An IU Addition!

This week was mid-term, and therefore, quite chaotic.  I didn't have any tests, but did have loads of projects.  Two rendering projects: a movement piece based on the Seven Deadly Sins and an upbeat musical called "The June Wedding." Each meant to give us practice using colored pencil on different colored paper, which is super cool!  A design project: 12 designs for the show of our choosing, in my case, "Blithe Spirit" by Noel Coward.  And I may or may not have finished my weekly draping project on time... it's okay, we get one free pass.  I apologize for not having anything to show for all my work... just know that at some point this summer I will have a very nicely updated online portfolio for you all to see.


Ben mentioned last week that I started fittings for "Waiting for Lefty" (or did I start them this week?  I don't know anymore...).  In any case, those continued throughout the week.  Since the show is through the community college rather than IU, I do all work for the show outside of my assistantship hours (the hours I work in the costume shop).  I am learning how valuable it is to have a pre-established shop because, even though Robbie - the IU costume shop manager - is letting me use the fitting rooms and stuff, I really am starting from scratch as an all-in-one designer-stitcher-wardrobe-manager.

All that to say, it's been crazy but it ended on such a good note - not only because it's Spring Break, but because we were visited by our dear friend, Mara!

 You can't really see it but the word BLOOMINATED was written in chalk next to where she's sitting.

You may remember that we saw Mara in Chicago because she auditioned at U/RTAs. Well, she was called back to IU and they asked her to visit campus!  She came out Thursday night and stayed until Sunday morning; it was a blast!  Friday she had her interviews and was offered a spot in the acting program on the spot!  We are very excited that she will be joining us out here.  What a small and wonderful world we live in.

Now for pictures!

On Saturday, we took the opportunity to (finally) visit the campus art museum which is literally right next door to the theatre building.

It is definitely nothing to sneeze at.  The building itself is fascinating: there isn't a single right angle anywhere.  It makes the stairs... a trip.  They have a really lovely exhibition of Western art from Medieval to Modern. 

 Market in Campo San Polo, Venice by Giacomo Favretto

An engraving by Reginald Marsh.  Part of his series: Thirty Etching and Engravings which I really enjoyed.

That was the only exhibition we could get through (I believe there is currently one other exhibition) because we were hungry!  We decided to take Mara to the Runcible Spoon; a charming restaurant with book-laden shelves lining the walls and a fish tank in the bathroom.  The service can be questionable, but it's mostly ok and the food is delicious!  Our waitress took about 907 pictures from various angles.

Mara and I had decided from the beginning of the trip that we wanted to visit some thrift stores in town.  There happens to be about four in the downtown area.  We only made it to one.  It's a really good one called Cactus Flower.  Downstairs is a modern boutique that is actually quite reasonably priced, and upstairs is the vintage section.

This adorable skirt came from the $1-$5 bin at only $3!

That evening we took Mara to the Irish Lion, one of our favorite places and our traditional Opening Night post-show stop.  They have delicious Irish cuisine.  Our regular waiter, Brad, recently moved away, so we auditioned a new guy, Josh.  We think he'll do pretty well.  He's much more talkative, which is fine by us.

Mara left Sunday morning and we went on to give talks in church.  After that we had one of the most successful hours teaching Primary - I think the kids are finally coming around to us!

After church we were off to work on a short film with a couple from our ward, Jake and Erica, and another gentleman from church, Glen.  Jake wrote the script for fun, I think, and is now filming it for a class.  The story is that this group of people were unwitting extras in a Transformers-type film and were injured in a bus accident (a Transformer-type robot ripped the bus apart) during filming.  Now, the victims are suing the production company.  Ben's been helping Jake edit the script.  I got to be a part of the fun by filming portions!

Ben as a hipster victim.

Erica greeting her clients.

Camera-girl wearing another fabulous Cactus Flower vintage find!

That evening we were invited over for a desert party at the home of another couple-friend from church, the Madsens.  There's a funny story about how we unknowingly called Tyler by the name Scott for the first month of our friendship, but we're past that now.  It was a really nice group of people that we look forward to get to know more.  It turns out it was the Madsen's second anniversary!  We felt very special that they wanted to include us in their celebration.  We were the only couple without little children... so we joked that they were really just having a baby-vention for us.