To wander the streets of London
From Holborn through to Lincoln's Inn Fields
Paying homage to the ghost of Charlotte Charke
First female actor-manager
Who in the 18th century wandered these streets
Desperate for work upon the stage 

Down the Strand past the Royal Courts of Justice and
Onto Fleet St, where,
Somewhere along this road
Mordecai, relative in time, was arrested
Caught creating counterfeit cash and
Eventually tried at the Old Bailey
And shipped to Australia
The Royal Bank with a waterfall of tropical
Pink, orange, and yellow flowers
Cascading down its cold walls
Impossibly narrow buildings squished between
"Newer" edifications
Stone monuments that seem fairy-tale like with their
Statuesque dragons and winged horses

Down to the Thames
The buildings that grace its banks
The very sites that in themselves are the 
Synecdoche of London 
Tower Bridge, St Paul's, The "Shard" 
The latter, still under construction
The city is still being built
Still growing above its labryntine streets
Winding paths that open to secret courtyards, squares, gardens
And ever more winding paths

To walk from Blackfriars as the sun is still rising
To see the world
"Half-way in shadow
And half-way in light"
It really is, as Bert describes,
"Coo, what a sight!"

The city made more real
By the previous experience of it in books, film, television, and art
To be here in the flesh
Wandering the streets of London
Smelling the city
Watching the workers scurrying away
Women in sneakers and stockings
Men in suits and ties
The same brands on nearly every corner
Stone and glass walls built side by side 
It feels like I must be in an elaborate set
Some two thousand years in the making

The end. 

Suddenly you find yourself
Inside The Globe! 
The detailed recreation
Of what once was 
Shakespeare's playground

There is a feeling of exhilaration
The theatre has been beautifully re-created
The whole thing is utterly stunning
The grand columns
The box seats
The wide open space on the floor for 
The "Groundlings" 
The long and narrow thrust stage
Cutting through the middle 
The floor is concrete
You try to imagine layers of straw and dust and dirt and grime

At the apex of the stage
A balcony,
Its windows closed for now
It seems Juliet could fling them open and lean over the railing and "ah me" at any moment
The boxes right above the stage with their richly coloured frescoes 
You can imagine royalty sitting there
Sitting to be seen 
Even from the position of the pleb
You really can see everybody 
The audience watching each other
Playing a game of being
The audience 
The way you see sky when you look directly up
There's something dramatic about Shakespeare and sky together
The sky is pale blue
Translucent thin whispy clouds
It's the end of the day
Mild, not too hot, not too cold

Tonight's play is called Blue Stockings
Rear centre stage a small drum kit and a music stand
A small balcony above, more music stands, a trumpet, lights for the musicians
(You forgive the modern intrusion)
The columns have been made to look like book shelves
The play is about the fight for women's access to college education
And the fight
At the end of the 19thC
For the right for women attending college to graduate
There is something tongue-in-cheek
About a feminist play being produced
At the Globe 

It is beautifully produced
It is refreshing to see a genuine issue discussed, dissected
The relevance of women's education
The prejudice we faced
Still face
Through the play we see their struggle
And sacrifice
And we are heart broken
It is easy for a modern day, predominantly white, presumably educated audience to laugh at history
“I can’t believe he just said that!!”
Chortle.
But in this year, the year 2013
University fees are so prohibitively expensive
Many will not be able to attend university at all
Last year a teenage girl was shot in the head
For daring to speak out and fight for her right
To an education
And even still, today, right now
Men continue to try and ultimately control women
Deny access to basic human rights

Blue Stockings offers no solutions
Only that we must go on
Must continue learning
For the sake of learning
To inspire great minds
To allow people to go out into the world and achieve their fullest potential
To understand and to dream

I am incredibly aware of the privilege
That has bought me to be standing in the middle of The Globe
One night at the end of summer
The fact that I am a university graduate
With two degrees to my name
The fact I got to go to school at all
Is a fight
That was won
Before I was born
But is still being fought
In a treacherous warzone

History and story-telling
The stories that have resonated throughout
The Globe
To demand an understanding of history
So that we may imagine
The meticulous re-construction
Of a better place

The end.

Oh, New York, New York!
In one year from today we will live together 
You and I (and my love) 
And we will eat delicious foods
And be a part of wonderful theatre
And walk down your myriad of streets
And travel in your subways 
And marvel at your architecture

Just three short days this trip
Three shows - two Broadway, one off-
The remarkable talent to strut across the stage 
Stories told through song and dance and music
The sort of irony
That each show I’ve seen this time around
Strongly references/is set in
The UK 
Tomorrow I fly back across the Atlantic

But first,
Tonight, Matilda
To see a show I’ve seen
A hundred times before? 
Literally
Over six months 
In London
Eight shows a week
The routine of front of house
Bruce’s scene
Time to get ice creams for interval 
Counting money and re-stocking ice creams
During Mr Wormwood’s song about telly
And the swings
Back inside in time for 
Miss Honey to wander forlornly and to see
The acrobat and the escapologist! 
Revolting children the cue to 
Get out to the kiosk before the ensemble comes tearing out to change in the corridor 
Ready to be Russians 
When I grow up reprise
The cue to have the merch ready
For the outgoing

Tonight
I am just another patron
The thrill of being seated next to a friend 
From the other side of the world
Six years since we have seen each other? 
A total wonderful coincidence 

The lights grow dim
The opening is slightly different
No school bell
The orchestrations are ever so slightly changed
A slightly longer beginning
The tempos are different
The opening seems slower 
The parents’ singing more articulate 
The chokey song
Definitely slower, perhaps even by half
The set and costumes are the same
With minor adjustments
The fabrics more shiny 
More glitzy for Broadway
The wall of the Wormwood’s living room
A shiny green
The ducks seem bigger
Matilda’s bedspread, not just plain blue
It has texture
Some costume pieces are lined with glittering sequins 
The school desks are imprinted with letters on the inside
The chalkboard is enormous 
The English accents are excellent 
The show translates well
The laughs are big
The audience is very receptive 

And yet at interval
I’m shocked to discover the people around me are lost
Two patrons ask me what is going on
They can’t understand it 
I can’t understand them
In the second half the man across the aisle is bored and reading messages on his phone 
I want to punch him in the face 

At the end of the show
Standing at the stage door
I meet an aspiring actor
He is 17
He is auditioning for 19 drama schools in the fall
He has no idea what he is in for 
(Maybe, MAYBE, I should take everything I’ve learnt, and, and put it in a show!)
The fact that he has 19 drama schools available to him to audition for makes me laugh
Back in my day
Where I come from
We only had three drama schools to audition for
And only two had a musical theatre program

I love being in New York
I love walking through Times Square
It is everything I’m against 
With it’s blatant commercialism 
And wasteful energy consumption
And tourist-filled seediness 
And lack of trees
And yet I love the damn place 
I love seeing shows here
I love the quintessential New York smell that is hot pretzels and air conditioning vents and hot concrete and subway all mingled together 
I love the multitudes of people 
(And another hundred people just got off of the train)
Who come from EVERYWHERE to be 
HERE
I love that the Bronx is up
And the Battery’s down
I love that there are a million songs about New York
That get stuck in my head as I walk its streets
And they capture perfectly how I feel about the place 
(Oooooh, New York! Living in a town that is famous as a place of movie scenes...)
I love the people I can meet here
I love the pulse/vibe/energy
It is always alive
Never for a moment quiet or resting 

New York, New York
It won’t be long now 

The end. 

Opening night!
It’s opening niiiiight!
Well, almost
It’s also closing night 
Four weeks of rehearsal
Dancers drilled
Notes pounded 
Lights programmed
Sets built
Programs designed
Characters hones 
For one night of show

It’s also the end of the summer
Almost time to leave this happy place
My fifth summer in six years
Second working on the musicals
My “Buck’s Rock babies” 
As I call “my” kids
Over the years
I’ve watched them grow
Turn from awkward unsure ducklings
Into confident swans who know that
At least, if only here, 
In the middle of the Connecticut woods
They have a home
Where they are accepted for who they are 
Where they can express their creative selves
Freely and safely
Without ridicule 

My first summer
I looked at the long-time returners 
And shook my head
How could they keep coming back
Year after year?
Set up their lives around 8 weeks of summer camp?
But I too have kept returning
The one year I didn’t, a 
Miserable cold wet Sydney winter
I pined for my American Brigadoon 

And I returned
And fell in love all over again
With the place
With the people 
With my role in this community of artists 

Walking home from a late night tech
Beneath open night skies
Falling stars
And a maze of meteors
Whose lines are only sometimes visible 
I am home. 

Imagine
You are tired
And overwhelmed
And stressed
And everything is getting you down

And then your friend suggests
A labyrinth
For peace night
And she measures out the lines
And draws chalk lines on the asphalt
And in the early evening
A light rain falls
And the lines glow

You surround the labyrinth
With candles
And your friend explains the walk
And one by one
People walk the path
Simultaneously circling
Closer and further
From the centre

At first your breath is fast
You try to walk slowly
What it means to be ceremonial
To be mindful
There is no goal
You want to reach the centre
When will the labyrinth make you feel better?

Your boy is walking ahead of you
He is walking at a slower pace
He has internalized mindfulness
He does it as a matter of course
You fall into his rhythm
And breathe

You reach the centre
Energy pulsates
Calm and buzzing
The space created by the chalk lines
By people who are here
With intention

You lead a candlelit procession
To the porch
Small but lovely
The speak out
One child had never heard of Hiroshima until tonight
He lived through Hurricane Sandy
Another lives in Sandy Hook
The shared desire for a world more harmonious

Imagine
You live in a world
Where all the people
...
Vivid chalk-soft lines
You have entered the world of the labyrinth

The end. 

You expect,
With a name like 
“Tanglewood”
Chaos and mess
And vines and dark woods
And twisting paths. 

Instead there is 
Total order
Calm
And loveliness. 
Sweeping green lawns
Manicured gardens.
Rows of clipped hedges
Form an organized maze. 
Hidden within are
Tributes to musicians past
(Mostly men) 
A beautiful house
With wooden floorboards
And painted walls
And images of musicians past 
(A mix of men and women) 

In the centre of the sweeping grounds
A giant pavilion
The summer home of the 
Boston Symphony Orchestra
World famous
Top notch
Leader in its field 
Thousands of people surround the structure
They have come with picnic blankets and chairs
And baskets full of food
Wine and cheese and chocolates
Even glasses filled with wild flowers

And you sit in the field
On a warm summers day
And the sky grows dark
With threatening clouds
The bell rings
Once, twice, three times!
The concert is about to begin!
And the sky opens up

Sit in a field during the fall of summer rain
Without an umbrella
Rain on your skin
Grass beneath your body
Sky above your head
The feeling of liberation 
The storm passes by
The sun is warm
And dries your skin

The concert commences
Stravinsky’s “Fireworks” Opus 4
Brings unexpected tears
Yo Yo Ma and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto
The sound is perfect
You can hear the bow scratching across the bridge
It is overwhelming 

The accumulative hours of practise
Of the players of the orchestra
Are astounding to imagine 
Imagine all the players as children
Drilling scales in their living rooms 
You are transported to your own living room
More specifically
The living room of your grandparents
To be more precise
Down the hall, to your 
Grandparents’ bedroom
Far away in Sydney
Twenty years ago 
You would wake up and go into their room
And Abuelo would have 
ABC Classic FM playing full blast on the radio
And you would dance to the music
And make him smile

You never talked about the composers
Or the history of the music
But the notes are as part of your legacy as your own blood
(Music passed down through generations
From your mother teaching ballet
Whilst you sat fetal, and later in a pram
Earlier: Abuela and Abuelo at concerts in Manila
Earlier still: Great-Abuelo fetal in Shanghai
While his father (great-great Abuelo) played violin)
And you, four generations later 
Sitting in a field in Massachusetts
As a counselor in music

The history of notes
Imagine being in the theatre when Stravinsky premiered 
The Rites of Spring
The boos and hisses! 
Now, high art 

The tangled web of family and history and influence 
How we came to be 
Where we are
Is orderly when viewed from a distance
Melodic lines able to be traced
Emphasized
Harmonized with
Made discordant 
And written into
Music

The end. 

Who am I anyway?
To seek a life
Enchanted
Lovely
Full of song and dance
And music
To share stories
Desire the positive
And inspirational
And surround myself with
Like minds
And minds that challenge
Who am I to stand before a group of students
And tell them
"What I know"

Here is the secret...

I know nothing

And it is humbling
And funny
All at once

The end.