OCR Text |
Show M UCH ADO ABOUT PLENTY AT SHAKESPEAREAN FESTIVAL- August 1 will be highlighted by a birthday party and reunion for past company members, with a focus on . the Festival company of the first year, 1962. Birthday party guests will receive a special invitation to attend thatevening's performance of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Following the annual "Bard's Banquet," opening night ceremonies featuring Utah Governor and Mrs. Scott Matheson, Dr. and Mrs. Obert C. Tanner and SUSC President and Mrs. Orville Carnahan as well as other valuable Festival friends will be highlighted by a "State of the Festival" address by Producing Director Fred Adams outlining progress of the last 20 years and expectations and plans for the next twenty years. All evening activities begin with the traditional director's orientation to the play being presented that night. This orientation begins at 7 p.m. and is cent page 9 IV, PART I, Jensen will continue the historical trilogy with HENRY IV, PART II in 1982 and HENRY V in 1983. This integrated approach will offer audiences the opportunity to follow the development of Prince Hal from a wanton and reckless youth into a responsible and effective king of England.These plays also delight audiences with the character of Falstaff, one of the most memorable ever created by Shakespeare, the "liar without malice. . .and most irrepressible of mortals." OPENER: MUCH ADO Festival opener for 1981 will be MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, a comedy bursting with the Bard's best humor and wisdom. Leslie Reidel, who directed last season's extremely well-received well-received Festival production of MEASURE FOR MEASURE, will return to produce this season's "joyous comedy", a tale of eavesdropping, mistaken identities and those who fall in love against their better judgement. Douglas N. Cook, Associate Producer for the Utah Festival, stated that with selection of this strong trio of directors the Festival is well prepared to accommodate ac-commodate the full summer of activities planned to celebrate the birthday season. "We have chosen directors who have proved themselves popular with Festival audiences, and who are able to provide expertise in . the areas of Shakespearean history, Recreation at its finest is available this summer in Cedar City when the Utah Shakespearean Festival celebrates twenty years with the Bard in Southern Utah. Highlighting the Festival summer will be three plays : MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, HAMLET AND HENRY IV, PART I. Matinee performances of THE GUARDSMAN and THE MONARCHS OF ENGLAND will complement the Shakespearean productions and combine with them to offer the largest bill of plays ever presented by the Festival. Tours, seminars, exhibits and special 20th anniversary activities will produce a "Total Festival" concept for nearly 30,000 guests expected ex-pected during the seven weeks' production season. HAMLET was selected for production during the anniversary an-niversary summer in recognition of its being the first play presented by the Festival. Again this season as in 1962, Fred C. Adams, Founding Director for the Festival, will oversee the immortal story of a peace loving man unwillingly forced to "take arms against a sea of trouble." (HAMLET was also seen by Festival audiences in 1967 and 1974.) DIRECTING CONCEPT An entirely new directing concept will be initiated this summer with HENRY IV, PART I, as Howard Jensen returns to the Festival to begin a three-year directing assignment. Following the 1981 production of HENRY tragedy and comedy. This balance has always been successful for the Festival," Cook stated, "and this summer appears to be no exception." THE GUARDSMAN, scheduled for presentation at 2 p.m. each Tuesday and Friday afternoon during the production season, is a marital comedy by Ferenc Molnar set during the last glorious days of the Austrio-Hungarian Austrio-Hungarian empire in Vienna. The play was produced last spring by the Southern Utah State College theatre department in cooperation with the Pioneer State Theatre Foundation, and toured Utah during the , spring months. Also directed by Fred C. Adams, presentation of THE GUARDSMAN at the Festival reinforces a committed goal of the Festival to bring theatre, both Shakespeare and other types, to all the people of the Intermountain area. THE MONARCHS OF ENGLAND returns for its third season in the Thorley Recital Hall, featuring this year HENRY VIII and ANNE BOLEYN. The program offers Renaissance music and dance with lavish costuming and dialogue. Audiences listen to and observe authentic Renaissance musical instruments, in-struments, including a virginal new to the Festival this summer. After the performance, interested people are invited to visit with the performers and ask questions about the instruments in-struments or the production. Steven Lundahl, Festival Music Director, and Betsy Hamilton, Greenshow Director, oversee this matinee which is presented Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. BACKSTAGE TOURS In addition to the matinees, daytime activities include backstage tours each Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 12:30 p.m., a literary seminar which may be taken for one college credit, and afternoon production seminars at 2 p.m. featuring actors, costumers, directors and various technical and production areas on different dif-ferent days of the week. The backstage tours permit participants to see behind-the-scenes workings of the Festival. The costume shop, scene shop, makeup rooms and a trip through the "tunnel" which emerges on the main stage of the theatre make the backstage visits a continuingly popular feature. The Festival Exhibit Hall will feature special photographic displays of people and plays from the first years of the F?stival; the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery will offer special exhibits during the entire Festival season and Cedar City merchants plan to welcome visitors with city-wide city-wide Festival Days Promotions. All daytime activities are scheduled to permit and encourage flexibility, allowing patrons to enjoy the Southern Utah scenery in addition to their Festival visit. REUNION PARTY The weekend of July 31 - Settings for Shakespeare authentic authentically styled Tudor playhouse in the United States! Following a visit to Cedar City by Wineman last spring, plans were finalized for the 1981 filming. A company of BBC actors, directors and technicians will be in Cedar City to film segments of HAMLET August 12 and 15. Each of the two days' filming will occur during afternoon matinees, authentically replicating the daylight conditions in which theatre companies worked during Shakespeare's time. On the evenings of August 12 and 15, prior to the Utah Shakespearean Festival productions of HAMLET, it is planned that the BBC acting company will present segments of their production exclusively for Festival audiences. TICKETS GO FAST Ticket availability for the 1981 season varies with the night. Excellent seating remains available for all Mondays, Tuesday and Wednesdays; some tickets are available for the weekend of August 27, 28 and 29. Telephone reservations are taken daily between the hours of 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Phone (801) 586-3636. The Box Office will be open daily beginning June 1. Remember also that each morning during the production season 40 reserved seats will go on sale at the Box Office at 10 a.m. These tickets are for that day's performance only, and seats are limited to four tickets per person. Tickets may also be obtained ob-tained by writing Utah Shakespearean Festival, Cedar City, Utah 84720. Please enclose full purchase price and a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your request. cont from page 8 followed by dancing on the green, Punch and Judy, madrigal singing and Elizabethan refreshments offered by costumed street sellers. The Exhibit Hall is also open from 7:15 until performance time, and Renaissance musicians perform in the Hall during this hour. At 8:15 trumpets summon playgoers to their seats, and laughter, tears and wisdom from the world's outstanding playwright begin to unfold. SETTINGS AUTHENTIC Setting for the Adams Memorial Shakespearean Theatre is part of the enchantment. en-chantment. Modeled after several famous theatres of Shakespeare's time and adapted for the lighting and comfort needs of modern audiences, the outdoor theatre is set among tall pines with an abundance of clean mountain air. It was this authentic Elizabethan styling, in fact, that attracted at-tracted the British Broadcasting Broad-casting company to the Cedar City facility. Following extensive research both in England and in Greece, Peter Wineman, a producer for the 13-segment Masterpiece Theatre series was referred to the Utah Shakespearean Festival by personnel at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Libra-ry, who suggested the Utah facility was the most |