Wyoming. Forever West!

Last week AFTLS went West to Laramie, Wyoming to find big skies, snowy mountains, more cowboys, and sell-out crowds.

The University of Wyoming students and local community filled the 375 seat Buchanan Theatre. The enthusiasm and energy pulsing through the Theatre Department at the university is immediately obvious. Leigh Selting and his team clearly do a great job at engaging both the university and the wider community with the Theatre program, and it was fantastic to see this reflected in audience numbers on both Friday and Saturday night.

I thoroughly enjoyed my double session with Leigh’s Junior and Senior Scene Study group on Tuesday and Thursday. It was great to have two sessions with the same group and to have students explore some of the findings from the first session in some speech work on Thursday.

Nature figured large this week, surrounded, as we were, by huge open vistas. I spent some of Sunday afternoon sitting in Saratoga Hot Springs talking with a couple of locals about how the crows had returned to Wyoming in the last week…thus heralding the slow start of Spring. It struck me how very (very!) far this was from my London world where Spring means a lighter coat, an umbrella, and maybe some daffodils for the dining room table. It got me thinking about how geography affects thought and character. Laramie is certainly a terrifically individual town, full of antique shops and cafes (quite frankly the best coffee of the tour was at Coal Creek!). Does the geographical space mean that there’s more mental space available for reflection and individual expression? Psychogeography or psychobabble? Discuss.

 — Orlando, As You Like It, Act 3 Sc 2.