Celebrating 65 Years: Shakespeare and the Fluffy Bundle
By Ryan Paul, guest writer and Festival Orientation/Seminar Moderator
Walt Disney, at the height of his popularity, advised his animators to “remember that it all started with a mouse.” In the case of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, it all started in a laundromat. In the spring of 1960, Fred Adams, a young (and the only) drama professor at the College of Southern Utah sat with his fiancée Barbara Gaddie in the Fluffy Bundle Laundromat and on a yellow note pad designed their dream. The notes on that pad would become the blueprint for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. The events that culminated with this Fluffy Bundle planning session had taken root years before.
Fred Adams had begun to build a successful drama program that the Cedar City, Utah, community enthusiastically supported and which would eventually evolve into the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Coming from a family that actively encouraged his dramatic ambitions, Fred brought some of the biggest shows of the New York theater scene to rural Southern Utah and its small college. The only looming difficulty became the cost of continually purchasing royalty rights for newer shows. The solution: produce Shakespeare. The plays of William Shakespeare existed in the public domain, so no royalties needed.
Fred had spent a few weeks in the summer of 1959 living with friends in Ashland, Oregon. There he developed a life-long friendship with Angus Bowmer, the founder of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Fred spent all his time taking notes, watching rehearsals, and sketching sets. He began to notice similarities between Ashland and Cedar City. Both were similar in size, had small junior colleges, and were surrounded by scenic wonder. If a Shakespeare festival could work in Ashland, Oregon, why not Cedar City, Utah?
In 1960, Fred took his college acting company on a barnstorming tour of rural Utah and Nevada. They performed Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit in cultural halls and rented auditoriums to great acclaim. This cast became the foundation for the first Festival productions.
The pieces began to fall together. Fred and Barbara wanted to stay in Cedar City. Shakespeare worked in the community. The drama program had expanded and the students were enthusiastic. However, there were some storm clouds on the horizon. Cedar City had begun to suffer some economic troubles. The iron mines, which had brought large amounts of tax revenue into the city and county coffers, were beginning to close.
Additionally, the proposed route of the new Interstate 15 bypassed Cedar City by over 15 miles to the west. If the freeway did not have an interchange in Cedar City, it would be a devastating blow to the local business community.
Fred and Barbara envisioned a Shakespearean festival that would draw tourists into the community––tourists that would stay in motels, eat at restaurants, buy gas for their cars, and shop in the local stores. A festival could provide leverage for bringing the freeway closer and making Cedar City a destination point for travelers. Shakespeare could help Cedar City survive. Fred and Barbara took the ideas written on the yellow note pad, finished their laundry, and set to work.
Since it’s inaugural season sixty-five years ago, the Utah Shakespeare Festival has evolved from three plays over two weekends on a temporary stage into an internationally recognized, Tony Award-winning theatre company. The Festival now presents in three diverse theaters, eight plays in repertory through the summer and fall bringing quality professional theater to hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.
