The costume shop at the Utah Shakespearean Festival

Here are pictures of my new home. I spend about 9 hours a day here, and really love the work that goes on here. It can be challenging, stressful and busy, but overall, it has been an amazing experience. I have learned how to do all sorts of things and have now spend about 5 hours at the storage location with beautiful costumes. Life is good!This is the room that I work in with 4 other people. We are the 5 working on Much Ado about Nothing.

Dear Cedar City,

I like you so much. You have nice big apartments with washing machines and private bathrooms. You have beautiful mountains. You have quaint little shops. You have the Utah Shakespearean Festival and a glorious costume shop. You have nice people who have come from all over the U.S. to make marvelous theater. You have beautiful places to go running. But best of all, you are only 3 hours from the people that I love most in the world.

sincerely,

Landen

Inspiration

I have not talked about Costume Designing for a while, (perhaps a few of you appreciated that)but since my personal life is none too interesting right now, I want to return there for a few minutes. Like many professional fields, research plays a huge part in costume design. It tells you what time period you are dealing with, what happened, what influenced clothing, who the important people are, what clothing looked like for certain classes of people ect. In addition to that, the designer has to know what the show is going to look like overall, before the show ever goes up. I am designing an anachronistic (without a time period) show, but because of limited resources, it will probably have a futuristic/stylized contemporary feel... If I can get everything to work out right. But one of the exciting things that I get to do in the field of research, is look through hundreds of magazine images to find the images that will best convey my concept, and then show them to the director in order to be corrected on the points where my research doesn't match up with the feel that the she is creating. Here are a few samples of what I have been doing the past few days:

A Lazy Sunday

My two sleepy companions on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Saying Goodbye...

(me, Megan, Lisa, Katelyn, Tracy, Michele, Jessie)

I have never had trouble saying goodbye. At the end of High School, I was ready to leave, at the end of my marathon Church History trip after my senior year, I was ready to say goodbye, even the end of my freshman year I was ready to say goodbye. Every-time a romantic relationship ended, I have been able to walk away without too much regret... but not this time. On Wednesday, I said goodbye to all 6 of my roommates and best friends. We have been friends since my freshman year, and we have lived together, eaten together, studied together, gone to church together, confided in each other, played together, and been stressed together for last two years. That has now come to an end, as 2 of them leave for missions in the next two months, and 2 more of them are probably going on missions in the fall... It is a little weird and very sad to look back at those two wonderful years and know that they are over forever. Never again will we all live together, share food, and the same bathroom. Like anything, life moves on and I do as much as anyone. Goodbye Apt #208 and its wonderful memories! I will not forget you.

More Fancy-Shmancy Events

My life at BYU is rarely this exciting with two big event posts in a row, however on Saturday, I went to Dining Out, the ROTC for the Airforce's big end of the year dinner and dance. It is a VERY formal event. All men are required to wear their uniforms, bring a date, give that date a corsage, as well as never leave that date unattended. At dinner they have a tradition of 'the grog.' This word strikes terror into the hearts of every cadet there because it is a toilet bowl filled with a revolting combination of things that they have to drink if they break a dining hall rule or have failed to dress correctly. Last night was a virtual grog fest. Apparently there were a lot of rule breakers who attended last night. Apparently some of the cadets were unaware of the 'white dress shirt for formal dinners rule...' At any rate, there was a lovely dinner, an excellent speaker and a very fun dance afterwards. There was also a sinfully delicious chocolate cake!

Me and my date, Jordan Holmes... too bad I am wearing 3 inch high heels and he is still almost a foot taller than me...

Table # 28 - the crowns were because they are all graduating this year... Yes, they did get grogged for breaking dress code:)

A Night at the Country Club

Yesterday afternoon I got a rather strange text message from one of my friends. It said, "I would like to cordially invite you to a formal high society meeting tonight at 10PM." I was not quite sure what this meant, so I asked him what this 'high society meeting' was all about. He replied that the society "is just a fraternity dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and the celebration of truth." How often do you get a text message like that? I was intrigued. So I accepted my invitation with honor and was prepared in my best country club attire at 9:55PM (please note that he would have called to invite me had he not been in class from 2 until 9PM).

He escorted me to his house where other couples in fancy dress were arriving. There were chocolate mint pirouette cigars, and wine goblets with pineapple juice and jackets were required. The official weekly meeting began and after introducing those of us who were new, the men sang the official high society song, written by my date. Then came general announcements and then we had a 10 minute or so discussion on what we give value in our society. Then, we danced. Not just ordinary dancing, but these boys knew how to dance. Swing dancing, waltzing, the foxtrot and more. The songs chosen included Bobby Darren, Frank Sinatra, and other famous old artists. It was a night full of class. And I felt sort of like this... but without the lace.