August 1 & August 2: Karla Garcia & Ramim Karimloo

I’m trying to catch up with all the writing so I’m going to put Thursday & Friday together.

Thursday: In the morning we had monologue & singing workshop. then I had lunch and facetimed with my lovely mom. 🙂 I’m sad to leave next week but happy to see my family again. I went back and hang out with my roommates, who went with me to danceclass by Karla Garcia. She was on SYTYCD in 2005 and was one of the dancers at Hitlist in Smash http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3470744/ . The class was super busy but it was nice. In the night we went to Croocked knife, one of our roommates just got a national commercial so we had a drink to celebrate.

Friday: We had monologue and song interpretation in the morning. At night I saw Monica, one of my friends from the 5 weeks who is still in town. We went to see a concert of Ramim Karimloo, at a new club Subculture. Ramim Karimloo is a famous musical theatre actor, he has been in the Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon etc in London. He won a price for being the best Phantom in 25 years. Subculture is very nice, it’s a very intimate place where famous musical theatre artists are performing. The audience were real fans. In the middle of the concert people stood up to tell him how much they loved him and brought pictures and stuff. I had a ponytail and got asked to lower my hair. After we went to eat at a nice place in the neighbourhood, Almond. Ramim was great, he has a beautiful voice and it was really nice. Monica was really happy, she ran into Of course I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures, and I couldn’t risk it because it was so small inside.

Ramim Karimloo at Subculture

Monica, happy with her Ramim autograph

Almond, ‘kind of like a greek salad’

July 31: Cinderella!

Not so much to tell about today. We had 3 classes today: monologue, singing workshop and song interpretation. All very useful. All went quite well, had to do my (new) monologue and sang on my own for the last time. I’m starting to like monologues now I know how to handle them, and I figured that I just never found the right monologues to do.

At night I went to the tkts box, it’s a ticketbox where they sell tickets for Broadway shows with discount. I don’t really know if the difference is really big, because they say you get 40% discount but now idea wherefrom. The tickets are still super expensive after the discount so I’m not sure it’s true. But anyways, I got a ticket for Cinderella and I got two guy friends to come with me. They never really saw musicals before and I dragged them to see Cinderella, what I thought was really funny. They didn’t think it was so funny. But after they said it wasn’t as bad as they expected. I loved it, it was beautiful and cute and funny. The singing was marvellous of course and the seats we had were fine. I wanted to take a picture of the stage, but the security people kept warning us that if we did we would get a fine of 1800 dollars. From the mezzanine it was 1800, in the front 2500, and outside it was free, so they said. Outside I forgot about it.

So that’s another Broadway show to cross of my list, I still have a lot on there and time is running out. Well good thing most shows stay around for a long time on Broadway.

 

July 30: Hiphop/funk with Bev Brown & shooting White Collar

We had monologue and acting exercises in the morning.

In the afternoon I had finally time to go to danceclass again. I wanted to go to jazz class, but this was totally full. I don’t really know how that’s possible because the classes are most of the times crazy busy so I always thought there was not really a maximum. But I saw that there was a hiphop/funk class and thought why not? Haha it was something totally different but so much fun to do. The hiphop teachers here are the real deal. My teacher was Bev Brown, a pretty big name her in NY. To read more see this: http://www.broadwaydancecenter.com/faculty/bios/brown_bev.shtml

On my way to the danceschool I saw the crew of the tv show ‘White Collar’ filming in the street. Our street (Madison Avenue) is used a lot for filming. We saw Spiderman getting filmed here the other day, and a movie with Taylor Lautner (Twilight) was shooting here a couple weeks ago. One of my friends even got asked to stand in as an extra guy in the background for a scene, and got to meet Taylor. Tried to take some pictures of the shooting.

At night I was meeting Paloma, my french sister, for a goodbye drink in the Hudson Hotel. The Hudson Hotel is a very trendy hotel with a lot of nice terraces and bars. She was going home the next day to France so this was our official goodbye for now.

I love how films are here such a big thing in the city, on my way to dancing I saw this sign in the subway:

This was something remarkable..

so funny…

Drinks at the Hudson hotel

July 29: start of two week intensive

On Sunday I got some new roommates who arrived for the two week intensive. Didn’t had the time to talk to them that much but they seem nice. Still felt really weird though, the whole house had a different vibe, not bad not good, just different. In the morning we started with the class ‘acting exercises’. We met our new classmates and I think we have a nice class. There are 20 people in it so it’s quite big, but we’re getting some more hours of class because we’re with so many. Acting exercises was all about practical exercises who are handy to apply while studying your character.

We had singing workshop from our teacher Jenn Smolos. She was our teacher during the 5 weeks of the musical theatre elective. She is a really good teacher and really nice to work with. We got to record our vocal exercises so that’s nice, and I feel like they are working immediately.

In the afternoon we went to Madison Square Park to have lunch. Then we had to say goodbye to Joeke :(. She went back to Amsterdam. She’s living in Haarlem so we’ll meet back home anyway so that’s nice.

At night we had some shake shag in the park and got to sleep in a quiet residence hall, weird.

July 28: the Pit theatre

After staying up the whole night to say goodbye to Andres(as), I slept in. Joeke and I had some brunch at another little cafe across the steet, Keko. It’s a really cute place, but the guy who was working there is not the nicest waiter you ever meet, I guess that’s why we never really go there. Even though the crepes are really good.

Did some work for my monologue when I got back. On monday our intensive would start and we had to prepare a monologue and a 16 bar song. My lovely teacher Pam Scott recommended a few monologues, and I really enjoyed the play ‘Spike Heels’, also from Theresa Rebeck.

There were still a few people left in the dorms, some where leaving on Monday and 4 of the whole summer program (including me) would stay for the 2 week intensive. With this group we went to see a show in the Pit theatre. In the Pit there are a lot of impro shows. We saw the show City Hall: Boys of Summer. A comedic show about a few guys who spend an imaginative summer. They got really good reviews and tickets were only 8 dollars.

There was clearly a division in opinions about the show between the Americans of the group and the dutchies. It’s a different kind of humor. Sometimes I just feel so Dutch here. I love NY but I discovered that American culture is totally different, and I don’t always like it I must say. Some things are great: music, theatre, art etc., but other things, as the crazy rules I really can’t understand. NL is a very free country, even more than I thought it was. And people are different, that’s normal in another country but I think we don’t really always realize that in Holland as we’re always watching American tv. People keep surprising me here. I guess that everyone who lives in the US for a while knows what I mean, I definitely had a lot of conversations with the people here about it. I’d love to see more of the States, maybe do a round trip one day. Like Britney Spears in the movie Road Trip..

Funny thing (or not so funny, depending who you ask), Andres’ flight was overbooked and they couldn’t tell him when his next would be. He got dropped in a crappy hotel at JFK so he decided to go back to Manhatten, so after our dramatic goodbye we saw him again! Sooner than we expected! And Paloma was still in town, and came to say goodbye to Joeke because Joeke was leaving the next day. So suddenly we were at the Crooked Knife and it was like nothing changed.

City Hall: Boys of Summer in the Pit Theatre

 

July 27: goodbye my friends

What a horrible day. We all knew this day would come, but somehow it happened so fast. It started with saying goodbye to Paloma, even though I’d knew I would see her another time this week as she was staying in town for a few more days, it was still very sad. We knew this was the end of an amazing time. Besides I had to move to the 7th floor, and wouldn’t have a roommate anymore for the next weeks. After packing all my stuff and moving, I sat outside with Joeke and Rafael, the only ones who were staying from our group ”The Wolf Pack”, saying goodbye to our friends. We saw one after the other leaving. I didn’t expect to be that sad when everyone would leave, but we all felt horrible. Finally we ended up sitting outside, in front of the school, for I think almost 6 or 7 hours. We decided not to leave each other alone that day.

Our Mexican friend Andres was also in town for a few more days, so in the night we went with the four of us to a german restaurant. It had a nice terrace and enormous cans of beer. We had a lot of fun and after we went into a music bar in the neighboorhood. When entering the dear lady at the door asked us if we were the band that was going to perform, of course we said yes. We decided to have a quick drink and then leave before we had to go on stage.

In the night we hang out at the rooftop again, Andres his flight was leaving at 9am so we decided to stay up and wait for him to leave. We had some drinks, great conversations and saw the sun coming up. Then we had to say goodbye to Andres, again we were really sad. A new period had started, even though we wished we could go back in time. It was so weird walking around the dorms that night, all the floors were empty and no one was around. Normally you would run into a lot of people just going to your room and now everything was empty…

Sad people on the street

A store in the neighbourhood sells this, love it

big beer at the german place…

made Andres very happy

our lovely school

 

July 26: end performances

Unbelievable but true, the last day of the 5 week summer program has arrived. A lot of friends where going home the next day, so this was really weird. In the morning I rehearsed my scene with Benya and saw the performance of the group of Paloma and Joeke and all the guys. Was so nice to see, they were doing really good. Then our performance was there, and I think it went quite well. It was so much fun to do. It’s always different when you’re doing it in front of people you don’t know, but once you’re really into it you don’t notice anymore.

And then it was over, said goodbye to some classmates who weren’t living at the residence. At night we went with a big group of 20 people to find a restaurant to eat. Yeah, you’d think that’s impossible. But it wasn’t too bad, we found a mexican restaurant where they could make place for us and we had a great dinner. We wanted to go to webster hall at night, but when we saw the line we decided to go to croocked knife, the bar across the street from the dorms. It’s a cute place and everyone could enter there. We sat on the terrace just talking for a long time. Then we went up to the rooftop, but I was so tired that I just fell asleep immediately. An hour later my friends woke me up and moved into my bed, exhausted.

badass friday @ mexican restaurant in east village

Pictures of our scene: Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck

July 25: crazy yoga peanutbutter cat cow

So tired this morning, still got up early to go to dance class. Wrong decision because the rest of the day I felt kind of sick. In the afternoon I had acting class first, last rehearsal for the performance (and our last acting class of the 5 weeks). It went actually really well, sometimes acting goes better when you feel sick, just because you don’t care any more about how you’re doing really.

We had our last movement class of the 5 weeks. I love our teacher she’s so funny. Normally I don’t really like movement class (I love moving but the classes tend to be really vague), but this was fun. I don’t think I will ever forget this crazy/cow/cat yoga. We made a samurai picture with some girls, we were al wearing black so we thought it was appropriate.

In the night I just hang out on the sofa, watching pretty little liars. We hang out a bit in the dorms, rehearsed our scenes. One of my friends, Diana from Russia, showed me the drawing she made this past weeks. This is one she made:  I thought it was pretty awesome.

 

July 24: bowery electric

Have a lot of catching up to do with writing. I’m happy I’m writing this though, it’s already hard for me to remember what I did a week ago, so imagine after 8 weeks. My pictures actually remind me of what I did last week, how convenient.

Started out with broadway jazz from my lovely teacher Sue. Had a rehearsal when I came back with Benya. Friday was getting really close, can’t believe this are the last days of the 5 weeks. We had acting in the theatre where we would perform our scenes on Friday. Second class was our last voice & speech class. I feel I learned a lot in that class, and I have a lot to work on now. It’s a relieve that with (a lot of) work we’re able to acquire a standard american accent.

The day before, Courrier told us they would perform on Wednesday in Bowery Electric, a bar in East Village. East Village is a really nice neighbourhood, with a lot of nice bars and restaurants. If you ever go to NY defenitly go there. The bar was nice, a lot of band were performing. Very american, a lot of country music. Love it. 🙂 We hang around there for a while, had dinner at a restaurant next door and went back to the dorms.

We really felt like we had to do as much possible to enjoy our last days together but we we’re just exhausted every night. Besides we had to save our energy for the performances on Friday and for the weekend.

 

Some pictures

with my voice & speech teacher Nick:

 

 

Bowery Electric

  

rehearsal of Monica & Diana my classmates in the theatre

 

 

July 23: Courrier

This past week was crazy. It was the last week of the 5 week summer program and the days were all about saying goodbye and finishing our scenes. I’m really trying to write some stuff but time is flying!!

Tuesday July 23

Had my regular jazz dance class in the morning. The combinations start to get harder and sometimes I’m really confused, but I feel like I’m improving so that’s a good thing. I was thinking about maybe doing a dance seminar next summer somewhere, I’d love to dance more.
We had acting class and vocal production in the afternoon. At vocal production we got an evaluation of our teacher John Baylis. Got a nice evaluation, have to work on releasing the jaw and emphasizing the consonant vowels. I told him that I have a hard time doing that in English, but not so much in dutch. He asked me to sing in dutch and agreed that the sound in dutch is better and warmer. I knew that, I don’t know why but I find dutch so much easier to sing in, it really annoys me. Sometimes this 5 weeks are confusing, especially for international people I guess. A lot of my friends are in doubt about going to school in the US. Especially because of the greencard issues, being far away from home, a different language etcetera. The theatre business is already extremely difficult in your own country, let alone in the US where the competition is even bigger. But on the other hand, NYC is amazing and if you never try you’ll never know. It’s one of the main questions everyone is struggeling with, and sometimes it can all be overwhelming. Luckily that’s where you’re friends come in, to remember to just enjoy this amazing time.

Crazy was when I got out of school and there was a lot of police outside, and a lot of people watching a building. It’s the building next to the residence hall, and apparently someone tried to kill himself in there. Someone even told me he had some explosives in his apartment, but I’m not sure what to believe. The police was trying to look with a camera from another apartment into the building, so it looked serious.

After Paloma and I went to the hairdresser to make us feel pretty, haha. Sometimes that’s all a girl needs, beautiful hair.
At night there was a house concert in the residence hall, at the 12th floor. The band Courrier was playing there, I didn’t know them before but apparently they are famous in NL. They did one of the soundtracks in the Vampire Diaries. I was actually surprised, they were really good and loved their music. There was a song about NYC where the whole room could relate to probably. It was really intimate and special, loved it.