Utah Shakespeare Festival turns 50

Summary:

Utah Shakespeare Festival:

• business owners worried in the early 1960s that the proposed Interstate 15 would divert tourists from Cedar City
• Fred C. Adams thought a theater festival might encourage passing tourists to exit the freeway
• Adams studied the successful Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland
• in 1962, townspeople and students built sets, props, and costumes and presented three Shakespearean plays on an outdoor platform
• the festival was held on the campus of the College of Southern Utah, now Southern Utah University
• Barbara Gaddie Adams, wife of Fred Adams and music director for the festival for decades, died in 2007