The second half of the year was very juicy for me.
July & August
Slow summer months. Time to go home. We spent a few days in Valencia. We visited friends, attended a music festival, swam in the Mediterranean sea and enjoyed our hometown. It was very refreshing.
Off Stave had good momentum with many rehearsals and performances, even debuting in July at Hoopla’s stage.
Oh, and I had a job interview and audition that ended well!
At the end of August, I rode into a plane bound to the USA…
September
Definitely, September was the most important month for me in 2022. Started it on American soil. I flew to Boston to visit my IPTN colleague Christopher Ellinger. He and his wife, Ann, took me to swim at Walden Pond, the famous retiring site of the writer Henry David Thoreau, and I was in awe with nature. Moved by my inner geek, I visited some Boston City landmarks that appeared in The Last of Us. I had lunch in a vegan Thai restaurant in Chinatown before catching a bus to Hartford, Connecticut, where I met with Crim and Michael to go to Camp Improv Utopia East. We spent the night at Crim’s, and I was in awe of the nature around her place and her impressive lifetime collection of science fiction and horror books.
At Camp Improv Utopia East, I was attending in a counsellor role and was put in charge of the Dickinson Cabin. Jabari Dortch, Nick Armstrong, Marcely Jea-Pierre and Ti Malik were the facilitators that I had during the camp. I had a fun weekend enjoying improv and meeting new people. I lost my voice, but it was worthy.
On my way back from camp I stayed in New York. My first visit to the iconic city was a little bit underwhelming. Being there the only day theatres are closed had something to do with it. Met with my friend and fellow camper Amy, who showed me around West Village and we went to an low tier stand-up comedy show. The next day heavy rain was pouring, crushing my plans of visiting Central Park. I managed to visit the MoMA, the library and the Rockefeller centre before heading back to London.
While still struggling with jet lag, a couple of days after I came back to the UK, I attended the Robin Hood Improv Festival in Nottingham chaining another weekend filled with improv. I performed there in a mixer team masterfully coached by Katy Schutte with an innovative form that was very acclaimed. Took workshops from Jorin Garguilo, Andel Sudik and Matt Higbe. I also took the chance to visit Nottingham’s Horror Museum.
If these two weeks of improv excitement weren’t enough, I joined a Hoopla! house team, Shuffle, coached by Steve Roe and sharing the stage with amazing improvisers of the London scene. I finally feel that I’m finding my improv home. And I also got to perform with Off Stave in the Hoopla marathon.
Not to forget about playback, also in September, True Heart Theatre threw a whole day of workshops and playback theatre at China Exchange, hearing and reenacting stories from members of the Chinese community in London. It was a bitter sweet day where we enjoyed a lot but it was the last day of Agnes Law as leader.
Last bus not least, I started working with Freshwater Theatre as performer and facilitator. Of course, being Spanish, my first assignment was becoming Sancho Panza and Don Quijote in a show for pre-teens learning Spanish in several schools of London. I’m so glad to finally be able to apply the things that I’ve learnt at the postgraduate in theatre in education.
As you see, September was a month loaded with exciting things. But there were still good things waiting in the last three months of the year. Check them in the last part!