Back from Ullapool and Almost ‘Dead’

The MA CCT’s went to the beautiful Highlands with our Shakespeares. Ullapool is waaaay up north on the coast and it is stunning. I took about a million pictures so give me the week and I’ll try to get them organized and posted for you soon. There is not much in Ullapool. It is very small and every other cottage is a B&B. But I don’t imagine people go there to shop or ride roller coasters. If you like the great outdoors and beautiful natural scenery, Ullapool will do ya just fine. The calm waters boarder rolling hills and it stays light ‘till near 11pm so you can enjoy the views (of course, in the winter you would probably be in the dark most of the time). There is camping and hiking in the serenity of the surrounding Highlands. You can do the beach thing if you want but the water is pretty darn cold and laying out on the beach will give you more pebbles than sand and it is not so hot that you’d want to be in a bikini for very long. But it is peaceful and you can’t help but de-stress a little even when you have four shows in two days!

The show part was intense. We had to move in each show in less than 24 hours. Tuesday was a tech day. We started with ‘Caesar’ then struck it and brought in ‘Lear’. ‘Lear’ stayed overnight and we came in for a speed run at 10:30am on Wednesday, had a matinee at 2:30 and evening show at 7:30. Thursday we did the same for ‘Caesar’. The shows were performed in a multi-purpose hall at the community center which is also attached to the school and the library. We didn’t really have all the bells and whistles of a normal theatre. Our dressing room was not right off stage but down the hall in a meeting room and the boys and girls were lumped together. Hope no one is shy! The whole back wall of the “dressing room” was windows. Now the view looking out was awesome as we gazed at the rolling hills of the Highlands but the view in from the sports courts and parking lot that were directly outside the windows I fear might have been a shock for the good people of Ullapool. ‘Caesar’ especially had a lot of costume changes and as we ran off stage ripping our clothes off I just hope that everyone understands this is how theatre works. But the shows went well and I think people enjoyed our offerings.

Now I’m back and have spent the weekend trying to recover from a very unpleasant cold. Tomorrow we jump full throttle into our project shows. Mine is a play I penned called ‘Dead in Scotland’. We open a week from tomorrow at a venue here in Glasgow called the Arches. The play is directed by Lauren Graham, one of our student directors and stars fellow acting student Barbara Sullivan and me. I wrote a lot of monologues in this thing and have to get crackin’ on memorization.

Photos of Ullapool and Shakespeare madness are coming soon.
I’ll keep you posted on ‘Dead’.
Take care!
-m