Acting its age: Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City is still golden at 50

Summary:

beginning of Utah Shakespeare Festival:

• Fred Adams remembers mapping out the festival in 1959 with his late wife
• “I had a beautiful little white 1955 Ford Thunderbird. Barbara and I sat there with a little yellow legal pad talking about what we would want it to be.” (Fred Adams, founder and executive producer emeritus of the Utah Shakespeare Festival)
• Adams visited leading Shakespeare festivals in San Diego, California; Stratford, Connecticut; Ashland, Oregon; and Ontario, Canada, and spent hours talking with their founders.
• Adams stepped down from day-to-day management of the festival in 2005
   

first season of Utah Shakespeare Festival:

• ran two weeks in 1962
• a makeshift outdoor stage was built by the acting company between rehearsals
• shows: “Hamlet,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and “The Merchant of Venice”
• performed for 3,276 total patrons

Adams Shakespearean Theatre:

• outdoor theater constructed in 1977
• closely replicates the Globe Theatre of Shakespeare’s day