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Show Douglas Cook, Festival Hero in Background the original companies of the Piper Players In Pennsylvania Pennsylvan-ia and the Los Gatos Repertory Reper-tory Company in California. She appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse under the direction of Gilmore Brown and has had professional experience In radio ra-dio and television. The Cook sons have both apeared in Festival production, produc-tion, with Peter credited with performances in the 1966 pro duction of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and the 1967 ver- sions of "Hamlet" and "Com- edy of Errors." Stephen is this year appearing in "Romeo a and Juliet." 4 The current Festival season 3 will end August 3 with the final production of "Romeo S and Juliet." Other plays com- pleting the season are "Mer- chant of Venice" and "As You $ Like It." r 3 'j W i : &.s i DOUGLAS COOK Behind every worthwhile venture there is usually at least one unsung hero. The Utah Shakespearean Festival is no exception. In this case, the name of Douglas Cook comes to mind for the reason that no Festival performance could go on without him, and yet he is rarely seen by any-one any-one except those working behind be-hind the scenes. Mr. Cook is associate pro-ducer pro-ducer and design director for the Festival, a position he has occupied for three years. His work involves year around effort ef-fort since part of his responsibility respon-sibility is the design of brochures, bro-chures, posters, programs, and stationery for Festival promotion. promo-tion. However, his major concern is the setting of the Festival itself and all that goes into making it authentic and eye appealing. Mr. Cook has the duty each year of seeing that the set is constructed on time and that each prop item of scenery is ready as needed. Evidence of his skill is apparent ap-parent in the beautiful backgrounds back-grounds he provides for the stage action without detracting detract-ing from the basic realism of the Elizabethan tiring house set. Mr. Cook brought to the Fes-tival Fes-tival an impressive background back-ground of experience acquired acquir-ed from teaching assignments and work in the legitimate theatre. During the regular school year, he is scenic designer de-signer and associate professor of drama at the University of California at Riverside. He has recently designed productions produc-tions of "The Skin of our Teeth," "Medea," and "Romeo and Juliet." He also directed and designed the premier production pro-duction of "Isabel" by Lillian Hara. Ha is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Stanford University, and studied stud-ied painting and design at the Lester Polakov Studio of Scenic Scen-ic Design in New York City. For several years he has directed dir-ected the Millbrae Players and the Peninsula C h i 1 d r e n' s Theatre in the San Francisco Bay area. He has been a guest director and designer at the Palo Alto Community Theatre and served as scenic consultant for the Eugene O'Neill O'-Neill Memorial Theatre in Connecticut. During a sabbatical sab-batical leave last year, Mr. Cook visited each of the major ma-jor Shakespearean Festivals tn the American Continent. If' In addition to his ongoing assignment as Festival design director, Mr. Cook is working on plans for a permanent Utah Shakespearean Festival Theatre. The Festival has become a family affair with the Cooks, involving Mrs. Cook, the former for-mer Joan Buechner, and sons Peter 10, and Stephen 8. Mrs. Cook is vocal coach for the Festival company and contributes contri-butes to the productions techniques tech-niques acquired through an impressive educational and professional background. She received degrees from San Jose State College and Stanford Stan-ford University, where she studied with noted theatre educators ed-ucators James Clancy, Ward Rasmus, and F. Cowles Strickland. Strick-land. She was a member of |