  Pretty simple).  In LAMDA's common room there aren't food machines, but instead tea machines.  Plug in 36 pence and within 2 minutes you have yourself a piping hot cup of green tea!

LAMDA (beautiful, huh?)

At 9 am I start off my first class in a small six-person group.  We have these small groups for classes that require a lot of individual work, like singing and Alexander technique (a technique that uses relaxation and cleansing of tension in the body to produce better vocal sound).  The first three classes of the day last an hour and 15 minutes, so coming from a high school where each of my classes lasted 45 minutes, I've had to work to expand my attention span. We then have 15 minutes to make our way to the next class, during which time you can eat your snack, grab another tea or coffee from the machine, or socialize quickly in the common room some more.  The next class is slightly larger, this time with 12 students, and is either acting, improv, historical dance, physical theater, clowning, pure voice, or applied voice to text.  I especially enjoyed the physical theater class this week; this class gets a lot of attention at LAMDA since the Academy focuses on producing actors who produce emotion and impulses from their bodies first and then their minds, instead of producing actors who are stuck in their heads and always thinking about what they should be doing on stage.

I've always appreciated having a long, Greek last name: it tends to be a good conversation starter, provided some ethnic zest to a typical Southern high school, and confuses people when I then tell them I'm Jewish.  Having said that, the Greek last name ended up being an AMAZING boon during the physical theater class since our 26-year-old teacher could easily have played the extremely attractive Greek man in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie.  Yorgos is from Athens, has eyes that are almost as blue as the famous Greek ocean waters, and has an accent with a romantic flare that resembles French.  When he saw my last name on the attendance sheet he began to ask me about my Greek heritage and my last name and all of that (all the other girls were quite jealous).  But, onto the actual work of the class: Yorgos led us through an exercise called the "Pleasure Exercise" where you lie on the ground, in your own space, and focus on movements that make your body feel good.  For instance, we first focused on our pelvis and our legs.  He encouraged us to breathe fully, do movements that weren't symmetrical, and block any distractions out of our focus (like what other people were doing, what we looked like).  It was the first time that I've been completely unaware of what I was doing with my body, what I looked like, who was looking at me...I've never been so content with freedom and obliviousness before.  At first, I was flat on my back, and stuck my leg straight out and then wiggled each toe, then the ankle.  Then I brought the second leg up and kicked the air quickly with my feet, doing whatever impulse came to my body.  We did this for probably 20 minutes, moving the focus up to our arms and chest, moving slowly and thoughtfully and then rapidly changing into quick and tiny movement, and then sometimes even just sitting in complete stillness.       

Then, the real fun came.

Yorgos blasted music.  Our bodies had already adjusted to the freedom of doing whatever made them happy, and the music was the catalyst for even more movement.  At first, the music was something you'd jump up and down to at a concert, fast and furious, full of energy.  Almost like a chord was connected between our bodies and the stereo, my body head couldn't help but beat up and down to the rhythm, and my legs bounced up and down, and then suddenly I wasn't sitting, but I was stretched across the top off the piano that was in the room, tapping my fingers to the sound of the song.  There were no boundaries, it seemed.  Then the music changed: one of those songs you'd hear during a sad scene in a movie.  Slow notes on a piano, where you could almost imagine the pianist with tears down their face.  Suddenly my body didn't move in jerks and bounces, but in streaks and graceful circles.  At one point I was just lying down on the floor with my eyes shut, with my right arm making strokes in the air above my face.  When we finished, Yorgos simply said, with his exotic accent, "Stay as long as you want.  I invite you to stay this open and relaxed throughout the day.  I'll see you next week."  And just walked out.  If he does this everyday, he must be the most relaxed man on the planet.  I stayed lying on the floor for the next five minutes, unaware of my hungry stomach, or the fact that my hair was probably not as straight as when I left the flat, or that the common room would be crowded for lunch if I didn't leave right then.  I didn't get up, I just stayed there, perplexed and satisfied by this simultaneous calmness and energy in my body.  Upon talking to people in the common room during lunch, I noticed my voice was clearer and lower, almost as if the dancing had stripped the tension from all parts of my body, even my voice and mind.  Kudos, Yorgos.

After the hour lunch break, the 34 semester students are once again split up into smaller groups, each with a different director, this time with approximately 12 in each group.  These are our scene study groups in which we analyze scenes from Shakespeare's romance plays and work on them purely for the benefit of our own experience for three hours a day.  We don't perform these scenes for anybody outside of class, which means we can spend as much time on one topic or objective as we want.  For instance, my director Dominic has focused this past week on making my group into a true ensemble.  Solidifying trust and communication between all 12 of us, when we go to act we will feel comfortable taking risks with each other.  His catch phrase is "stay here with us," which means that we need to be open to making honest contact with each other, and experiencing every moment with the group.  Often he'll give us impossible tasks to overcome together:

"As a group, walk, then run, then sprint in the space and work your way up to your fastest speed.  When you collectively think you've reached your maximum speed, stop immediately as a unit.  Then come stand in a circle with your backs to each other, and clap at the same time."

The hard part: you cannot speak during any of this.  You must achieve these tasks by maintaining constant communication with your peers, always making eye contact, and being aware of others' body language.  If I were to look at the ground (so many of us are unaware of this habit) or space out for a moment, I may miss the key to stopping at the same time as the others.  When you think about it, this tasks requires that you must be equal in the amount of presence and attention that you give to and receive from the group.  I must give my openness and communication, making sure to stay present and in the moment, but I must also be open to receiving the unspoken communication from others.  Acting isn't just about memorizing lines or projecting the words to the audience, it's about being a better human being.  It's about always listening to others in an honest way.

I'll try to focus on one class each week, and go into detail on something that really changed how I think about acting.  But trust me, every teacher at LAMDA is a genius, every student is so dedicated, and every class I come out more in tune with my body, mind, and heart than when I walked into the room.