Student Life V2

There’s truly something about being a student hey… it has such a distinguished culture of life associated with it. A few days before moving to London, the thing I was most nervous about was just that I was a student again and the dread of all things academic! It’s been four years and a pandemic since I was last a student but like many others I feel like I’ve lived four different lives since 2019 (it’s now 2024) and being a student feels very foreign. Academic language, assignments, REFERENCING (what a nightmare!). Thankfully I soon worked out within a week into the course that none of that was in my degree – thank the heavens! My degree of course came with many of its own challenges and the hardest part is consistently showing up. The timetable is unlike anything else I’d ever encountered – not much space for work or play but it is exactly the intensive, hard-yakka musical theatre course I had signed up for.

I have diary prompts that I frequently use and this is one I’ve been using to help me reflect on this huge global move: Has London been all I thought it would turn out to be like?

Yes. And some! The city, the study & the industry have left me speechless time and time again. Six days a week of ‘overtime’ musical theatre training isn’t for the lighthearted and it has truly turned me inside out and back again. They weren’t kidding with the course being demanding! The opportunities and the people I’ve met and worked with here are truly what you pay for with the course. RAM’s prestige wasn’t an attraction for me at all when applying but it became obvious as I continued in the degree and the names and connections consistently stunned me. Common emails would be “Claude-Michel Schönberg is coming in next week (composer of Les Miserables) or “class is cancelled on Tuesday morning as Andrew Lippa will be popping in” (composer of The Addams Family & Big Fish) or even “west-end stars Hadley Fraser & Rosalie Craig are coming into your classes next week”. And don’t even get me started on Jacob Collier popping into school all the time and Annie Lennox in the corridor! The school has such an internationally credible name for itself, plus all of our daily teachers have CVs I ADMIRE. I am constantly stunned by the city and find so many special moments in my week where I’m reminded of where I actually am and how wild this life is.

Student life has meant back to basics for lots of things and ensuring I give myself the best chance to succeed. Here are a few practical things implemented in my student life:

Meal prep. The cost of living in London is absolutely no joke and meals were the first big thing I realised I could help myself out with. Sunday, as well as being a class day becomes meal prep day and filling my fridge with tupperwares for the week. Overnight oats, curries, pasta, veggie bakes, rolls, pies… I’m trying it all but loving the process of it and saving myself a pretty penny each week!
Backpack. Ew it’s so cringe to me but it is essential. I am simply carrying way too much every day but the crazy thing is most of the time I need it all. Dance shoes, folders, endless snacks, scripts, my iPad & macbook, makeup, stationery, dance clothes, chargers, nice singing outfit… the list goes ON. Unfortunately, I knew before moving here it was time to retire my cute totes and handbags and invest in a backpack to see me through… and as much as I despise the visual, I know it’s been worth it!
No more nails. They have become a part of my world and habits over the last few years but financially and practically it is time to say bye-bye to manicured, coffin-shaped nails of beauty. Plus I wanted the freedom to jump on the piano and play & WRITE freely.
Social media time warnings. When I tell you I LOVE instagram, I really mean it. However, student life with a to do list as long as mine just means I need to have some boundaries. I set a 2-hour notification per day to alert me when I’d hit that mark so I can check in with myself and my priorities. I love creating on it and sharing with you guys, so I have grace with myself with this one but it’s good that I can monitor time and not blink and suddenly lose four hours of my night and my Shakespeare monologue is due tomorrow at 9 am and I haven’t revised it in weeks… (thankfully I did!)

Before I moved, people both close to me and not, were truly saying to me that I should stay in Oz. honestly, I was leaving at one of the most pivotal points of my life. I vividly remember this one phone call with my Australian agent, we had two musical theatre contract offers, a callback for a great main screen role, a private request for an audition for a dream role and my callback for London had just gone unbelievably well. It was such an incredible moment in my working life, after the previous year being 28 rejections compared to this it truly felt like a manifestation. There was magic in the air everywhere I looked and the future had me nothing but excited. I ended up declining one offer and the current auditions and accepting The Sunshine Club tour on the premise of being able to leave the tour in August if I was accepted into London. It truly felt wild, leaving a 1.5 year contract of work to complete a degree that would teach me how to get work and of course how to work better.

Staying in Australia was the comfortable option, but moving to London was playing long-game.

It’s currently the weekend before agent showcase and I honestly have no idea how things are going to go for me in the next twelve months. There’s not a single gig in my calendar or a plan in my mind at all post-graduation from the Royal Academy of Music. There’s every chance of London agents & gigs here going very south for me but it always was a risk I was willing to take knowing I would be going back home a much stronger & centred performer. But there’s hope and a burn that I can give this industry a shot and I’m basically half way through this course ready to go all in for the rest. Beyond that? Heck no idea – there is such a thrill in the unknown as an artist! I’ll probably read this blog in a year’s time and laugh but also be glad I gave myself a chance on the other side of the hecking world. Student life V2 hey – I’m glad I gave it another shot!