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Show '94 Festival hailed as a great success o the people of this small southern Utah town, it a lmost seems old hat now. The Utah Shakespearean Festival has been opening without incident and to nearly universal acclaim for 33 years now; so, when it happened again this summer, no one was surprised. However, the same can 't be said of the thousands of theatre and Shakespeare fans who travel hundreds of miles to take part in what has become one of the most famous Shakespearean festivals in the country. It isn't old hat to them. "I can't remember a time when I've bad such universal exclamations from the audience, just spontaneously coming up to be after a show and saying how wonderful it was," said Fred C. Adams, festiva l founder and executive producer. "People from nearly every state in the union, as well as foreign countries, have attended the plays so far this summer; and it doesn't matter where people come from-they love Shakespeare and the Utah Shakespearean Festival." Th e Festival opened six plays in six nights from June 27 to July 2 and has now settled into its regular repertory cycle of presenting twenty shows each week, as well as thrice-weekly presentations of The Royal Feaste (an evening of medieval dining and entertainment), the nightly G reenshow, daily backstage tours, and a host of seminars, workshops, concerts, and classes. The plays this season (which will run through September 3) are William Shakespeare's As You Like It and Richard III and Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday in the outdoor Adams Shakespearean Theatre and Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, and Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire in the indoor Randall L. Jones T heatre. "In many ways our preparation and opening of the season this summer has gone more smoothly than ever before, 11 continued Adams. "That doesn't mean it isn ' t a Hercul ean task to open six plays in six nights, but we have a marvelous group of nearly 300 design ers, technicians, and actors who have pulled this off with no major hitches." Managing Director R. Scott Phillips agrees: "With the caliber of performers we were able to assemble this year, this is probably the strongest overall season we've don e in a number of years, if not the strongest ever. We have been fortunate in the past several seasons to hire not only actors of quality, but actors who are more mature, so what audiences see on stage are people who have had life experiences and are brining those to the roles they're playing." "I don' t think we've ever had a better season," continued Adams. "These are six extraordinary shows. There is not a sh ow that I would not recommend. " Adams is especially proud of the Festival's production of A Streetcar Named Desire: "I don't think we've ever-not even with such shows as Death of a Salesman (1991) and A Glass T Kate Fuglei as Raymonde Chandebuise in a scene from the Utah Shakespearean Festival production of 'A Flea in Her Ear.' (CONTINUED ON PAGE 3) |