Deutsch Theater

My priorities coming to Germany were very clear: 1) find a place to live, 2) figure out how to eat, and 3) find theater as quickly as possible.

One of my biggest concerns about coming to Germany was whether or not that meant I would be putting my theater career on hold for one, two years, which was a dreadful prospect. I knew that Tübingen had at least two professional theaters, the impressive Landestheater (LTT) and the smaller Zimmertheater. But as far as I could tell, it was very infrequent for either of these theaters to produce plays in English, and it would be quite some time before my German would be good enough to act in.

Friends of my roommate Anne pointed me in a good direction to look. "There are a lot of student groups at the University... you should go down and check out the Brechtbau." I followed this advice. The Brechtbau houses the foreign-language department of Uni-Tübingen, and it has a very cool black-box theater built into the ground floor. This theater, as I could tell by my visit, was home to about 8 - 10 active student groups, two of which did only English-speaking plays.

My friend Claire did some investigating and also returned some leads for me - her friend who was active in theater gave me three leads: 1) there was an upcoming production of 'Singing in the Rain', but it was unclear whether it would be in German. 2) The Provisional Players, a group at the Brechtbau, was a good group to ask. 3) "The English Theater group is putting on "Twelfth Night" this coming semester. It will be directed by Altug, who is from Turkey and is better at English than German."

I sent Altug an email shortly, and he invited me to attend a workshop that he was teaching in preparation for his production. I went to the workshop and got to see the Brechtbau theater for the first time. I told Altug that I would be delighted to act in his production if he had a role for me, and on September 16th, about 6 weeks after arriving here, I showed up for the first rehearsal of my first play in Germany.

"Twelfth Night" was amazing for so many reasons. First, I met some of the best people I know through the production, and it was a great way to become introduced to the whole student theater community. Second, working on a play in a foreign country, albeit an English play, was incredibly interesting, and the differences in the way the actors here work is very fascinating. Third, it was the first time I really felt like I was part of something here, which did miracles for any homesickness I was feeling. And most importantly, it was ridiculously fun!

The play used the story and text of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and contorted it into a grotesque style, overlaying heavy physical acting. All of the characters, which were silly, exaggerated versions of themselves, were played in Clown makeup and bright, flashy costumes. The props and scenery were created out of two ropes that hung from the top of the stage and various curtains.

But enough talk! Let's see some pictures.

Duke Orsino and Viola

Malvolio addresses the ensemble

Feste reads a letter for Olivia

Yours truly as the big pink Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

The production went very well, played for a week, and sold out all of the performances, which was very surprising to me - there seems to be a ton of support for the University Theater here.

During the rehearsals of "Twelfth Night", I learned a little bit about the Anglo-Irish Theater Group, which was the producer of the show. It is a group with a rich tradition and a 30 year history, but is currently suffering from not having enough directors to put on productions.

This seemed to me to be a potential win-win: I've directed shows in the States and honestly prefer it to acting, and here there are tons of people interested in acting but directing isn't as desirable. I talked to several people about how to break into directing here and they all had the same response: Just pick a play and do it.

I met with the man who is more or less in charge of the Anglo-Irish at the moment, Jens, and asked him if the group would be interested in using me as a director. Apparently, it was a good time to ask: next year is the official thirty-year anniversary of the Anglo-Irish group, and they had no play and no director.

The next step was to pick a play to do - Jens lent me about fifteen plays, which I quickly read... we were looking for something that was classic, iconic for either a Irish or British play, and really would invoke interest. I had strong feelings toward choosing Brian Friel's Translations, a play that I like very much and thought would be especially cool to direct over here, as it is a play about language barrier. The other finalist for me was Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy, a ridiculous and fun farce by one of my favorite playwrights. Since I really couldn't decide between the two, I thought I'd let the group pick.

We announced a reading night and had 15 folks show up and read scenes from both plays. I explained how I would approach the plays as a director and then we voted. That made it official - I will be directing a production of Black Comedy, to open in May of 2010. Even better, there was still enough support for Translations that we're going to put it up in the fall.

The next step is to have an audition / casting day, which will be in two weeks, and then rehearsals will begin in February.

But Black Comedy is not my next project - I'm currently in rehearsals for a production of Annie. Yes, the 80's American Musical that we all know so well. One of the actors that was in the show dropped out, and the stage manager called me and asked if I would take over the role of President Roosevelt, the deus ex machina character whom Annie helps to solve the Great Depression through her persistent optimism, and who in response helps Annie to solve the mystery of her missing parents.

What I heard: I get to act, sing, dance, and do it all from a wheelchair. Sold!

Annie is through a musical theater group at the University, and it's being performed at the LTT theater in January. Don't worry - there will be pictures.

So, in my first five months, I'm already working on my second play as an actor and I'm slated to direct two the following year. Hopefully that gives me enough time to get my German to the point where I can start acting in German.

So, it's pretty safe to say that putting my theater career on hold turned out to be the least of my worries!

Updates - Ich bin noch nicht tot!

So, it's time to pick this blog back up. A lot has changed since the end of September, so I've got plenty of news.

Work

I began working at the DAI Tübingen in October. At first, I substituted for a couple classes and did private lessons, helping prepare students who were studying for big English exams like the TOEFL and IELTS. In November I took over a beginner class that meets on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The students are three middle-aged ladies who are very sweet and lots of fun. The class comes to an end this week. I wasn't given a regular class to teach for the following semester, but I'm slated to teach an intensive course for 11th / 12th grade kids the first week in January, which will be very fun.

At the end of October, Claire recommended me to the Deutsch-Amerikanisch Zentrum in Stuttgart, and they promptly asked me to come meet them. They had had an emergency with a teacher and needed to replace her instantly for an upcoming intensive class for 11 / 12th grade kids, so I took the job and got to travel to Stuttgart every day for a week to teach the course. That age of student is one of my favorites, and we worked on lots of fun projects, ranging from speeches to short plays to interpreting Emo music (thanks for the help, Green Day). The kids had a great time with me and I was invited to teach a similar intensive in February of next year, and again in April, both of which I graciously accepted.

The folks at the DAZ are some of the nicest and most welcoming people that I've ever encountered, and I am very lucky to have fallen into that job. Along with the intensive courses, they're also launching a series of public speeches for high school groups, a couple of which I'll be able to do.

I was also taken on by another language school in Stuttgart called Arenalingua. They send "trainers" out to companies across Germany to teach Business English courses. I didn't expect to get much work from them, but before I was even done with orientation they had offered me a job teaching at a machinery firm in a village called Hailfingen, which is about 20 minutes from Tübingen by car. So for the next four months, every Monday and Friday morning I wake up very early and go teach for several hours there. I have three different classes, ranging from complete beginners to upper intermediate students. We talk about effective business communication, telephone and email skills, and lots of grammar (natürlich). It's a nice, consistent job.

So I'm working! It's still not enough - the DAI and DAZ are both too sporadic to help me consistently pay rent and bills, but when I find a few more private students, I'll be in a good place. Also, the work that I've already gotten was enough to secure my visa, so I'm legally able to stay here!

German

I took intensive German courses for three months, and finished in the end of November. My language has much improved since my arrival, but three months does not a fluent speaker make, and the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. I try to use German as much as possible in daily life, with my roommates, in stores, and with friends, but I get stuck quite often.

It's clear that I need to really develop a plan of how to work by myself - between a mix of reading lots of German books, using computer programs, drilling vocabulary with flash cards, and forcing usage in as many situations as I can.

Living

The lease for my original apartment ended at the end of October, so I had to look for another apartment, as did my roommates. Unfortunately, we were searching at a terrible time, as the semester was just beginning and many students were also looking for places. Also, although we knew we might have to split up, we really had become friends the last four months and wanted to stay together if at all possible.

And it was possible. We finally found a flat in Lustnau, a neighborhood northeast of the city center. The flat is beautiful, it has lots of space, and it's perfect for four people. The downside was the price - in addition to the rent and security deposit, we had to pay a "Finder's Fee" to the real estate which was to the tune of 2,000 euros - at our current exchange rate, that's three grand, of which I had to pay a fourth. It was the financial equivalent of Ajax throwing himself upon his own sword, except without the honor gained. But some things are worth more than money, and I was very lucky to have found the roommates that I did, and I'm very happy to be living here.

Want to see my new Wohnung?

Exterior - I live above a bakery and a Chinese restaurant.

We live on the fourth floor, at the very top. (In Germany we call this the third floor, because the bottom one doesn't count)

Here are some interior shots:

The actual apartment is two floors, with the upstairs housing Gregor and Phillip, and the bottom has Anne and me, as well as our kitchen and dining room.

Speaking of that, here's our nice little dining room:

We often have family dinners:

From left to right, me, Phillip, Gregor, Sabine (Anne's friend), and Anne. This night I had cooked Putenschnitzel for everyone (fried turkey cutlets).

And here are some views from the apartment - both of these are from my bedroom window.

If you'd like to see the apartment for yourself, and you don't mind traveling to Germany, why don't you come to our housewarming party this Saturday night?

From left to right, me, a skeleton, Phillip, and Anne. (Not pictured: Gregor)

I've got plenty more to tell you about - my Theater activity since arriving in Germany is a whole blog on its own (and it's very exciting, at least for me), so I'll try to update again in the next couple days. Also, my mom came to visit me here and spent the last ten days here (she left yesterday morning) and we did a lot of exciting things, so that's coming as well.

Sorry to lose touch - I'm doing great and can't wait to tell more.

I guess what's the most interesting change for me is that I feel like Tübingen really feels like my home now. I have no yearning to go running back to the United States, I'm over that, and I'm just really comfortable here.

Catch Up

Hey! I'm a bit overdue for a blog. Here's what's going on with me:

Work - My demonstration lesson went very well and I was offered a job at the D.A.I. Of course, when I say 'job' that makes it sound as though I'll be 'working', which isn't necessarily the case - I've been hired to be part of the teaching pool, so I'm now available to take classes and private lessons, but I haven't been assigned any yet. The good news is that there are a few classes that haven't been assigned teachers that will be offered up during a meeting on October 8th, so hopefully I can start with one of those.

It's become clear that I need to find other jobs as well, as what I have is not a full-time position. One of my projects for this week is posting up advertisements around Tübingen for free lance work, and I've sent a few resumes to institutions both here and in our neighbor Reutlingen. (these are two of about seven thousand southern German towns that end in -ingen)

My first intensive German course comes to an end this week. It's been very helpful and I've kept on top of the material. I'm becoming slightly more functional outside of courses, but I still have a long way to go. Minor achievements include getting my hair cut and being able to ask for a loaf of bread from a bakery without using any English. I have short frequent conversations with my roommates in German, and the general immersion has been very useful. I feel good about where I'll be in two months.

The roommates and I have been having quite a bit of fun - we went to Oktoberfest in Munich on a whim one lazy Sunday, and the following week went to Stuttgart's comparable festival. Both were quite wild - huge beers, really good food, tons of people wearing authentic German clothes (yes, liederhosen), and lots of amusements - full size roller coasters, ferris wheels, rides with ominous names like "Air Wolf" and "Space Death". At each festival I consumed the equivalent of a two liter bottle of Coke (which is, accordingly, two liters) in high alcohol content beer.

I took lots of pictures but my poor iPhone decided it was no longer able to live happily in this world, and decided to take it's own life. So until I acquire a camera, I won't be able to post pictures here. Sorry. I'll make sure to write that many more thousands of words.

Sophie, the girl who's subleasing my apartment to me, comes back to take her bed and some furniture on Thursday. I knew this was coming, but somehow didn't think to replace the bed. I also kind of want to see if the apartment that I'm moving into next will be furnished or not. So I might spend a few nights on the floor, but, hey, I'm young.

I'm putting the Paris trip on hold. My financial situation isn't so hot right now, since I'm not yet working, and I need to prioritize things a little.

Right then - talk to you soon!

The Day I Fought a Crocodile

This was a big week for me - I started German classes on Monday, and they're great. It's three hours a day, from 9 - 12:15, and they move at a great pace. I'm so eager to learn the language that I'm taking to it very well, and I can already say a lot more (viel mehr) after just three days. I can't wait to see where I am in two months. I plan to take the A1 - A2 (beginner and advanced beginner) courses and then see if I know enough to learn the rest through usage. It's also nice having somewhere I have to be every day.

I stopped into the DAI on Tuesday and introduced myself to the hiring manager. I'm coming back next Monday to teach a fake class to her and a couple interns, which is a sort of interview for the job. It should be fun - and after my TESL course, I'm very ready for that sort of thing. The only problem is that all of the Fall semester classes already have teachers, so the most work I can get this year is substituting, privat tutoring, and sitting in on other teacher's classes. If I do well I'll have my own classes starting in January...but that's still a long time to go with no income, so it's going to be a bit tough. This means I have to look very hard for my own private students and other work opportunities.

So I'm in my first play here in Tübingen - I'm playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" with a theatre troupe that operates out of the University. We had our first rehearsal tonight - I'm the only native English speaker in the group, which is wild. The play seems very informal - rehearsals once or twice a week, drinks afterwards, parties every two weeks. It's as much about the social part of theatre as the art - and I would be lying if I said I wasn't okay with that. It seems as though there might definitely be opportunities for me to create my own projects sometime in the future - a Tübingen longform improv troupe, or a production of a play I've written... there's tons of interest and people willing to take part in theatre, and that's all you need really.

I found out today that the lease on my apartment won't be extended (there was a chance that it would be) so I have to move out the end of October. Apartment search time!

I'm thinking about a possible excursion to Paris next month. It's so cheap, and I had a blast in London.

I didn't really fight a crocodile. I'm sorry I lied to you.

That's all for now. Tschuss!

The London Epic

I'm back safe and sound from my trip - if not a little sleep deprived. It was a frantic and awesome three days...so here goes:

The Most Excellent Adventures of James

"The Larks of London"

Day One

I awake promptly at 3:30 in the morning, grab my bag, and go to catch my bus. I arrive at the airport, go through security, and go straight to my gate, having checked in online. As soon as I'm board the plane, having gotten very little sleep, I crash. However, I'm sharply awoken when THE PLANE CRASHES! I awake with a start to the plane violently lurching in the air. My final thoughts are "So this is how it happens. I go down in a plane." At the moment that I choose to accept my fate, I open my eyes and look out the window, only to realize that we've landed in Stansted Airport, and that the violent lurching was the plane hitting the ground. I had been sound asleep for the entire ride. I groggily and a little sheepishly wander off the plane, still shaken up from the moment of impending doom.

The bloke from customs demanded to know why a Yankee had any business visiting his Queen's great country, but after a few suspicious questions he decided to let me go. "But if you ever come back to the UK, you better bring some proof that you're actually working." Sure, man, whatever you say. I have a bus to catch. I found the bus, and by 10:00 in the morning, I was in downtown London.

Finding my hostel was a little tricky, as I was newly thrust into an unfamiliar terrain with many gray winding streets that looked identical...like this:

When I arrive at the hostel it's too early to check-in, so I leave my bag, acquire a map, and head out to start exploring London. I walk down a bustling Oxford Street, grab a chicken pasty from a street vendor, and head to the British Museum.

I easily killed a few hours there, and that was still moving pretty quickly. The collection of Egyptian, Roman, and Greek sculpture was incredible.

Their most famous piece is this little guy:

It was very hard to look at the Rosetta Stone in all it's glory...maybe because of the sheer historical significance of it, maybe because of the overwhelming academic achievement that it begat, or maybe because EVERYONE ELSE IN LONDON was looking at the Rosetta Stone in all it's glory, thus making it impossible to get close.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the subtly entitled "Reading Room", a huge beautifully designed white hall with staircases taking you to every level.

After leaving the museum, I headed back for my hostel, but on the way I stopped by Covent Garden:

Quite a few people there. And also I passed the National Portrait Gallery, which wasn't as dull as it sounded - plus, it had this one, which was a treat:

This is a very famous portrait of Shakespeare which I instantly recognized from textbooks and lectures in college. It's supposedly the only portrait of him painted during his life.

Back at the hostel, I check in and get my room - I reserved a room in a ten bed dormitory, but they had upgraded me to a six bed room. I was the first one to arrive at the room, which was a small compact sleeping area:

Not bad for 12 pounds a night. Plus, it's in the Piccadilly Circus, which is in a great location for exploring Central London.

Speaking of exploring Central London, it's time to do just that - I read about a free tour on the back of my map, and I went to join them in the late afternoon. The tour takes two and a half hours, and we see and talk about everything there is to see in Westminster, such as...

Trafalgar Square

The Houses of Parliament

Big Ben

Buckingham Palace

And Westminster Abbey, just to name a few. It was quite amazing to see such classic pieces of architecture in person. You can see countless pictures, but it just doesn't compare.

The tour ended around 7 o'clock...I'm getting a little drowsy since I've had a pretty long day, so I go to a pub and have a nice classic English meal of fish and chips with Guiness. It was delightfully good.

Afterwards, I head back to the hostel. Somebody else has joined the room now - a very awesome Israeli girl named Ofir. We start chatting and quickly become friends. She spent six years living in Washington State before going back to Israel for college, so her English is not only fluent, but she doesn't even have much trace of an accent. She's in London with a couple friends vacationing before her school semester starts.

The two of us wander around on the streets for a while, and I end up getting to bed around 2:30 am - almost 24 hours since I awoke to leave for London.

Day Two

I'm up by 9. I go to the subway and buy an Oyster card, then take the Tube east to Tower Hill. I circumnavigate the Tower of London. It's pretty spectacular.

Equally beautiful is the nearby Tower Bridge:

This bridge steals the glory that the London Bridge (which, in it's current state, is very unimpressive) used to have - London Bridge was the first and only bridge for many years, and it was quite elaborate when it was built.

After I'm done walking around the area, I walk along the Thames and cross a bridge into Southwark neighborhood - home of the attraction that I'm most eager to see in all of London:

The New Globe is a complete reconstruction of the original Globe theater that debuted Shakespeare's plays. They moved the location slightly, but the building is very carefully modelled after the original - adding, of course, fire-proof safety measures so that it doesn't meet the same fate.

I took a tour of the the theater and went to their Museum. The whole thing was quite great, and another thing that is amazing to see in person after reading about so much.

I bought my ticket to see As You Like It at 2 PM. It was a great show, with some of the best Shakespearean acting I've ever seen. I guess if anybody should know how to do it right, it's these guys.

On the way home I stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral:

I had dinner on the way home to the hostel, and spent the rest of the night wandering around the streets of London with Ofir.

Day Three

I sleep in. I've seen everything.

No, just kidding - but the third day lacked the frantic pace of the first two because I didn't have quite as much energy, and also Ofir tagged along with me the whole day today. We went down to South Kensington, which houses several Museums as well as Hyde Park.

We went to the Science Museum first. It has exhibits such as the Apollo 10 space pod and the world's first jet engine, as well as tons of interactive exhibits - these were especially fun, of course. We stopped and saw a stage show about explosions halfway through.

Hyde Park was next - we walked around for a while and went to a river. It was a little chilly and rainy, so we didn't stay too long.

The rest of the day involved a Sushi dinner and three or four pubs.

I went to sleep around 2:30 in the morning, woke up two hours later, and walked to the bus station where I was going to be picked up by my shuttle to the airport...although I started to get concerned when I saw it drive by. I realized that I was standing at the wrong bus station, and the next bus wouldn't come for another half an hour, putting me at the airport with only 25 minutes to spare.

I thought about going to to the Tube and trying to get a train to the Airport, but decided that my best bet was just to hope that I made it on time. I did - it was close, but I made it through security quickly, didn't check any luggage, and already had printed my boarding passes, so it turned out all right.

And that's that - London in three days.

Wake Me Up When September Starts

All right, now things get fun.

On Wednesday, my TESOL certification course came to an end, which makes me endlessly happy. That thing stole my August. I emailed the hiring manager of the DAI, the institute at which I'd like to work, and expressed my interest and included a resume. Making a resume for something other than theater was a first-time experience for this little college grad.

I found out about an English production of Twelfth Night that is going on in Tübingen and emailed the director - he said that the ensemble would workshop the piece together before staging it, and that the casting would happen during that time, and that I was more than welcome to join. So I think I may have gotten myself my first acting role in a foreign country!

Last night I went bar-hopping with my two guy roommates - I haven't spent much time at all with them, so it was pretty cool of them to invite me along. We went to
four different bars, taking turns buying rounds, and finally ended up at a electronic club. It was fun to verge on the yet-unexplored bar side of the town.

I spent the last couple days making sure everything is in order for my vacation to London. Tomorrow morning I catch a bus at 4:20 in the morning, arrive at Stuttgart airport at 5:30, get on a plane to Stansted airport at 6:45, arrive in the UK (losing an hour) at 7:25, get on a shuttle to downtown London at 7:55 and arrive around 9:30 in the morning - and then start exploring.

I haven't planned much to do once I arrive - I'm definitely going to try to catch a couple plays while I'm there, and see as much as I can. Since I don't have an income yet, it's going to be as economical of a trip as possible...which may be hard to do in one of the most expensive cities in the world, but we'll see.

I get back to Tübingen on Thursday, have a workshop of Twelfth Night on Saturday, and start my German classes Monday.

I'll let you know next week how everything went!

Boats, Ropes, Nazis, and Football

James here! Who were you expecting?

I spent last week doing more of my August task of completing the TESOL course, and I actually am making awesome progress. I've completed 17 / 20 of the Units and will finish this Wednesday.

This weekend was pretty crazy. On Saturday afternoon, I got a call (my cell-phone is up and running now) from Claire asking if I wanted to go on a boat ride.

Our friend Alan has a friend who owns a Stocherkahn - what? You don't know what a Stocherkahn is? They're very important here in Tübingen. A Stockerkahn is a long wooden boat, similar to a gondola, which is steered and propelled by a person standing in the back pushing the boat from the bottom of the river with a long wooden pole. These boats are the pride and joy of Tübingen, which is home to 120 of them - exactly 120, no more can be built. That's some sort of weird city rule.

Every year, Tübingen has a Stocherkahn race - in which all 120 of these boats are filled with enthusiastic team members and raced against each other in a lap around the Neckar island. I just missed the 2009 race, but maybe by 2010 I'll be on a team.

Anyway, so we filled one of these with ten people and set sail - or stick - on a three hour voyage of drinking beer and eating cake. Nobody has to do any work on a Stocherkahn except the poor soul who has to stick that thing around, so we just kind of kicked it. It was pretty great.

That night, I went with my flatmate and her friends to see Inglourious Basterds - an ironic film to watch in German. I understood most of the plot and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was actually cool to have seen the film with a lot of Germans, as the cast includes many famous German actors who are unbeknownst to Americans, as well as several Americans who were recognizable to me but not to them. It led to fun post-movie conversations. "What? You've never heard of The Office? It's like the best American TV show!"

This morning I got up bright and early and was picked up at 9:00 AM by Christian and Claire - we were bound for Schloss Lichtenstein, a nearby castle, but more imporantly, we were headed for ADVENTURE LAND!

Adventure Land is a rope climbing course built into a forest - it feature 9 levels of difficulty for all ages, and consists of climbing, swinging (where you roll on a wheeled thing across a long wire), and even some random challenges like jumping from a swinging rope into a net and grabbing hold. It was surprisingly rigorous, and at certain points I'd be walking on a thin wire forty or so

feet in the air and suddenly wasn't as confident in my abilities as I was entering.

This picture doesn't do justice to the madness that was Adventure Land - but that's the idea. Lots of rope, lots of wire, lots of people climbing. Good times.

We had lunch at a nearby noodle factory (chocolate noodles for dessert, anyone?) and then

returned home.

Promptly after returning from this voyage I was called and invited to go play some football (that's actually soccer, remember) by friends of my roommate and we played for a couple hours. Afterward, we went for a run - what the hell? Who goes for a run after playing soccer? Soccer is nothing but running already.

Actually, this run was quite nice because the path took us through a few fields of corn and farmland, which looked a lot like Kansas. "My whole state is like this," I said to my friends.

Needless to say, it was a ridiculously physically taxing day for me, but it felt nice after spending so much of my week in front of computers working on English grammar.

All this stuff may seem like trivial socializing, but it's so important for me right now - the Germans are tremendously friendly and inviting, and meeting people and making friends is one of the most crucial tasks I have at this juncture.

Oh, and here are some pictures of Schloss Lichtenstein. Castles are so picturesque.

It's midnight right now, who the hell is playing drums on the street?