Buenos días!

I'm so sorry for not being much active on Wattpad, the first three weeks of summer I was in South America (I guess I can say it NOW haha), then I went to West End Academy (about which this chapter will be), then we were one week outside of Prague and when we returned, I was working (I need new keyboard). And then I had this exam as some of you noticed. 

But before I start describing the actual program of the Academy, I have an unpleasant story and warning in one for all of you non-brits like me if any of you would like to join this programme. It concerns the travelling.

The first two days my mum was there with me, because it was my first time being abroad ALONE (yeah, 20 and never travelled to a foreign country without parents, embarassing whatever...). We arrived to Prague's airport on Sunday 22th July morning, and when we went to the check-in, the steward told us that this airline is the only one that doesn't have airport check-in. My mum had to pay for it over 3000 CZK for both of us ( about 137 dollars). We landed safely, and she returned on Tuesday without any problems. 

Now to me. I was nervous, first time flying alone, but I was calming myself down that as soon as I get to the airport I can always ask someone where to go. Haha. What a fool I was. I arrived on time, about an hour before the flight. I had printed my boarding pass at the hotel which my mum sent me from home. In the reservation I had one suitcase and one hand luggage allowed, which I had.

 So I checked for the flights, found Prague, went to the number that it said. Actually, went to the queue that seemed to lead to that number. There was a total chaos. After a few minutes of waiting here a guy comes to us saying that this line leads to passenger information and that we all should go somewhere else. I showed him my pass and he sent me away already to the RTG's that were sending people straight to th flight. I thought "But wait, I need to let go my suitcase!" so I returned and joined a different queue that seemed it leads to the actual counter. Here I met a Slovak woman so we could understand each other without speaking English.

 After a while another guy comes and tells us we should go to a completely different line again. We both complained that they have real mess in this. When I finally reached the man who was in charge he send me straight to the x-ray again. Here I realized that they won't let me have any liquids with me and I had some medicaments and cosmetics with me. I asked another man if I can take it and he said that I have to throw it away, and I didn't want to do that, because there is of course money in that. I knew something is weird because in my reservation it said that I had to drop the suitcase at the check-in and have just handbag with me on board, but people kept sending me with both my luggage straight to the x-ray. 

I also knew that the time is running and was scared to miss the flight. I almost started crying in front of this man explaining that people keep sending me in the wrong direction. He lead me to a woman that actually could speak Czech, I showed her my boarding pass and she said ''You should have a tiny sign right here that says baggage included. With this you would have to pay for the suitcase you have, because this allows only hand luggage.'' I said that it's strange, because in the reservation it says that I have already paid for the suitcase. It was clearly a mistake of the airlines. 

The lady wrote 'Fast track' on the paper and told me I would probably have to pay for it. I was desperate so I just said "Okay, but can I pay in Euro? I don't have anymore pounds." She said she thinks I could, and I hurried back to the previous line, skipping people asking them if I could go before them because my plane leaves in 25 minutes.

 It went well and I finally reached the checking guy again. He told me that I have to pay, so I asked if I could pay in Euro, and he told me only by card. I remembered my mum telling me if something happens to give them her e-mail adress and she would pay it from her bank account so I told him that, and he "No, no, only by card!" Like what? Not everyone can have card! "Pay it with card or you'll miss your flight!" Seriously, it was terrible. 

Finally he called another woman, first she told me the same as the guy before, but then she lead me to the front of another queue and firstly asked two ladies in the front if they would let me in front of them. I don't want to sound racist, so I'll just say...they were obviously from a rich midddle eastern country judging from the clothes they were wearing, and they said "No, we paid a lot of money, we're not letting anyone before us!" and another woman right behind them said "My plane leaves soon she should go at the back like everyone else!" I wasn't even trying to hold back the tears now. The lady said she will ask her boss about it, and when she returned she said I don't have to pay anything. 

She took my suitcase and said she hopes that rude woman would miss her flight. I ran towards the x ray to check my backpack, I had the 'fast track' sign from the Czech woman so I had priority and didn't have to wait in line. Even when I was finally on board, my nerves were working hard until I heard "Welcome to the Václav Havel airport in Prague". I guess the airlines should have realized by now that I HAD the suitcase included. Okay, guys, after this horror story, I reveal the name of the airline company- Ryanair. Avoid it at all cost, guys. 

Whew, the unpleasant part is behind me. To the academy! 

Ahem, if you actually happen to be one of the people who were on this year's first week of WEA, I don't recommend you to read this, cuz I gossip here. I don't say anyone's names except for our teachers, but I say nationality and you may as well recognize yourself. 

I was in one room with five other girls. I love how international this was. One Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, one from an English speaking island I forgot the name of, and finally me a Czech (I'm like 90% sure that I was the first Czech ever to be a part of this programme, but I forgot to ask lol). It wasn't obligatory to book accommodation, but I did because it was just 300£ per week since we were six in one room. In the same hostel there was another group, a Spanish girl, a Canadian woman, two italian girls, one portugese girl, one italian guy and one british guy. It was also possible to book a private room but I don't remember who had it. 

MONDAY

On the first day, our acting teacher Andy Brady (all of the teachers are West End performers!) came to collect us and lead us to Dominion theatre, where all the classes took place, my mum came with us to watch. We all checked with the lady who is in charge of the West End On Demand company, actress Rachel Bingham. Sweet woman, very  kind helpful and responded to all my e-mails with questions before this Academy. After this, we had one dancing lesson so the dance teacher, miss Jasmine Kerr could decide on which level of dancing we are. There was a possibility to choose from the levels ADVANCED-INTERMEDIATE-BEGINNER for all dancing, singing and acting (I chose intermediate for singinf cuz I'm still not confident and beginner for the other two) but in the end there were just two levels- standard and advanced. The first dancing lesson was here just because only 5 people send their audition videos for dancing to be considered for the advanced class. She offered us that even if she didn't choose us to go for the advanced class we can go for a little more challenge, but me as well as two of my roommates stayed in the standard class. 

After this, the standard dancing group had acting with Andy. So much fun! Firstly we introduced each other, and there was a little fun moment- 

I was wearing a 'Rio de Janeiro' tank top, and there was one girl from the city! So when she said "I'm from Brazil, Rio." I was like "Heyyy, look,"pointing at the sign on my chest and she said like "Whoa yay!" We later talked and I've found out that she never visited any other country in her continent except for BA in Argentina. Right now I saw she posted a few pics from other European cities like Amsterdam, so it's possible that she's travelling Europe as I was travelling South America few months ago. We stayed friendly with each other after this incident. I also was friendly with a girl from Slovenia, when I found out where she is from I was like "Hey, we're both Slavic!" and with the Japanese, Spanish, Portugese and Swedish girls from our hostel(I say friendly instead of "becoming friends" cause my antisocial nature doesn't know when I am allowed to call other people my friends lol). In fact everyone were very nice except for one American girl who seemed full of herself (don't get me wrong, there were nice americans as well, she wasn't the only american here :-)) but I'm not gonna dig into that. I hope some people didn' t think I was unkind or grumpy, because Czech's naturally don't smile when there is no reason for that and I am no exception. 

Getting back from my national stereotypes to the acting lesson. After the introduction, Andy told us a little about acting, and joked about that if we ever get an offer to go on tour to take it, because we'll get hotels paid and also money to buy food, and if we can save something from that we can keep it, he did that and he build a house. 'Kay, next Notre Dame de Paris tour understudy for Esméralda/Fleur-de-Lys is gonna save for a harp. :-D Yeah a girl can dream... Then we played a few acting games to warm up. After that, we teamed up in groups for improv, each group got a theme and we got "Bad news". I suggested someone could be pregnant and her husband don't want the child. A woman from Belgium was playing the pregnant woman, one girl her husband and we were three who were playing her friends she was calling to. Each of the girls told her "I can't help you because something..." and I went as the last one, telling her "Oh, dump his ass and come over, I'll help you!" Most of the scenes were pretty funny. My mum after this class told me "So you saved the poor pregnant woman hahah." 

After this the groups changed, the advanced dancing group went for acting and we for dancing. we had a very intense warm up, then some diagonal exercises, and after it we learnt a routine from Mary Poppins. TBH I didn't realize this was Mary Poppins, but my mum heard it and told me afterwards. I was sometimes focusing too much on what are we supposed to do that I forgot to try to understand everything the teacher was saying. But there were people whose English level was even way worse than mine, and we all could understand just fine. Even the teachers, realizing that most of us are not native speakers, added explanation if they used a word that is rarely used. 

Then we had one hour for lunch, I went with mum to enjoy her before she leaves and we went to a restaurant and got cheap sandwiches. The next day I completely forgot where this restaurant was, thought I knew it must be somewhere close, but I went to others, cheap as well. 

After this we were divided into groups again, standard dancers had Les Misérables workshop and the other group had Wicked workshop. I was scared I'm gonna embarrass myself because I only saw the movie and didn't remember much lyrics or anything, but I wasn't the only one. Firstly we were doing acting excercises again, and after that acting through the song "At the end of the day". 

When we returned back to the hostel, some people went to see musicals. I couldn't even thought I wanted to. I had to save money every day, I only went to see Wicked because it was included in the programme. Yeah, shame on me, but what can a poor second world country student do? Next year I will take more of my own money with me and hope to see at least one more musical aside from the one included. 

TUESDAY

We had singing and stage combat. Our group started with stage combat. It was so much fun! We actually didn't touch each other at all. One person was always standing with their back to the audience, and was doing the "sounds" of slapping and punching on their chest, the other was either pretending to punch or slap or acting of being punched. It was all about timing, you had to know when exactly you can scream or do the slap sound as the other person was attacking you. But even when we didn't touch each other at all, when we woke up the next day, we were complaining how much our bodies hurt. Guess the warm up the teacher wasn't proper much. 

After this our group had singing with Mrs Julie Gossage, a former opera singer who was now explaining how to sing musical theatre. I hope my teacher won't yell at me when I start singing in that way LOL. It's way more talking-like than opera singing. And even thought I was in the standard group of singing (because I didn't send any audition video) I don't think the advanced-standard lessons were much different here. I mean, there were over ten people in each group, I don't think there was time to do something more complicated. 

After lunch we had Les Mis workshop again, this time with miss Anna Mcgarahan. The previous day there was another girl instead of her because she didn't have time but I forgot what was her name. We did "One day more", I was trying to be Cosette but someone else got it since she put her hand up earlier than me. And after it we did "At the end of the day" again.

WEDNESDAY

This was the day we didn't have any classes, but went to theatres instead. The meeting was later than the classes started, so we slept a little longer. After breakfast me and my two roommates (the others were slow so we went ahead) went to Queens theatre and had a backstage tour of Les Mis, we were shown all the costumes...

After that, they led us to the stage, and the guide told us "You're standing on a West End stage, congratulations guys, you made it!" hahah, we wished. I would show you a pic, we took a group picture, but I don't want anyone to think I broke someone's privacy, so I won't post it here, I would have to blurr 30 faces and that is kinda silly.

When the backstage tour ended, the same group of us three and one more girl went straight to Apollo Victoria theatre, where we watched Wicked. On the way here we didn't have any time to get lunch, even thought we were supposed to eat before it. It was a really hot sunny day and none of us had any hat, so...kinda suffering. Only I had a sunscreen with me, so I was putting it on me while walking, must have been hilarious look on me, and then lend it to the Norwegian girl who's even paler than me. I bought here a souvenir programme and a CD of Wicked...

Honestly I was quite dissapointed by this program, in my country programmes always have summary of the story and even lyrics (and translations, if its like an italian or german opera) of the songs, but this one has just the info about cast, creators, history of the theatre and a bunch of photos. But as a souvenir, it's nice. 

And my thoughts on Wicked? Yes, it was good, I listen to some of the songs even now, thought it's not in my top musicals...sorry if I dissapointed any of you guys with my view on it. It IS really good, just not the type of thing I would be super hype about, like ALW's musicals, Notre-Dame de Paris, Swan Lake and stuff... If I had to pick a dream role, it would be Nessa. I really liked her character for some reason...not sure why, can't explain it. Two of my roommates were really hype about this show and when I asked them what are their dream roles, they both immediately responded "Elphaba!" and then even Galinda. Even thought they are both good roles with good songs, I kinda... still wanna be Nessa. I don't know. Don't ask me why ha. 

(Pic of stage before it started)
W

hat was also terrible was that it was scorching outside, and during the show I thought I hear I hear rain outside, but it was probably just the traffic outside, because when we went out, it was still hot. The others went to the stage door but I was rather exhausted so I went to the hostel.

THURSDAY

We had classes again. Our group had dancing in the morning, and Jasmine told us "Don't worry, I am exhausted as well," and stretched with us properly so we got rid of the pain from Tuesday.  Then we did a routine she told us she dances once a month for her friend, a dance on the song named "Black and gold", you can find it on YouTube sung by a man, but this version we danced to was sung by a woman. She told us to make a pose and just enjoy the song feeling confident and sexy (which I obviously failed at, because despite of my Slavic roots I have zero curves LOL, but at least I felt a little confident and it was fun). One thing that wasn't really comfortable was that we were supposed to stand really close to each other, and when we stepped forward and were doing several steps it was kinda impossible to do it all properly, standing this close. But when I watched the video of us dancing it, it was good to look at when I realized that the viewers won't know the choreography hah. 

 After this, we had acting again. We did a few acting excercises, first was to pretend to be an animal, and during this excercise we were less of an animal by every second, and in the end a human with just a hint of this animal. I chose a budgie (parakeet in Am. English), because I have one at home, I was missing my little birdie boy haha, and in the end I was just normally walking, just time to time I ran forward as swift budgies are. After this, we had improv again, and it was a kind of improv that there were three poses, laying down, standing and sitting, and we had to act it the way so no two people would be doing the same pose. I remember a few hilarious lines, the first group had "waiting for audition"- "What are we auditioning for?" -"I forgot." 

Another one had waiting at the airport. The italian girl from our hostel who was lying down first said to the Belgian: "Do you see me? I'm luggage!" and the Belgian freaked out and stood up from her chair. 

Our group was a group of four so we added kneeling to the poses, which was way harder because we had to focus on 4 poses instead of 3. We had "a ladies changing room", and we were three girls with one portugese boy among us. I only managed to say "Has anyone seen my shoes?" because it was mostly one girl talking to the guy, and at the end she said "I knew you were a boy!" to him.

After lunch, our group had Wicked workshop this time. We had a very fun lady by the name Alexandra Grierson, who is now understudy of Elphaba and swing in Wicked. She was sometimes talking so fast I was glad I could understand what am I supposed to do, and didn't catch all of her jokes. We had a weird discussion with my roommates afterwards with the British guy saying that she mentioned drugs so many times he is sure she takes them. I didn't even realized she talked about drugs hah, I need to improve my understanding. Anyway, in this workshop we did choreography to the song "What is this feeling?" and we were the students, each of us could get something as their book, and I used my map of London. At the end of the scene when all the students are just chilling in class, the spanish girl had an empty notebook open and told me "Look at all that knowledge!" I was dead. XD We also got script to two scenes from Wicked, one where Elphaba talks to Fiyero and one where Glinda talks with Elphaba when Nessa dies. I wanted the Elphaba and Fiyero but in the end got paired up with a French woman and she chose to be Glinda, despite her being a brunette and me a blonde hah. 

This day, one of the students, an italian girl had birthday, so some of the people from my hostel went to get drunk. Not us thought. 

FRIDAY

In the morning, our group had a Q&A with a West End Actress Chloe Hart, who used to play Tracy in Hairspray and was in a bunch of other West End shows. She once told us about how she got told that her voice fits for a leading lady, so she lost weight, and even though she got an audition for Elphaba, she was told she is still not slim enough to get the role. That is kinda dissapointing, like I do get that she has to be skinny for a dancing role, or like roles as Christine, who is a ballerina, or Fantine, who is poor and is supposed to be starving, or Glinda, Evita... you get the idea. But I don't think it really should matter with roles like Elphaba, and I am myself skinny. It is kinda sad. Also you don't get a certain role if you are too tall or short (well I am quite tall...), etc. 

Then we got to the colorblind casting stuff. Now please, if you are that kind of a "all things politically correct" person, you should probably skip this part. I'm not racist, neither was anyone in this academy, nor Chloe. When somebody asked "What do you think about the colorblind casting? We saw a black Cosette." this person was of course positive about it, and they were white as well. She said "Well, I think it's great we get to stop discrimination, but sometimes I think that white actors get discriminated in this." She talked about how no white performes get to Lion King, when it's about animals and no people, also about the fact that creators can write that they want POC actors for a show, but they can't write that they want a white person for certain role. I actually got curious because I have this idea for a musical in my mind for a while now, and asked her: "If I theoretically wrote a musical about a man from a slavic country, who is proud of being slavic, and said that only him and his wife and children needs to be or at least look slavic (aka eastern european, so white) but it doesn't matter which race are all of the other characters, would people think I am racist?" She said that sadly yes, but if I didn't write anything I could then choose the people who would be auditioning for that who fits the most. Actually, guys, if the character had a song something like "We are the Slavs! I'll give this to my country, the Slav Epic!" (ahem, please forget that this line exist kay? :D) and it was an asian or african person singing it, it would look weird... as well as if there was a white person playing enslaved black character. In conclusion, I think that if it isn't written in the script about the race, anyone should be allowed to play anything, including europeans playing POC characters (and lions haha), only of course if their voice fits the role and overall have abilities required for the role. We also talked about this trend that everytime a POC or an LGBT actor gets a certain role, on Broadway is a great buzz around it. Chloe, herself being gay (or bi, I'm not sure she said she has a girlfriend), said she thinks its dumb. People shouldn't care about the backround about the performers, only about if they are good! And I agree with her. Honestly, I don't think that writing articles and acting excited everytime someone from these groups gets a certain role as if it was something unusual will end discrimination, more like the opposite! We should take it as normal thing, not as something extraordinary. That will get us to equal opportunities for everyone. She said about reading an excited article about hiring an LGBT actress. "Who cares? Can she act, sing?" she added. She also talked about that if we want to do musical theatre, going to drama school instead of university isn't the only option, that there are some one-year-intense-study programmes of musical theatre after university, and I'm actually quite clinging to this idea hoping it wouldn't be so expensive so I could go there to Britain after I finish university.

Now that everyone thinks I'm racist and homophobic slavic supremacist (XD) I'm moving on the singing lesson. We had miss Julie again, turning out she is Chloe's singing teacher. We divided into voice parts, I went for second soprano, which turned out to be a lucky choice because we had the melody. We sang the song "What kind of fool am I?" from a show called "Stop the world, I want to get off". The name of this musical is relatable to all of us I think. Anyway this song is really beautiful, I have its sheet notes in a big Broadway collection book I got for Christmas.

After lunch, we had Wicked workshop again. We did the scenes we got the scripts to the day before, and when I saw the Elphaba/Fiyero scene I was glad that I wasn't paired up with a guy for this scene because Alex forced them to run around so they would be running out of breath during the scene (the scene with the cub in the cage). During our scene I was trying to focus so much on the weeping over Nessa and being mad at Glinda I once forgot to read the next line so Alex had to remind me ( I wasn't the only one who did this though), but it didn't matter because in the end Alex told us "Good" and explained some more about the scene and stuff. Not sure if she said good because we were really good or because she didn't expect much from us though. XD . We also learnt the ensemble choreography to "One short day" and then repeated "What is this feeling?".

In the afternoon, two guys the Brit and the Italian came to our room, it was here just me and the Norwegian, Swedish and british island girl, and it was a little weird party. The Brit brought some hard alcohol, the girls bought some beer and wine. Kinda funny that I was the only Slav here and didn't drink. The Swedish girl didn't drink as well, and the Italian was just playing with his phone ignoring us all. We just sat there awkwardly, as they drunk, and then we got to a discussion about the accomodation. Someone remembered that Rachel has sent us an e-mail if some of us wouldn't mind being in one room with a guy, because if he was roomed separately it would be more expensive. The british guy (who was roomed with the other grou of girls) said as a joke "That's not fair, I didn't get any mail if I do or don't mind being roomed up with five girls!" he was laughing, it was clearly a joke, but the norwegian went off on him "But, you know, us girls are scared that somebody would rape them at night!" I was like "calm down" but she went off ranting and shortly after, the guys left. This is the reason I was writing at the begining that if there is someone who was there, it's better for them not to read this, because I think this was kinda rude. Then they went off how there are many rapings in each country and I was like "Well, my country doesn't. We don't have that much immigrants you know." Because it's true, the number of rapings in Germany rised after they accepted immigrants. And she reacted like "That's not because of immigrants, everyone does that! Everyone!" I didn't go on arguing with her because I realized we may have some political disagreements, thought I wanted to say "Not all men are rapists you know." This is an info for you guys, if anyone would want to join it, try to keep out the politics LOL. She went on discussion with the other girls, and I went to take a shower trying to ignore them, because I realized we're here for two more nights together I don't want to start a Czech-Norwegian war. Like she was very nice otherwise, except for this disagreement. Yes, we were here to learn skills for musical theatre, but for some reason politics are never completely avoidable, especially in an international environment (thought I love being in that environment hehe).

SATURDAY

The last day of the programme, we had "Dance audition masterclass". Two days before we got an email from Rachel with what an agent would send to his client before an audition, we were "auditioning" for Mamma Mia!, I forgot the teacher's name sorry... in the e-mail there was a note that even though we won't sing, we can think about an uptempo pop song we would sing if it was a singing audition. And here I realized that I don't know any pop songs. Geez. I realized there would be one fitting, Princesse (Tango) by Julie Zenatti I actually like, but it's in French, and you have to have an English one of course. So actually every pop song I know and like is nto English. I was thinking "Lucky" or "Hit me baby one more time" by Britney Spears, but then I gave that up as well, because the first one is not really that upbeat and the second one doesn't show much vocal range. Then I was thinking Quizas quizas quizas, or actually the English version "Perhaps perhaps perhaps", but that is not so "popp-ish" as Mamma mia requires. It didn't really matter, it wasn't a real audition, but everyone except me and the italian guy from our hostel had an idea when our teacher asked us, (even though it wasn't always fitting). Now I realized I would have maybe chosen the song "Say a little prayer for you", because I've heard it sung by Garou and Julie Zenatti and I love that version. (If you're wondering why I mention Julie Zenatti the second time, there is another chapter of this book in making that will explain everything). So, folks, if you are interested in this programme and might go for it, I have a suggestion-start listening to pop music if you don't already, otherwise you end up like me and the italian. But before he asked us about the songs, we learnt a dancing routine (I didn't perfect it hah, but I wasn't the only one) and after that he always called on group of six people by their first names, and this is when I first got to correct someone because he read my name as "ee-va" instead of the "Evita" pronunciation like it is correctly, for English spelled [A-vah] or [eh-vah]. (my language actually has a name that would be pronounced that [e-vah] way, but it is spelled Iva :D). He told each group some notes and then after it all finished, it was end of the academy. 

But before this lesson, Rachel came to officialy announce end of week 1, and gave those who were leaving (including me) a diplome! She hugged each of us. I hope she didn't think I was too cold towards her, like my hug was a little clumsy and distant because I didn't expect that, and after it she said she loves hugs. Whew, was it because of me being distant? I hope not. 

When I went for the last time the way to my hostel, I didn't want to put it into my bag because I had no file to put it in and I was scared it would get wrinkled, but it was quite windy (because the day before it was FINALLY RAINING after a scorching hot week) and one moment the diplome flew away! I started yelling "NOoooo!" and running after it (scene from a comedy really)and one lady caught it and gave it back to me. Whew. 

I went to give my things to my room, then went back outside and bought some real English tea, because when we were in London with my mum five years ago we liked it so much it was really better than our Czech tea.

and after it went back to our hostel, then bought some lunch, and after it I went to Her Majesty's theatre (of course) to buy some souvenirs.

(I saw this bus in front of the theatre so I had to take a pic of it 😅)

 They had nice t-shirts, umbrellas and a very cute hoodie, but I had last 50 or something pounds so I bought a bag AND I saw ALW's memoir here. I couldn't leave it here guys. 

I'm reading it now. It's very interesting, I was scared it will be a hard level of English for me, but actually it's not. Sometimes I read a sentence or a part and think "Wait, what?" but then I read it once or twice again and I can understand everything. Seriously, if this book will ever get a Czech version, it would be yours truly who'd translate it. I was born to it. The men who were guaring it here asked me if I had bought the ticket, and I said unfortunately no, because I only had like last 8£ for dinner. 

So I went back, bought dinner, had one last tea in the hostel restaurant while holding back tears that this amazing week is ending. Then I packed my things, said goodbye unfortunately only to the Japanese girl because everyone else were out and it was getting late and I needed a good night sleep. I whispered "Bye" in the morning when everyone else was sleeping and went out, as the sky was crying instead of me, unaware of the horror that was waiting for me in the airport. Now that I think about it, maybe I had to went trough that so I would be more glad that I'm home afterwards and less sad. 

I talked a lot with the Spanish girl about Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar, then one of the italian girls saw Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Swedish from our room liked POTO and was a fan of Emmi Christensson (obviously, swedish). So that's about the fandoms. 

Okay everyone, sorry it got too long, but I wanted as much details as I could for all of you if you would be interested in taking a part in this programme. Perhaps we'll meet here next year. I had to earn for it all summer last year, I hope I would still have enough money after I buy the keyboard. I could buy the cheapest keyboard I can, and risk that it will break next year, but I don't want to do that, I know for some of you the obvious solution would be "give up on the keyboard and go to West End again", but guys, I am a pianist as well as a musical theatre wannabe. I need a good keyboard. 

Anyway, if you would like, here's the link to their site: http://www.westendondemand.com/

Find the West End Summer academy, and you have all the info you need, if you should have any questions just write to their e-mail on the site, Rachel is very nice and will respond to anything. Even if you are scared like me to go without parents, Rachel wrote me that once a parent was here with the student for full three weeks! Like I tried it, I'm not scared anymore, but some of you may haven't tried it yet or your family won't let you go alone, so just you know this. :-) Also, the age restriction is 16+, if you are younger than that, you might want to try a programme called West End stage, which is for people aged 8-21. 

I hope you enjoyed this "novel", I'm not trying to be popular by writing long chapters like this, I just wanted to share this with all of you musical theatre nerds like me. 

Have a nice day and maybe, see you next year in London,

Adios, 

EvitaC.