The requested URL /~rootslink/cgi-bin/search.cgi?category=6 was not found on this server.Let friends in your social network know what you are reading aboutTwitterGoogle+LinkedInPinterestPosted!A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Log InSubscribed, but don't have a login?Activate your digital access.Take a tour of the new Hancher AuditoriumxEmbed AutoPlayChuck Swanson walked into the new Hancher Auditorium Tuesday afternoon and saw the massive bright gray curtain rise from the stage for the first time."That must have been installed just today," Swanson, executive director of Hancher, said standing in the orchestra seating level, looking up at the curtain as it rose inside the 1,800-seat auditorium filled with silver-green padded chairs, eight sets of gallery seats above the orchestra level and two massive balconies above it all.It's been a long time coming for Swanson, Hancher employees and Iowa City for the curtain to rise again: 1,078 days since the demolition of the University of Iowa's original Hancher started on Sept. 24, 2013, more than 2,800 days since the June crest of the 2008 flood damaged the original building beyond repair.

It took 250 workers over 1 million hours of labor, even during the winter of 2013 and 2014 that featured temperatures of -32 degrees Swanson said, but Hancher is officially ready for a close-up.Just days away from its ribbon cutting on Friday, when Hancher Auditorium will be open to the public for the first time, Swanson gave a guided tour to media Tuesday, through the auditorium, the dressing rooms and rehearsal rooms.With an innumerable amount of detail making up the $176 million construction project, one number stood out the most to Swanson: 14,000. That's the number of stainless steel panels, 9,000 of which are one-of-a-kind sizes, that build the curved exterior of Hancher, what Swanson called a "360-degree building" that has "no back sides."IOWA CITY PRESS CITIZENHancher Auditorium 2016-17 seasonLast SlideNext SlideThose concerned about future flooding may find one other number more satisfying than any other: Hancher's new stage is 13 feet higher than the old stage. The entire building is 7 feet above the Iowa River's 500-year flood level, according to a Hancher fact sheet from the University of Iowa.A quick glance outside the massive windows that line all sides of Hancher reveals the site of the old Hancher, which was opened in 1972 with a performance by New Orleans' Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Some 44 years later, the same group will perform on Sept. 16 with Trombone Shorty as the first concert at the new building."Then we will have a season like none other," Swanson said.Featuring 32 events over nine months, including Broadway smash hits like "Mama Mia!" and "The Book of Mormon" and numerous performances by world-renowned dance and musical groups, ticket sales have been "strong across the board," said Rob Cline, director or marketing and communications.cream eyelet curtains argosTo make sure all the patrons who will soon be filling Hancher are happy — and well-fed — Swanson said Hancher will employ 150 to 200 UI students to be ushers, concierges, coat-checkers and more. debenhams blue eyelet curtainsThey will also help run the four permanent concession stands inside.curtains glasswells

The Stanley Cafe, which will act as Hancher's biggest food provider, stands on the second level and features what Swanson said was "one of the best views in the Midwest." Either looking out the wall-sized windows or standing on the balcony, patrons can soak in sights of downtown Iowa City, the sprawling green space around Hancher, the Iowa River and the Iowa River Trail.Open before, during and after shows, and every Thursday night from 5 to 7 p.m. starting in October, Swanson said Stanley Cafe is also available for rent as an event venue for parties of up to 200 people.threshold shower curtain blue crinkleThe details that make up Hancher come from many sources, Swanson said. sanderson nadia curtainsDesign firm Pellie Clarke Pelli Architects, OPN Architects, Mortenson Construction, Hancher staff, UI staff, community members and more."suedine curtains

Everybody was so collaborative," Swanson said. "We all had our 2 cents in the design of Hancher, and that obviously paid off for everyone.", or follow him on Twitter at @ZacharyBerg. What: Hancher ribbon cutting.Where: Hancher Auditorium, 141 E. Park Road.When: The ribbon will be cut at 3 p.m., the open house will run with guided tours throughout Hancher until 7 p.m.Cost: This event is free and open to the public. Over 50 percent: The original Hancher Auditorium was ruled to have damage over 50 percent of its value in February 2009, leading to its closure and eventual demolition.18 months: The time it took to establish a site plan for the new Hancher.30 months: The time it took to fully design Hancher. tips hemming ikea curtains59 applications: The number of applications received for the design architecture job, which went to Pellie Clarke Pelli Architects.27,000 square feet: The amount of cypress wood used for both the interior and exterior ceilings. 

191,977 square feet: The total size of Hancher. 115 feet: The greatest distance between one seat and the stage inside Hancher Auditorium.50: The number of performances Hancher will host each year.Article Not Supported We're sorry but this article contains media that is not currently supported in this app. If you are not redirected automatically, click this link.... Melania Trump Files Libel Lawsuit Seeking $150 Million Opinion Journal: Russian Dissidents at Risk Opinion Journal: Senator Warren’s Racial Grandstanding Kwai: The Video App for Small-Town China A Drone Tour of China's Rusting ShipyardsLOS ANGELES — Priyanka Chopra had a problem: what to do with the light.The actress, singer and latest in a long line of bombshell models for the clothing line Guess was standing in a walk-in closet in the penthouse suite of the Beverly Wilshire hotel, preparing for a photo shoot. “Maybe if we shot it like this,” she said, pushing sheer curtains aside and posing, Bond-girl like, in the sheet of sunlight that streamed through a floor-to-ceiling window (yes, the closet had a window; it also was bigger than some bedrooms).“

Good lighting is something that I know now, out of experience,” she said with a shrug.Ms. Chopra, 31, tall and sultry, has been photographed and filmed enough times, appearing in more than 40 Bollywood movies since 2002, that such tricks of the trade have become second nature. She travels with an entourage (“When we walk into a room, it’s like ‘Ocean’s Twelve,’ ” she said of “Team P.C.”) and knows, without the aid of a mirror, when her dark, lustrous hair has been teased to just the right height.And yet, while Ms. Chopra is one of India’s biggest stars, she can eat lunch on a busy Los Angeles sidewalk and not be approached by a single selfie-seeking fan. This may be about to change, though.“I knew instantly that I wanted to photograph her for Guess,” Paul Marciano, a founder of the company, wrote in an email, referring to his first meeting with Ms. Chopra last spring. “Priyanka is extremely talented and accomplished, and her wonderful personality comes through in her photographs.”

She also represents a major market that she and many of her collaborators believe is ripe for a pop-culture idol of its own. “Apart from her natural charisma,” Mr. Marciano wrote, “she’s one of the most recognized and celebrated talents in India and international cinema,” which factored into Guess’s decision to cast her in its campaign. Ms. Chopra said: “For me, the proudest thing about it was being someone of ethnicity to break the quintessential bombshell mode. That girl has changed. She can be from anywhere.” In addition to the Guess campaign, which she celebrated at a Paper magazine party with the designer Prabal Gurung last month, Ms. Chopra is also making a pop music album with RedOne, a producer who’s worked with Jennifer Lopez and Nicki Minaj.Already, she’s put out “Exotic,” a Miami Beach-appropriate ditty with the rapper Pitbull. The music video, in which Ms. Chopra shimmies and shakes in a half-dozen sequined, strappy outfits, has been viewed more than 30 million times on YouTube.Her first single, “In My City,” was the theme song for the 2013 season of the NFL Network’s Thursday-night games;

her next is an electronic-music remake of the Bonnie Raitt ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” “No one from my country has ever done pop music internationally,” Ms. Chopra said. “I want to do things that haven’t been done before, I want to create opportunities for people to come after me and say, ‘O.K., now we can do this too.’ ”Trailblazing, a word Ms. Chopra is fond of, usually includes navigating rough terrain.“In one part of the world, I’m one of the top actors in the country, and in another part of the world, I’m a complete newcomer,” she said. “That’s scary for me.”As a child, she said, she and her family moved all over India because her father was a surgeon in the army, and she found herself having to make new friends every two years. Her father also pushed her to take singing lessons, which she began when she was 3.“In school, I was the one they sent on stage when they wanted to win an award,” she said.At 13, Ms. Chopra visited her mother’s sister in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and fell in love with American culture.

A guidance counselor at her cousin’s high school persuaded her to stay and enroll there while her mom returned home. To hear Ms. Chopra tell the story, it’s as if she were deciding whether to go to the grocery store. “It was a whim,” she said.High school was not as easy as Ms. Chopra imagined. (She compares it to the movie “Mean Girls.”)“I would pick up a packet of chips and go to the bathroom and eat because I was so afraid to go to the cafeteria, where everyone had their own friends and cliques,” she said. After traveling around the United States with her mother’s family, she returned to India at 17 and was planning a career in aeronautical engineering when her mother sent a few glamour shots to the Miss India beauty pageant. Ms. Chopra went on to win the Miss World title in 2000. “I was petrified,” she said of her pageant experience (though a grainy YouTube video suggests otherwise). “I didn’t know how to walk in heels and wear a massive gown. I just wanted it to be over.”

But Bollywood movie offers and product endorsement deals began flooding in, and, as Ms. Chopra put it, “I went from being a geek to a geek’s fantasy.”She easily warmed to acting; cross-disciplinary pop stardom was another matter. Anjula Acharia-Bath, a founder of DesiHits, a media company that caters to the South Asian market, said that she “totally had to stalk” Ms. Chopra to let her know that she and Jimmy Iovine, a founder of Interscope records who has helped develop the careers of such stars as Lady Gaga and Eminem, were interested in making an album with her.Ms. Acharia-Bath said she was drawn to Ms. Chopra’s western sensibility, with a predilection for top-40 hits and 1990s hip-hop, and the fact that she could sing didn’t hurt. “I was trying to call her for months,” Ms. Acharia-Bath said. “She told me she was filming in the middle of some jungle, and I thought that was her way of pushing me off.”For a woman who never coveted international stardom, Ms. Chopra appears entirely comfortable on its cusp.

At a January recording studio session with Nick Cannon, she bopped around in a leather miniskirt and black stilettos, unselfconsciously singing along to a hip-hop beat, showing no signs of a migraine that she said had confined her to bed for most of the day.And she displayed a spirit of saucy, old Hollywood glamour. Talking about the Indian paparazzi’s interest in her personal life, she said, “I make sure I don’t have too much to hide.” She added conspiratorially, “And if I do, I make sure I hide it really well,” throwing her head back with a throaty laugh. Beneath Ms. Chopra’s confident, cool exterior, though, there are doubts, she says. She admitted that it’s hard to build a western fan base while persuading her Indian supporters that she is not abandoning them. (With many Bollywood films in the works, she sometimes toggles between Hindi and English when tweeting to her 5.5 million followers.) In making her album, she said, she struggles with the fear of: “What if I don’t get it right away?