A DAY IN LONDON: THE GLOBE, OTHELLO AND ANDRE HOLLAND

MIO student Alexis Woodard relives her day trip to London, watching Othello at The Globe theate, plus a chance encounter with Andre Holland. 

On our third week into BADA, a couple of my friends and I decided to take our Saturday to travel into London. Andre Holland and Mark Rylance were playing in Othello at the Globe — there was no way we were going to miss it. The show kept selling out but we decided to try our luck with ground tickets. So that morning we woke up and took the bus into London, the train closer to the river, and (because of some type of cycling event) most of the restaurants were closed down, so we found a secluded pub with great food to eat at before crossing the bridge to get to the Globe.

We were all lucky enough to get £5 standing tickets and any the end of the first act we could all agree we had the best (non)seats in the house. It was one of the most incredible shows I’ve ever seen.

Afterwards, a lot of us stayed around in hopes of getting to meet cast members. I first met Steffan Donnelly who played Roderigo who was kind enough to talk with me about the show, my journey, and my time in England so far. About 40 minutes later, Andre Holland (Othello) and Aaron Pierre (Cassio). We spoke to them about working in theater (specifically in England and in Shakespeare) as people of color, as well as how much we loved the show and how sad we were that our time in England was coming to a close. We spent another 20/30 minutes talking with Andre, Aaron, and other members of the cast at the actors pub that was connected to the theater. Though some of us stayed in London for the night, I decided to go ahead and take the bus back home. When my friends and I got back to Oxford we stopped by the food truck and hit the bed, reflecting on how incredible our day turned out to be.