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It’s been far too long since I’ve managed to get a post up on here. The main reason for that is that I’ve recently started working for Whatsonstage.com as their Acting Deputy Editor. Its a fantastic job, and one that I would not have been able to get without the experiences that posting on this blog and interacting with all of you have brought me.
The purpose of the five blog posts which proceed this one, which you might have noticed were quite a different style of post to my normal ramblings about the state of theatre and social media, were actually part of a bigger experiment to see if I could create content on the go at the same level of quality as I can when sitting at my Macbook. All of the Amsterdam posts which I uploaded before this one were created entirely on my iPhone.
I need to be on a plane at 9am tomorrow morning, and unless I take a nap will have to be up and on my feet, first packing up my room for the big trip North on a Monday, then duty managing LIPA’s youth theatre antics all evening, pushy parents and all.
I decided that the best way to tire myself out was to head out on another of Mike’s bike tours. This mornings adventure, setting off at 11am from the garage, was a 22km country trip.
Heading straight out of town it was amazing to see quite how quickly this city turns into completely green countryside. Heading out along the Amstel canal and river the trip took in a trip to a farm just off the dyke which both made its own cheese and carved its own clogs. This tourist trap, 4 coaches came and went whilst we were chilling out in the sun and going round the tour, was a nice little stop off and I don’t think there was a single party amongst us who didn’t pick up something from the creative offerings in the giftshop.
I escaped the hostel this morning, and my new roommates, espousing at great length and volume about the wonders of what an Amsterdam stripper can do with a banana, and made my way up to the Concertgebouw for their free Wednesday lunchtime concert. One of my roomies commented that I was having perhaps a slightly more cultured trip than them. I think he might have been right.
As warned by my bike tour guide, the core of their audience did appear to be the well healed retired ladies of Amsterdam but they looked around them, like the staff, apparently bemused at the number of tourists joining them.
Having spotted in my Rough Guide and cycled past it on my bike tour I was determined to consume the theatrical offering of Boom Chicago, an English language comedy/improv/cabaret venue in the heart of the city’s cultural centre.
There isn’t much English theatre on offer in Amsterdam, and neither there should be, if a culture is to be represented, examined and better understood through traffic on the stage then it should be done in the mother tongue, how else is it to speak to its audience? It could be argued that Boom Chicago fits within this statement as more tourists performing to tourists. The mainly American accented cast had a Dutch speaker amongst them and made enough Dutch language and political jokes to keep locals feeling that they were in on something the rest of us weren’t, but the main comedy offering was one of universal appeal and was genuinely funny.
I managed to wake up surprisingly late today. I’m going to put that down to there being only one other occupied bed in my room at the hostel, and my last pint (0,5l) of Heineken being consumed well past 1am.
Someone said to me before I came away, “you can’t have a relaxing trip to Amsterdam.” I suspect the person involved has never ventured far from the Old Centre, apart perhaps for an adventure to an out of the way Coffee Shop.
A relaxing time is exactly what I was striving, and at the monent have managed to achieve. This morning I set off to explore the Jordaan, the laberinth of streets to the west of the city, built for the working classes at the city’s expansion. It was an area reccomended by Mike’s guide as was indeed well worth a wander. I discovered small squares between buildings filled with plants and seats, bakeries serving increadibly fresh and tasty produce and cafe bars filled with locals, all in the shadow of their overbearing but simplistic protestant church.
I came on holiday to escape Liverpool, discover a city and also to read. I bought quite a few books before coming back to Liverpool after Christmas but never quite got round to reading them, the final couple of terms at LIPA providing a good distraction. I’m very pleased to say that Amsterdam is providing me great time and space to read and write, even having decided to leave my MacBook at home and travel light.
The first thing I did this morning was escape the Old Centre of town, home to my hostel, the red light district and every tourist in the Netherlands. Walking out towards the Vondelpark I found a completely different city to the one I was in last night. The red light district and surrounding streets are like an adult urban Disneyland, apparenty detached from the real world around them. As a place where weed and prostitution are legal the Old Centre appears to attract tourists primarily for that reason.
Everything has been a bit quiet around here for a while. The only excuse I can give you is that I had to hand in my dissertation at the beginning of the month and have been stringing together front of house gigs since. I have certainly had call to write blog posts, the world has continued to throw up issues around me: the older women actors’ discrimination claims going being voiced on a European stage, the West End domination of the Tony’s, the Edinburgh Fringe programme launching last week and the concept of how we judge success in the arts, a topic I examined for my dissertation, but each topic has remained unexamined in this forum to date.
Having a week between two front of house shifts, I decided to raid the EasyJet website for a city break which would let me escape on Sunday and get back into the country in time to shepard youth theatre kids around the building on Friday night. The EasyJet flight schedule from Liverpool chose Amsterdam for me. I thought for a change, having found myself in a strange city alone for the first time I would tell you my story. I am going to be writing far more regularly now I have finished the academic portion of my life, my new job at Whatsonstage.com playing a major part of it, so I thought I would share some thought from my iPhone.
This is the video from my Contemporary Issues in Arts Management conference paper, Will digital innovation be the future of theatre? The paper was delivered as the penultimate module of my Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management degree at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. To find out more about the conference, as well as the abstracts of all of my classmates delivering papers, visit artsconferences.co.uk.
There were a huge variety of papers, all covering contemporary issues which interested those speaking. They covered a range of topics, including music sync fees, social media and the evolution of the live music industry. To read the abstract for my paper as well as a little bit more about the topic itself, have a read of my previous #CIAM post. You might also want to follow the #CIAM hashtag on Twitter, where a variety of links are posted reflecting the reality young performing arts managers think they will be facing upon graduation.
I need to be on a plane at 9am tomorrow morning, and unless I take a nap will have to be up and on my feet, first packing up my room for the big trip North on a Monday, then duty managing LIPA’s youth theatre antics all evening, pushy parents and all.
I escaped the hostel this morning, and my new roommates, espousing at great length and volume about the wonders of what an Amsterdam stripper can do with a banana, and made my way up to the Concertgebouw for their free Wednesday lunchtime concert. One of my roomies commented that I was having perhaps a slightly more cultured trip than them. I think he might have been right.
Having spotted in my Rough Guide and cycled past it on my bike tour I was determined to consume the theatrical offering of Boom Chicago, an English language comedy/improv/cabaret venue in the heart of the city’s cultural centre.
I managed to wake up surprisingly late today. I’m going to put that down to there being only one other occupied bed in my room at the hostel, and my last pint (0,5l) of Heineken being consumed well past 1am.
I came on holiday to escape Liverpool, discover a city and also to read. I bought quite a few books before coming back to Liverpool after Christmas but never quite got round to reading them, the final couple of terms at LIPA providing a good distraction. I’m very pleased to say that Amsterdam is providing me great time and space to read and write, even having decided to leave my MacBook at home and travel light.
Everything has been a bit quiet around here for a while. The only excuse I can give you is that I had to hand in my dissertation at the beginning of the month and have been stringing together front of house gigs since. I have certainly had call to write blog posts, the world has continued to throw up issues around me: the older women actors’ discrimination claims going being voiced on a European stage, the West End domination of the Tony’s, the Edinburgh Fringe programme launching last week and the concept of how we judge success in the arts, a topic I examined for my dissertation, but each topic has remained unexamined in this forum to date.
