Just Touched Down In London Town

As I got off the plane in London and trickled through the long customs lines at Heathrow, my jetlagged and sickly self was in no mood to head off to work. I took a cab to my sleek hotel in the West End of London, and threw myself on to the bed in the hotel room. It was my first day of my internship already and all I wanted to do was sleep. At 1pm I woke to find myself in desperate need of a shower and a large cup of coffee, or should I say tea? I got dressed and headed over to the Really Useful Group offices on Tower Street.

My first day at RUG (Really Useful Group) was a total whirlwind. I met with Human Relations and took a tour of the building. I really had no idea how many different parts of this company it took to run it! There is music, payroll, productions, theaters, insurance, licensing, and on and on and on… I was totally overwhelmed! I was to be working in the music and and production-licensing department. RUG is a company of young, creative, really hip Londoners who are all performers in their own right. I went down to the licensing department where I was given my own desk and computer and was working for a man named David Robinson and a woman named Carla Severs. They headed up all of the department, just the two of them! The first day I set up my email and my desk with all of the things I would need in an office: pens, highlighters, a stapler, and all the essentials. This was my first real job in an office, and I wanted to look the part and play the part as well!

When I arrived for my second day of work there were two HUGE boxes of ancient playbills, notebooks, and folders on my desk and next to it. Uh Oh. Here comes the work. I was then given my mission for the week: RUG was just starting to license ALW’s (Andrew Lloyd Webber) shows in the United States. Their sister company, Rodgers and Hammerstein Productions (R&H) in New York was going to be doing the licensing, however, there were no production notes, packs, or resource guides to give the people in the states who wanted to put on ALW’s shows. SO, my job for the week was to go through all of the old playbills, production notes, etc and do as much research as possible to put together these production and resource packs to send to R&H. These resource packs would then go off to all of the people in America who wanted to perform his shows and know how they were done in London and on Broadway with ALW’s exact notes. It was a ton of copying, notes, and putting files into PDF format and organizing. At the end of the week I was totally exhausted and my brain was so drenched with information. I knew that at the end of the day the work that I was doing was going to benefit someone or some group of actors somewhere. I had always thought that doing office work would totally be the end of me, but being able to do work that was still creative, still pushed me to think, and still benefited the theater in some way was really motivating and eye opening.

On Thursday there was a company barbeque and Andrew Lloyd Webber himself showed up to a have a burger and a Pimms cup! It was incredible to hear the sound of the piano and auditions for his shows going on through the walls, and even getting to listen to a bit of the new recordings for the Phantom of the Opera 2 tracks was awe inspiring! Where else would I be able to do that? I was also given some free tickets to see shows in the West End, which was great. RUG owns seven theaters in the West End, so I was really fortunate to see three shows while I was there. I saw Whoopie Goldberg’s new musical, “Sister Act,” which I think is coming to Broadway next season, “War Horse,” and, “39 Steps.” They were all very different and really great. Having grown up going to a lot of theater I always love going to see shows that are new and also experiencing good entertainment. Hey, a free ticket isn’t so bad either!

The weekend before I left to go back to America I had the pleasure of going to The Championships at Wimbledon. I was fortunate enough to go to the women’s AND men’s finals. It was totally incredible. I’ve never gotten so into a sporting match like I had at the men’s finals. We were in former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez’s seats, and I can guarantee you we were the only Americans in our section rooting for Roddick! My mom and I had a really good time cheering for him, even though he lost. It was an incredible week. Since I am the first person to ever have an internship at RUG and it was so successful, hopefully they will let me come back for longer next year! I will keep you posted!