inarrestabile a firenze

Where do I even begin? I spent my Fall Break in London, England, so I was lucky enough to be there for an entire week. In this one week I did so much and also spent so much time relaxing on my own. My lovely friend Hannah, from middle and high school was my gracious host for the week, so cool to stay and be shown around by a local!

Monday: I got up after sleeping in a bit, walked around the corner to Costa Coffee for a latte and breakfast where I spent about an hour hanging out and observing the locals, this would quickly become my daily routine, pretty fabulous. After my coffee, I hopped on the bus to go meet my friend Laura in Swiss Cottage for lunch. I got there excessively early compared to the time we planned to meet because I wanted to allow time to get lost, but it wasn’t needed, so I found myself in another Costa Coffee observing more people, which is something I can do for hours, it’s very Italian. Once I met with Laura, we went out for a quick and lovely lunch. It was so nice to catch up with her and hear about her experience as a current grad student in London. The intensity of the programs in London seduce me, needless to say, I’ll be looking here for grad school! After lunch, Laura went back to school and I headed to Camden Town to explore a bit and then eventually meet Hannah and her boyfriend, Brian, at a pub for dinner. Lovely night in a cool area with fabulous people, great way to spend my first day in London!

Tuesday: My day began the same way, with a latte and breakfast at Costa Coffee, but this time I was joined by Hannah who was able to spend the day with me. We had our coffee and then hopped on the train to Southbank where we walked up and down the river. What an incredible area!!! Firstly, we stopped at The National Theatre Bookstore, where I could’ve spent hours but quickly moved through it, finding three fabulous new books that would never be casually found in the USA: It’s Not About How Good You Are, It’s About How Good You Want to Be, How to Run a Theatre, and The Secret Life of Plays. I can’t wait to crack them open! We then went to the Tate Modern and paid a little visit with my good friend Mark Rothko, it has been a dream to see his work in person ever since my production of RED a couple years back, unreal. After this, we indulged in Five Guys burgers and fries which was a delicious taste of America. That night, we went out to the Southwark Playhouse to see their production of Next Fall, stay tuned for my next London post, focused specifically on Theatre. After an exhausting, fabulous day, we headed home.

Wednesday: My Mom’s birthday!!! I started it by, you guessed, treating myself to a latte in Costa Coffee and some human observation. After my coffee, I jumped the train and headed straight to The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). Upon arrival, I got my ticket to see Women of Twilight and went on in. Once the intermission wrapped up, I recognized a very distinct voice behind me that I’d heard thousands of times, it was no other than Severus Snape, Alan Rickman. I turned around, saw him, turned back immediately to calm myself down. After the show I asked if he minded if we took a picture and he told me: “I do mind actually, I hate those things” (in reference to my iPhone). That was disappointing but still so cool to be sitting right in front of him casually, this was my first casual celebrity sighting. Couldn’t top that, so I headed home and called it an early evening.

Thursday: Coffee at Costa Coffee and then I went about my day to Oxford Street to get some shopping done. I had to get Burt’s Bees chapstick because they don’t sell it in Italy and I’m hooked, so I got a few of those. I bought my father and myself a t-shirt, a London Starbucks mug because, well, just because. After an afternoon of shopping, I was exhausted so I headed to a pub for a drink and lunch, there I took my time to just decompress since I had tons of time to kill anyways. After that, I headed to The New London Theatre to see Warhorse with Hannah. Stay tuned for my thoughts on that… After the show, Hannah and I headed home and called it a night.

Friday: Coffee out of the way, I traveled to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Took a fabulous tour of the theatre, it was absolutely stunning and overwhelming to be in that house. I gained a much better understanding for Shakespeare having toured his space and gained the insider scoop. After my tour, I left to meet my friend, Jordan from high school, for a drink at a pub. We sat out on a balcony, overlooking the river and the sunset beyond St. Peters. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t on wifi at all the past couple of hours, I forgot that I had the keys to Hannah’s flat, so she couldn’t get in her apartment after work, she just went to her boyfriend’s house for a few hours, but I still felt awful. It’s amazing how I can be so clumsy when I’m floored at the beauty around me. Once I realized my mistake, I headed home immediately, but it was lovely to see Jordan and catch up a bit. Once home, I stayed there for the evening.

Saturday: Last day, started with….. Coffee at Costa Coffee, love it, a routine I could get used to. Hannah wasn’t feeling well so she stayed home to rest and I ventured out on my own. I went to the Buckingham Palace, which was just too cool to see in person. I had my picture taken by some fabulous African-American ladies, whom I needed in my spirit. I posed for the picture and they all hit me with “YES EUROPEAN REALNESS!!!!!”. Made my day, they were too fabulous. I headed out for lunch and cider at a local pub, where I stayed for almost two hours just watching people go about their lives, it was lovely. Once, I got home, I FaceTimed with Megan for a bit and then headed out to a Chinese Buffet with Hannah and Brian. The food was delicious and the company was even better. However, my stomach has SHRUNK since being here so I could barely finish two plates, which was interesting. After eating our fill, we went home for my last night in London and just relaxed!

Last weekend began my Fall Break, and like I told you, I spent two days in Rome with my friend Becky and her friend. Here’s the dish… Rome is HUGE!!!! I started the day by heading straight to the train station in Firenze to take an hour and a half long journey to Roma. I arrive at the train station, exit the train, buy a map entitled “Tourist Map of Rome” and head straight out the door. I exited the train station like I knew for damn sure where I was, and then immediately got lost… later to find out that I’d gone out the wrong door which deposited me in a very poor residential area that wasn’t on my map. So, wondering around for an hour I decide to stop, have lunch and a glass of wine and get myself together. I did just that and got directions to find the Coliseum. Upon finding it, I decided to abort and follow a tip my professor had given me: Buy a joint tickets at the Forum because there won’t be a line and then you get to skip the massive line at the Coliseum. I hate to admit that it took me another hour and a half to find the Forum and it was literally behind me the whole time. BEHIND. MY. PHYSICAL. BACK. So that was thrilling, I only found it once I decided to give up and just go to the Coliseum. I felt like an idiot but went on with my life. I rocked out the Forum and went right into the Coliseum which was truly magnificent. After that, I decided it’d be a good time to head to where I was meeting Becky, at Castel Sant’Angelo. I stopped in a café to get directions, when I saw them I knew I’d get lost and at this point I wasn’t enjoying myself because I don’t enjoy being lost so I hopped in a cab and went straight there, which was worth it because I never would’ve found it. I was calm at this point and I enjoyed the absolutely radiant Roman sunset on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, it was absolutely magnificent.

Things got much better the second I met Becky and her lovely friend Vonya. We spent the night catching up and Becky and I went out for a lovely evening wondering Rome. We had a delicious bottle of prosecco in a lovely piazza and then DELCIOUS pizza and wine in Campo di Fiori. We got kinda lost on the way back but it was fine because like Becky says “You can’t get lost if you don’t have an agenda.”

Day two of Rome, I slept in because I was exhausted and Becky and Vonya went off to their conference. I got up, walked the streets just outside of the Vatican where we stayed and got a cappuccino. I also watched a few priests shop for new gear which I found pretty hilarious. Once we met up again later on in the day, we went out and ventured through Rome again, the three of us. Such a fabulous group to wander through the city with, I have to say, they’re fabulous. We stopped for some falafel, which was the first time I’d tried it, and it was delicious. And then went off to get some AMAZING gelato at a place called Gelateria del Teatro. After all of the yummy food we kept on moving and stopped at the Fontana dei Trevi, which was unfortunately under construction, but still cool to visit. Headed back to the flat now we stopped at Lush so my friends could get some supplies to bring back to Ghana with them, where they both work. We were in the shop for not two seconds before we were swept up by a saleswoman who grabbed my arm and applied a massage bar whatever to it. As she’s rubbing it in she is describing the scent and I just hear “strawberry” and am immediately unimpressed that this is being applied to my body. We all had it done and when we left I couldn’t help but just express how much I hate strawberry scent and how unhappy I was that it was lingering on my body. Regardless, we kept moving.

Before we went our separate ways we stopped for a bottle of prosecco at a lovely place near their flat. It was a slow food restaurant so there wasn’t any wifi, you served yourself and there were rules: talk to each other, enjoy the food, if you don’t like it here go somewhere else, etc. Also, this was the only time I drank wine out of a plastic anything while in Italy. It’s extremely frowned upon to drink wine out of plastic but somehow it was accepted in this restaurant. This is where the title of this post comes from, this was the mantra of this café.

We said our goodbyes and I headed to the train station. Once I got on the metro I started chatting with four people from America. Two of which from St. Pete, Florida and the other two from Elon, NC. The woman from NC is the official dentist of Elon University who saw me perform in 1776. Small. World.

In my art history class, we visited Il Museo dell' Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David and that was incredible. However, for the month of September the museum remained open until 10:00pm on Tuesdays. Yesterday, the last day of September, two friends and I went out for a bottle of wine, chatted about life, and then went on to visit the museum, to see The David at night. Needless to say, the museum was practically empty because it was a Tuesday night, which made this experience so grand. We walked in, didn’t have to worry about crowds or blocking anyone’s view. Once again, when you turn the corner upon entering, you’re immediately left speechless at your first sighting of The David, centered perfectly in a room that was built for just him. Instantly you are overwhelmed by his presence because, first of all, you’re shocked at how colossal he is and second of all, you’re floored because you thought you’d know what it would be like to see Michelangelo’s masterpiece, but the actual experience was beyond comparison. Goosebumps engulf your body and you can’t stop looking at his beauty. Walking down the hall that leads to David, you pass about six unfinished statues by Michelangelo and these, in my opinion, are almost just as amazing because, since they’re unfinished, you get to see the process, the intention and where Michelangelo made the decision to stop, for whatever reason.

The detail and perspective that were put into The David are beyond words. I am so thrilled to have had this experience, seeing The David at night, the feeling you get from seeing him in person is a feeling one won’t soon forget, I’ll cherish it forever.

This weekend, I'm the most homesick I've been since arriving in Europe. At Elon, a group of very talented performers had the honor of collaborating with an Elon grad and Broadway Veteran, Daniel J. Watts. Together, they created an original piece full of raw and truthful art. In this group were three of my closest friends, and I know they killed it sharing their souls.

I spent the entirety of this weekend in Florence, just hanging out. And as I received texts upon texts of "Ciara was unreal", "Gerald killed it", "JTP made me cry" and "You would have LOVED it", I began to feel heartbroken that I wasn't there to support my friends in one their most brilliant moments. This weighed on me entirely, my heart ached that I couldn't be there to support my friends and honestly, that I couldn't be there to experience this once in a lifetime theatrical experience.

It took walking around the city at night, by myself, for me to realize once more that I am where I need to be right now to reach MY next level of brilliance. As we all advance, there will be moments where we will need to be apart to reach these levels of mastery and that's beautiful because it results in something much larger.

The conclusion I've come to is this: Though we're apart now, we won't be for much longer. Though, separately, we're growing exponentially, we still challenge each other positively from a distance. Though these experiences are personal and our levels of brilliance are unique, we will forever share them which each other which will link us infinitely in a level of brilliance that we all share.

I send my love out to my colleagues and beloved friends who are back at Elon being brilliant, I miss them with my whole spirit but, in the blink of an eye, we will be back together, taking the world of theatre by storm!

TODAY, I challenge the thought that people go to the theatre to escape from reality. This may be true and this may be refreshing and this may be why we began performing, to help people escape from their daily life and to help them cope with whatever their struggle may be, but this is no longer sufficient.

IN TODAY’S WORLD… Violence is being answered with more violence. Prejudice is still a component of peoples’ lives. Silence is no longer our greatest strength.

THEATRE, should no longer allow us to escape entirely from our reality. Instead, it should challenge us to confront what we’d rather not, in an innovative and provocative way. Theatre should now suggest solutions and methods we can use to heal our souls and the world.

VIOLENCE creates more violence and solves nothing, Theatre provokes thought and inspires action which produces progress. By no means am I suggesting that theatre should no longer be entertaining and should instead be a global intervention, no, this would kill the art form. HOWEVER, directors and performers alike should beg the question of what their work is for and what impact they wish to make on their community. By doing this, we can challenge and inspire the world to think and act up for the better while disguising our message with pretty costumes, captivating songs and monologues and mind-blowing choreography.