Three months from now, I will board a plain and fly to Moscow, where I'll be living with 9 other young acting students for thirteen weeks. We will be studying at the Moscow Art Theatre, or MXAT. This is the opportunity any actor or Chekhov lover would die to take advantage of, and all ten of us, although excited, have started to face the reality of us leaving the country and studying at one of the most prestigious theatre schools in the world. This fact is very daunting, and quite terrifying.
Maybe I should start at the beginning. Well, to be safe, let's leave the very beginning to Konstantin Stanislavski himself - he's got that covered, the whole history of MXAT is detailed in his lengthy, thick, intimidating book My Life In Art which is currently sitting next to me, saying "Anna, read me, read me..."
So let's start at my beginning.
Hi. I'm Anna Hendrix Gelman. I am seventeen years old, and I am the youngest in my class. I will be skipping half of my senior year in high school to go to Moscow, and speaking as a kid who never liked high school very much anyway, I'm absolutely fine with that. I've had an infatuation with theater for as long as I can remember, this most likely due to my father's profession as a director. My childhood is littered with stories of my brother and I making amusing outbursts in dress rehearsal, or explaining the plot of a Shakespeare play to people four times our age. I now know that I belong working in the theater, or I won't be happy. I work for my father's theater company, Organic Theater Company, in Chicago, and I spend a ridiculous amount of my money on theater tickets. So, what. I never said I was a normal seventeen year old girl.
When I was fourteen, I fell in love with Anton Chekhov. Specifically his play The Seagull, which now sits on my bookshelf (my father's translation, to be exact), which now is the name of this blog as well as many other screen names on the internet. At this moment, as I look up from the screen of my imac, I see in front of me, the poster from my father's production.
There's nothing wrong with a little healthy interest/obsession, right?
So here I am. One of the ten who will be getting on that plane in three months. The rest of my class are Junior B.F.A. Acting candidates at Northern Illinois University, and one Senior B.A. So why am I, a lowly senior in high school, going on this amazing trip? Well, that's simple - nepotism. But more on that later. First, meet my classmates.
1. Amalia - my protective future room mate who can quote the tv show Slings and Arrows with as much accuracy as me (a major accomplishment).
2. Kate - the aforementioned Kate let me sleep over at her apartment last night. She's interning for Organic this summer and shares my terror/excitement about September.
3. Cara - the crazy free spirit who is often described as "breathing her own air" rather than marching to the beat of her own drummer.
4. Ellen - The extremely motivated, determined, peppy girl who takes acting right before I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
5. Joe - Joe earned my respect by playing Rosencrantz in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the University this year. He's the king of awkward moments with me.
6. Brian - Best known for shouting my name every time I see him.
7. Ben - Looks and acts like Bob Dylan. Lives with Zack and Bryce.
8. Bryce - Hates Bob Dylan but somehow loves Ben.
9. Zack - We bonded over our love for Lady Gaga and Glee, and the accidently ironic nicknames of "Annie and Zooey."
So, my mission for the three months I spend in Moscow? Learn. Become a better actor. Become best friends with my classmates. Learn about myself and all that corny stuff a teenage girl should do when she leaves the country for three months. See some extraordinary theater. And last but not least - this thing. I want to update this blog once a day or as often as I possibly can for the thirteen weeks I will be living in a dorm in Moscow, Russia, rather than my home in Northern Illinois.
So, dear readers, can I do it? And more importantly, can I survive thirteen weeks without wanting to say "I am a seagull! No, that's not right! I am an actress! Ah, well..."
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