I\u2019ve played a lot of roles since arriving at my theatre program in London. The first was the starving yet witty doorman, Jeremy, in William Congreve\u2019s scintillating high comedy <\/span>Love for Love. <\/span><\/i>In Shakespeare class, I attacked my dream role of Queen Margaret in Henry VI Part 3. I\u2019ve played Amanda in Noel Coward\u2019s <\/span>Private Lives; <\/span><\/i>Richard III <\/span>(Richard III)<\/span><\/i>; Queen Elizabeth <\/span>(Richard III)<\/span><\/i>; the old woman in Ionesco\u2019s <\/span>The Chairs; <\/span><\/i>and most recently, Pedro in Lope de Vega\u2019s 17th century play <\/span>La Dama Boba. <\/span><\/i>On the streets of North London, I play a local as often as I can \u2013 walking confidently into traffic, doing my best to smoothly navigate the tube, exclaiming wildly when the sun emerges and drinking my dark roast with Asterios, the owner of the coffee shop I frequent. There is, of course, no place in the world that compares to St Paul\u2019s own Dunn Bros, but I\u2019ve found routine and comfort in the strong Greek coffee and morning conversation. My favorite role to play is that of a writer in London. Is there a better place to write? Isn\u2019t this where all the poets go to stay up all night, making newfound friends and drinking on the Thames river? Isn\u2019t this where my creative world turns on its axis and I gain a new perspective on art and the self? I sit in quirky local coffee shops every day, I get lost in parts of the city I don\u2019t know; I go for long walks in Regent\u2019s park, reading and watching the leaves change color around me. It\u2019s always solo trips to Europe that deliver the most profound literature. So why do I have writer\u2019s block?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe it\u2019s the intense 2-hour acting courses from 9am to 6pm to which I dedicate most of my energy. Maybe because in playing Margaret, I was delivering the writing of one of the most brilliant wordists to ever live, and hardly had space for my own words. Maybe I am trying a little too hard to force the role of <\/span>poet in London. <\/span><\/i>Maybe I\u2019ve been avoiding admitting to myself that the most definitive discovery I\u2019ve made here, in my acting program, is that I do not want to be an actor.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I love the British American Drama Academy. I have met some of the most brilliant instructors and actors, young theatre makers and creatives imaginable. But, as with most things in life, study abroad is not what you expect it to be about. Perhaps the best thing about London is that it hardly cares who you are, or what you do. If you come to London to study acting, and end up spending every morning at boxing gym training with the strongest group of women you\u2019ve ever met, nobody\u2019s judging. If you stay in Friday night and take an early train to the countryside by yourself Saturday morning, nobody thinks you\u2019re \u201cmissing out on the study abroad experience.\u201d If the air starts to get chilly and you call home in tears over missing the holidays, it doesn\u2019t mean you are ungrateful for the life you\u2019re leading. London watches over its millions of residents with indifference: feeling small has never been so relaxing. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn my small hometown in Greece,\u201d Asterios says as he sits down across from me, \u201cpeople are still talking about something dumb I did five, six years ago.\u201d He sips his own coffee \u2013 \u201cHere, nobody gives a shit. You can do whatever you want.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I\u2019ve been acting. I\u2019ve also been walking aimlessly for miles a day; I\u2019ve been boxing, meeting new people, drinking loads of coffee, going on dates for the joy of getting to know new people. I\u2019ve been writing (sort of), and I\u2019ve been letting my mind change. My goals, my dreams, my schedule for the day, my dinner plans, change all the time. London, always in motion, proceeds to not give a shit if I behave like a normal human. I cry, every chance I get, at how beautiful the pigeons on the sidewalk look today; or the leaves changing in Regent\u2019s park; or at how absolutely terrified we are of change. In London, everybody is desperately trying to make themselves matter at every given moment. To be quite honest with you, it\u2019s a daunting and impossible task to make ourselves matter in the way we think we need to: publicly, with such a grandiose presence. The truth is we make ourselves matter through other people \u2013 through learning someone\u2019s name at a coffee shop, being present with someone who needs you, calling your best friend back home, and allowing yourself to change. I make myself matter through smiling and nodding at a stranger on the sidewalk, watching their eyes light up and the corners of their mouth turn upwards, and hoping it\u2019s created a chain of smiles and nods all the way back to you in Minnesota.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks Lucy! We can’t wait to welcome you back. <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Lucy McNees ’25 Alongside Marley, the Words also reached out to Lucy McNees ’25 about her experiences abroad! Lucy has been studying at the British American Drama Academy in London, and experience which she has also spoken a little bit about here. Here are Lucy’s thoughts on her experience: I\u2019ve played a lot of roles since […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":0,"parent":6037,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6047","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8539,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6047\/revisions\/8539"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lucy](\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/603\/2023\/12\/IMG_6537-768x1024.jpg\")