As we near the end of our time here at BYU, we've examined the way we've spent our free time during our undergraduate careers, and found something lacking. For instance, the Harris Fine Arts Center (or HFAC, for those familiar with BYU shorthand) offers several plays per semester at discount prices. We've lost count of the number of movie-date-nights we've held, but can count on one hand the number of theatrical productions we've enjoyed. We decided to do something about it...
One evening, with time on our hands and ambition to culture-ify ourselves, we decided to walk up to the art museum and look at the new Islamic Art exhibit. En route, we passed through the HFAC and decided it was high time we bought a ticket to a play or something (that's how one culture-ifies oneself ... by attending plays). I walked up to the ticket counter, asked for two tickets for a March 24th showing of "Love's Labors Lost" (a Shakespeare). The guy behind the counter asked "Do you want to see the play right now? I have free tickets ...". Jessica and I looked at each other, and in that split second glance our entire evening's plans changed. I said "We'll take them". He handed us the tickets and we walked into the play, having missed the first couple of minutes and not paid a cent.
The play was set in the 1940's, and besides the novelty of hearing Shakespeare's lines in a Chicago accent, there was a live band playing classics like "Pennsylvania 6 5000".Our other recent Shakespeare experience left the realm of glamorous tuxedos and the greatest generation and entered the psychedelic. Love's Labors Lost was done in a main-floor auditorium of the HFAC. Our newest experience led us down into the bowels of the HFAC, several floors down to where the stairs don't go any deeper. This, my friends, is where the truly artsy people go, and your average bioinformatician hasn't the nerve to stray. But Jessica and I courageously walked (hand in cold-sweaty hand) into an arena theater to attend "The Comedy of Errors" set in the 1960s, and done in the style of Bob Fosse. It was hilarious, mostly due to the physical comedy, expertly carried out by a long, gangly fellow with a champagne glass and mustache.
After extracting ourselves from the bowels of the HFAC, we walked home with "The Time of the Season" by the Zombies stuck in our heads, and a new-found appreciation for disco balls.Perhaps our nerdiest venture into the HFAC (if you can believe it gets nerdier) was to attend the BYU hosted TEDx event. If you're familiar with TED talks (an organization that publicizes short talks by creative and successful speakers on a wide range of topics), then TEDx is just an independently organized TED event. This one, hosted by BYU, featured invited speakers and accomplished students on the topics of social entrepreneurship, solutions journalism, and how to be successful. Jessica got free tickets by volunteering at the registration desk, and it was a special treat because one of the speakers was a good friend of ours from Cinnamon tree, named Wilfried Eyi, from Gabon, Central Africa.
