The Tavern Set to Open in September

By Ryan D. Paul

Andrew May as The Vagabond in The Tavern.

Submitted for your approval—one Miss Cora Dick Gantt, a stenographer for the local Y.M.C.A. preparing herself to enjoy a night at the theatre. The year is 1920. The date is September 27. The play, The Tavern based upon her manuscript, The Choice of a Superman. She had sent this unsolicited work to Broadway producer Arthur Hopkins who had already produced over twenty shows, many of them huge hits. Hopkins passed on Gantt’s work, believing it too strange and unusual. However, he thought his friend George M. Cohan would find it worth a laugh or two. In fact, the very things that Hopkins distained, Cohan loved. Cohan would later say it was “the damnedest play I have every read in my life.”  However, what Miss Gantt was about to see, would have little resemblance to her original work. At this point, you would begin to hear Rod Serling’s famous voice-over, “You are travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, The Twilight Zone!”

Cohan had become strangely obsessed with Gantt’s play, especially some of her characters. According to The Actor’s Company Theatre, “He offered Gantt $40,000 for the complete rights to the play, including the right to make any revisions he deemed necessary. Gantt thought highly of her play and was opposed to alterations, but she liked $40,000 better” (The Actors Company Theatre, The Tavern Notes, http://tactnyc.org/the-tavern-notes/). Cohan tossed the original plot in the trash and started all over. In his autobiography, he refers to this plot dissection as “sprinkling the Cohan salt and pepper all over the script” (Ibid). What emerged that night on the stage became one of the first of its kind, a parody of a melodrama—in early twentieth-century speak, a burlesque. In our modern lexicon, the word burlesque has connotations of risqué behavior, but for Cohan’s generation, it meant something else. “Burlesque comes from burla, Spanish for “joke.” Comedy has always been an essential part of burlesque art, but it’s comedy of a particular kind. Burlesque is satirical, and it uses exaggeration that can be extreme” (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/burlesque). The Tavern, essentially, became a parody of many of the serious dramatic works on the stage at the time. The catch, however, was that none of this was communicated to the audience. They were left to figure out, to process, what they were seeing on the stage for themselves.

The Tavern soon became the hit of Broadway and would run for 252 performances. Life Magazine theatre critic Robert Benchley would write of opening night “There can no longer be any doubt that George M. Cohan is the greatest man in the world. Anyone who can write The Tavern and produce it as The Tavern is produced places himself automatically in the class with the gods who sit on Olympus and emit Jovian (or is it Shavian) laughter at the tiny tots below on earth.  In fact, George M. Cohan’s laughter is much more intelligent than that of any god I ever heard of. . . . Every line and situation in it can be either serious or burlesque, according to the individual powers of discernment of the listener.  In the second act even the most naive of the newspaper writers felt the force of the burlesque and commented on it indulgently" (http://davecol8.tripod.com/id37.htm).

The Tavern takes place on a dark and stormy night (how’s that for melodrama) in a remote tavern. A wild wind blows in all sorts of oddball characters—a mysterious vagabond, who delights in the theatrics that surround the night’s events, a damsel in distress, with a mysterious past, a politician, his daughter, and her fiancé. A thief is on the loose, suspicions abound, and no one is who they seem! The Vagabond soon became Cohan’s favorite character and when original actor Arthur Daly left the show, “Cohan himself stepped in, turning the Vagabond into one of his most celebrated roles. He performed on Broadway for over a year, and continued playing the role on tour afterwards. Recognizing a virtuoso comic role to die for, Cohan revived the play ten years later in 1930, reprising his role. Even at the end of his career, Cohan couldn’t escape The Tavern, and his last completed show was a 1940 sequel called The Return of the Vagabond” (The Actors Company Theatre).

This fall, in true Cohan fashion, the Utah Shakespeare Festival will present a world-premiere adaptation of The Tavern adapted and directed by Joseph Hanreddy who recently helmed 2016’s production of Julius Caesar and co-adapted both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, the latter of which he directed for the Festival. This year’s production of The Tavern, is “set in Old West southern Utah. The whimsy and broadness of the comedy are such that there is only a superficial nod to accurate history.  As to specific period, Utah was a US Territory and not a state until 1896. Governors prior to 1896 were appointed by the U.S. President as part of a “spoils system” where government jobs, including Governorships, were given to supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward political victory.  Understandably, appointed governors were not always beloved of or respected by, the first settlers.” (Joseph Hanreddy, Director’s Notes, unpublished).

Hanreddy’s adaptation of The Tavern is a mash-up of local and regional history, romantic melodramas, classic Western fiction and film, the physical comedy of silent film greats such as Buster Keaton, (check out the cyclone scene in 1928’s Steamboat Bill Jr.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmyNiMjXMUw), with a little bit of Shakespeare on top. I can guarantee that as this madcap farce reaches its conclusion you will be laughing outloud.

A Living, Breathing Young Shakespeare

Quinn Mattfeld (left) as Will Shakespeare  and Jeb Burris as Ned Alleyn

By Lawrence Henley

In creating the 1998 Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love, British playwright Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia) and his screenwriting partner Marc Norman (The Aviator) sought to personify an icon: a young actor and fledgling dramatist named Will Shakespeare. Like many brilliant artists, prior to his greatest success Shakespeare was a twenty-something writer, performer, and entrepreneur, steadily rising to the top yet still struggling to fully harness his genius. Through the creativity and imagination of Stoppard and Norman, motion picture audiences were privileged to witness a living, breathing young Shakespeare that had previously been lost to time. Shakespeare in Love embodies the Bard in those formative years that spawned a creative explosion unprecedented in the history of theatre.

Indeed, through the highly lauded film, and now via the 2014 stage adaptation by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot), we become time travelers. Shakespeare in Loveprovides the vehicle whereby we are uncannily transported to witness the birth of modern theatre. Of course, the work relies on a great deal of speculation referencing the lives of Shakespeare and his colleagues, often based on unsubstantiated theories. Owing to the paucity of historical data and accounts from the Elizabethan period, the authors had little recourse to do otherwise. Still, their method provides the historical connections, whimsy, and heightened sense of the period that make this play indispensable for fans of classical theatre.

The new Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre at the Utah Shakespeare Festival is the ideal venue for a period piece such as this. Shakespeare in Love is set in the bustling red light district on the southern banks of the River Thames, the home of Shakespeare’s first theatres. While at times more fiction than fact, the play astonishingly beams us back to the year 1595. A three-year pandemic of deadly plague has recently lifted, and the wooden, tiered outdoor theatres of London have reopened. Not unlike the present day, competition for audiences and playhouse financing is cutthroat. In recreating the period, Shakespeare in Love cleverly employs an array of factual characters from Shakespeare’s everyday world. Legendary characters ranging from young Jacobean playwright John Webster to an aging Queen Elizabeth I are, to our delight, brought back to life.

At the play’s outset, one such figure, Phillip Henslowe (producer and proprietor of The Rose playhouse), is heavily in debt and under threat of violence from Fennyman, a vicious, yet witty loan shark. Henslowe is desperate to stay apace with The Curtain, the successful venue of rival actor/producer Richard Burbage (the queen’s favorite). Henslowe sorely needs a box-office hit. Enter Shakespeare’s new comedy, a work in progress. It has an peculiar working title: Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter.

From the outset, Romeo and Ethel is a vexed endeavor. Much to the horror of Mr. Henslowe, Shakespeare has suddenly and inexplicably lost his muse. To make matters worse, Henslowe’s house players, the great Ned Alleyn’s Admiral’s Men, are out touring the provinces and unavailable. Awkward timing necessitates a rough and uneven cast featuring a gnarly bunch of regulars from the tavern next door, Henslowe’s tailor, and a novelty act—Spot, the Dog.

Most pressing is the urgent need to dislodge Will’s seemingly impenetrable writer’s block. The plot and script for Romeo and Ethel is, thus far, dead on arrival, and his best ideas have been obtained over pints of beer from mentor Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, London’s reigning dramatist (Faustus, Edward II). Shakespeare in Love intimates that young Will “nicked” a fair number of ideas from Marlowe (whose untimely stabbing death vaulted Shakespeare into elite status). Marlowe advises Will to abandon his initial theme and characterization. A reimagined Ethel becomes Juliet, the comedy morphs into tragicomedy, and the dog becomes unemployed. Definite progress, yes, but still no flow of words out of Shakespeare’s quill. The search for inspiration has reached critical mass.

It is at this point that history and supposition collide in totality, melding into the richest blend of truth and theatrical fantasy. Crashing Burbage’s unauthorized court performance of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Will encounters a stunningly beautiful devotee of his poetry and prose, Viola De Lesseps. Lady Viola secretly desires to be a part of the theatre, but is tragically stunted by the social constraints of her era stemming from her own nobility and the ban on women as performers. In Shakespeare’s time, attendance in the playhouses by women from the upper classes was severely frowned upon. Female roles were performed exclusively by males, typically teenagers whose voices had yet to change. The edict was regulated strictly by the caustic Mr. Tylney, London’s corrupt Master of the Revels.

Undaunted, Viola is determined to audition for a part in Shakespeare’s next play. Donning male dress she becomes “Thomas Kent.” Her natural ability and poetic depth stuns the writer. Intoxicated by her oration, Will is baffled as she flees the stage in panicked response to his unnerving request to remove her hat, concealing the hair and face of a woman. Shakespeare’s hot pursuit of Thomas instead results in a breathtaking encounter with Lady Viola, in natural dress. Afterward, their clandestine meeting becomes the inspiration for what is to become Romeo and Juliet’s famed balcony scene.

A passionate love affair ensues, sparking a creative epiphany for the playwright. Will and Viola’s torrid romance becomes the metaphor for the resulting play within a play. It is, however, a doomed relationship. Viola, in the businesslike fashion typical of the period, has been promised by her wealthy parents to the steely Earl of Wessex, an ambitious seeker of fortune and no lover of poetics. In blind disregard of hopelessness for a future together, Viola (as Thomas) is cast as Romeo. Mercifully, the Admiral’s Men and their marquee player Ned Alleyn return to London. Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the company births a play for the ages.

Romeo and Juliet becomes a new high watermark in dramatic literature, perhaps the greatest romantic tale of all-time. And, for the fictional purposes of Shakespeare in Love, the gender barrier in Elizabethan Theatre is broken. No one knows, but it is conceivable that, lost to history, one of Shakespeare’s women might have taken the stage under the guise of a male. In her powerful final speech, Queen Elizabeth strongly attests that she “knows something of a woman in a man’s profession.” 

And what of the real William Shakespeare (1564–1616)? What is the truth concerning his early life? Ironically, the life of Will Shakespeare remains in large part a tantalizing and speculative mystery. Scholars have long been frustrated in their attempts to create a complete timeline of Shakespeare’s life. Unfortunately, there are lengthy, undocumented gaps during his early years which defy explanation.

Today, he is known as the most iconic of dramatists, author of (at least) thirty-seven classic plays that have withstood the turbulence of the centuries and critics alike. Many experts rate him as the finest writer of world literature who ever lived. Doubtless, Shakespeare is the most read, performed, discussed, and written about playwright to walk the earth.

Based on the scarce evidence that still exists, several theories attempt to explain the missing years of 1585-1591 Shakespeare in Love so ambitiously seeks to fill in. Without new discoveries and information, the truth is anyone’s guess. The theories are, for the most part, pure conjecture.

Existing records show he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, April, 1564, to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was a wool merchant, a maker of fine gloves, an important town official (Stratford’s ale-taster and mayor). Mary had inherited wealth and birthed seven children (three perished prior to adolescence). William, the first to survive, was initially well-educated, but forced to quit school in the wake of John Shakespeare’s severe financial troubles. Consequently, one of the world’s greatest writers never attended college, as did many of his peers.   

Records also tell us that a nineteen-year-old Will Shakespeare was married in 1582, hastily, to a pregnant Anne Hathaway. Subsequently, there are no traces of Shakespeare from the mid-1580s until he reappears on the London scene in 1592. It is theorized that Shakespeare vanished from Stratford under the threat of imminent arrest for offenses ranging from animal poaching, tax delinquency, or conspiracy to practice Catholicism amid the strict Protestant reign of Queen Elizabeth. Some surmise that he fled Stratford, finding work as a primary schoolteacher in the North of England. Others believe he was lured to London by a touring theatre troupe, the Queen’s Men.  

Whatever the truth, Shakespeare in Love deliciously and repeatedly references gems from Shakespeare’s text. Abundant quotes and references from Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and All’s Well That Ends Well are inserted liberally. Best of all, the poignant ending engenders the creation of Will’s finest comedy, Twelfth Night. While it’s doubtful that we shall ever learn what actually transpired during Shakespeare’s lost years, we can revel in Shakespeare in Love’s marvelous reconstruction.

Q&A with Shakespeare in Love

Betsy Mugavero as Viola de Lesseps.

Creating a stage play from a movie can be fraught with problems, most notably the inclination most of us have of comparing the different genres. When the Utah Shakespeare Festival first announced it was one of three theatres in the country granted the rights to produce Shakespeare in Love, the stage play adapted from a movie, our loyal patrons were excited, but had a number of questions: “How closely does the play follow the plot of the movie?” “Will it have the magic, humor, and entertainment value of the movie?” “Who will play the leading roles?” “Will it be rated R, like the movie?”

Now that the play has been running at the Festival for over a month, the questions (we think) all have answers:

How closely does the play follow the plot of the movie?

Actually, fairly closely. There are always differences between film and live theatre, but the script (which was adapted for the stage by Lee Hall) is quite true to the general storyline: Young Will Shakespeare has writer’s block, but finances demand he have a new play—soon. Viola de Lesseps wants to break the Elizabethan prohibition of women appearing on stage by acting in one of Shakespeare’s plays—disguised as a man. Most problems are solved when Viola disguises herself as Thomas Kent and earns a role in Shakespeare’s next play and when Viola (out of costume and in her “women’s weeds”) wins Will’s heart and becomes his muse. Of course, it is much more textured than a couple of pithy sentences can describe; the plot is enhanced by transferring it to the stage with live characters and audience reactions.

Does it have the magic, humor, and entertainment value of the movie?

This question, of course, demands a subjective answer, but our audiences uniformly have loved the play, and the professional reviewers have heaped it with praise. For instance, Bruce Bennett addressed both of these questions in the St. George News: “The well-known film . . . is followed closely by Lee Hall’s brilliant stage adaptation. . . . Coupled with director Brian Vaughn’s lively direction, the Festival’s version is lighter, funnier, and overall more entertaining than the excellent movie.” Carol Cling, writing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal agrees: “Happily . . . the delightful regional premiere of Shakespeare in Love at the Utah Shakespeare Festival proves equally at home on stage. Which is more than we can say for far too many screen-to-stage transfers.”

Who is playing the leading roles?

The movie starred Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps and Joseph Fiennes as Will Shakespeare. But we (in our humble opinion) think our leading actors—and all the actors in the play—outshine any of Hollywood. Russell Warne said in his review for Utah Theatre Bloggers Association (UTBA): “What is most refreshing about Shakespeare in Love is Quinn Mattfeld’s portrayal of realistic Shakespeare.” Then, “Adding to the joy of Shakespeare in Love is Betsy Mugavero in the role of Viola de Lesseps. Her character’s giddy excitement at auditioning in disguise for a play was an endearing moment that won me over to the entire production.”

Is it rated R, like the movie?

In a word, no. We have strived to make this an accessible production for young and old, including eliminating the nudity that was in the movie. Ashley Ramsey put it succinctly for Front Row Reviewers Utah: “This show has nothing that a tween or teen (or their parents) would find objectionable.” Michelle Garrett Bulsiewicz wrote in the Deseret News: “The play removes all the nudity and other content that gave the movie its R-rating, leaving it a solid PG-13 that would still be appropriate for older children and adults. Russell Warne (UTBA) may have summed it up best: “If my children were teenagers, I would worry more about them seeing The Taming of the Shrew than Shakespeare in Love.”

So, there you have it, answers to the most common questions we have received about Shakespeare in Love. We hope you join us this summer for what is surely “a hit, a very palpable hit” (Russell Warne, UTBA, quoting from Shakespeare in Love quoting from Hamlet).

Ahoy! Ethel. Where Art Thou?

Quinn Mattfeld (left) as Will Shakespeare and Betsy Mugavero as Viola de Lesseps.

By Ryan D. Paul

One of the hottest trends in the theatre world has been the adaptation of hit movies into musical theatre productions. Think Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Sister Act, and The Bodyguard to name a few. Some of these have been more successful than others. Many of these films, with their slick pop songs are almost ready-made for the transition into a Broadway musical. The greater challenge, however, lies in transforming a popular film not into a singing and dancing showcase loosely tied together with familiar tunes, but into a traditional play. This is the challenge and the beauty of Shakespeare in Love.

Tom Stoppard, the screenwriter for the 1998 Best Picture Academy Award winning Shakespeare in Love, had originally been asked to adapt the film script into a full-fledged stage production. “I didn’t want the gig, but thought I should go for it because nice colleagues wanted me to do it,” recalled Stoppard, “I moved the movie pieces around a bit, to no particular effect, before I came clean.” Undaunted, producers at Disney Theatrical, scrapped Stoppard’s version, with his blessing, and hired playwright Lee Hall to press forward. Hall, who had received a Tony Award for his book of Billy Elliot the Musical (another screen to stage adaptation, I might add), proved up to the task. Hall retained about ninety percent of the film script, while reworking some plot points and adding additional dialogue.

The play begins with William Shakespeare struggling with writers block. He is working on what he hopes will be his next big hit, a play entitled Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. He receives help from his friend, competitor, and fellow writer Christopher Marlowe; but nothing seems to work until he meets Viola, a noblewoman who desperately wants to be an actor, but due to her gender cannot be on stage. Forced to abandon the trappings of her sex to fulfill her dreams, she dresses herself up as a young man and begins work. In Hall’s version of Shakespeare in Love, “The play is firstly about this man becoming William Shakespeare and this woman, Viola, becoming a great actress.”

The character of Viola is named after Shakespeare’s heroine in Twelfth Night who disguises herself as a boy to be near the man she loves. Additionally, the male name Viola chooses to identify herself in Shakespeare in Love is Thomas Kent. Kent, as you may recall, is a character from King Lear who must disguise himself as a person of low rank to serve the king. This is one of the many Easter eggs in this play. If you are unfamiliar with the term “Easter egg” in this context, it refers to a hidden piece of information that can only be identified or recognized by people who have a deeper understanding of the material. Devices such as this serve to enhance the enjoyment of the play and searching (listening) for them can make Shakespeare in Love a different experience each time you see it.  Another example can be seen in this interaction between Will and Marlowe:

Will: What happens to Ethel?
Marlowe: Marries a moor and is strangled with a handkerchief?

In the play, this is said to be funny, but of course we will see these details again, in a much more tragic fashion, in Othello. Other lines that come up throughout the play that should sound familiar to most lovers of Shakespeare include “Out, damn spot!,” “The play is the thing!,” and “That is the question.” This, of course, is only a small sampling. Be sure to challenge yourself to see how many you can find.

This summer, the Utah Shakespeare Festival is presenting the regional premiere of Shakespeare in Love. Brian Vaughn, Festival artistic director, who helmed last year’s very successful production of Henry V is thrilled to be directing this stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning film.  Vaughn is aware that bringing a much-loved movie to life on the stage has its challenges:

“I think the challenge, among many, is capturing all the magical elements that made the film successful and transferring that to the stage. One of our greatest assets (and really why we chose to produce the play) is the venue in which we are presenting it. I can think of no better theatre to present a play which revolves around the creation of an Elizabethan masterpiece than in our Elizabethan theatre. It helps propel the action out toward the viewer and informs the overall storytelling in a way where the actors cannot hide behind artifice. It forces the play forward and helps expose true venerability of the players.” Vaughn continues: “One of my favorite things about the play is the origin story of how Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and how we might imagine the world’s most famous poet struggling to produce his next hit; but, most importantly, how true unabashed love can inspire magnificent poetry and how the alchemy of both can impact change. The play is called Shakespeare inLOVE, after all. It centers on the spark of creation and how true love can defy all constraints and unlock a sea of possibility.”

Vaughn, a self-described “Shakespeare nerd” remembers the intensity and intimacy he felt as he saw the film Shakespeare in Love for the first time.  “I reveled in the inside Shakespeare references, the comedy, the passion, the actors; and the film transported me to Elizabethan England in a way no other period film had done. It felt authentic.” That feeling of authenticity is what Vaughn and the entire Utah Shakespeare Festival company are striving for with this production. Come see this show prepared to laugh, love, and search for buried treasure in the form hidden gems of dialogue. However, in the interest of full disclosure, Ethel is gone and the pirates, alas, have disbanded.

Festival Schedules Military Appreciation Days

The Utah Shakespeare Festival will be celebrating our Armed Forces by offering free tickets to all our 2017 plays to service personnel and their families. The Festival appreciates the sacrifices of the men and women who serve and wants to recognize their dedication and commitment to this country.

The Festival will be proud to welcome Utah’s 222nd National Guard and any other active or inactive service personnel, as well as their families, to the following shows and dates (all the shows begin at 8 p.m.:

Treasure Island, Randall Theatre, August 23.
Guys and Dolls, Randall Theatre, August 24.
As You Like It, Engelstad Theatre, September 4.
Shakespeare in Love, Engelstad Theatre, September 5.
Romeo and Juliet, Engelstad Theatre, September 6.
A Midsummer Night*’s Dream, Randall Theatre, September 8.
How to Fight Loneliness, Anes Theatre, October 10.
The Tavern, Randall Theatre, October 11.
William Shakespeare’*s Long Lost First Play (abridged), Anes Theatre, October 12.

Military personnel are invited to reserve tickets by contacting the Festival ticket office at 800-PLAYTIX. A valid military ID will be required to pick up the tickets, and there is a limit of four tickets per show per family.  Space is limited for this special offer, so call soon to reserve your seats.  

“We are excited and proud to make this offer to our military personnel and their families,” said Joshua Stavros, media and public relations manager. “It is a small way that we can say ‘thank you’ for the sacrifices they have made for us and our country.”

                The Utah Shakespeare Festival is part of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts at Southern Utah University, which also includes the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA).

Play’s Journey to Culminate with World Premiere

Brian Vaughn as Brad.

Fans of the Utah Shakespeare Festival have had an amazing opportunity the last year or more to see the creation of a new play. It has been an experience that will culminate in August with the opening of the world premiere of nationally-recognized playwright Neil LaBute’s How to Fight Loneliness.

“It has been an exciting journey,” said Artistic Director Brian Vaughn, who is also playing the role of Brad, one of only three characters in the new play. “It began almost two years ago, and, now, as we prepare to start rehearsing the play we can hardly wait.”

The script for How to Fight Loneliness was originally brought to the attention of Vaughn and former Co-Artistic Director David Ivers in late 2015 by Charles Metten, at that time the director of the Festival’s New American Playwrights Project, now rejuvenated as Words Cubed. Metten was LaBute’s former teacher at Brigham Young University and long-time mentor and friend; and he felt the script would be a good fit for an August 2016 reading as part of Words Cubed.

LaBute is very well known to those who follow the theatre world. He recently had two successful shows close off-Broadway and has another, All the Ways to Say I Love You, now playing at MCC Theater. One of LaBute’s first well-known plays was In the Company of Men, which he later adapted into a movie starring Aaron Eckhart. He has since written numerous plays, including reasons to be pretty, which appeared on Broadway and was nominated in 2009 for three Tony Awards. In 2013, LaBute was recognized with the Arts and Letters Awards in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

“David and I read LaBute’s How to Fight Loneliness, and we both said we need to do this play,” said Vaughn. “We liked the way the play unraveled over its course, as well as its overall message—especially the very real examination of a couple at a crossroads in their relationship and the difficult decisions they have to make during a crisis. David and I both knew right away that we would end up producing it, and that was confirmed when we did the staged reading.”

Thus, the play was workshopped as part of the initial season of Words Cubed, with Ivers directing and Tessa Auberjonois, Corey Jones, and Vaughn reading the roles of the three characters.

This workshop process is very common in the theatre world. “It gives the playwright the opportunity to fine tune their piece of art, to notice things that may not ring quite right to the ear,” said Vaughn. “LaBute’s language is so powerful and natural, with speakers interrupting each other and dialogue overlapping. The rhythm and punctuation are so important, which the workshop helps refine.”

“The audience reaction was positive,” said Vaughn, “and we knew our decision to produce it in 2017 was correct.”

Since then, LaBute has been working on the play even further, tweaking and making changes. It will be the same play that was workshopped in 2016, but it is even stronger now, the language is even more muscular and exact.

Also, Ivers has been working with his team of designers to flesh out the world where the actors will present the play. In the workshop, the actors primarily read their lines with very little movement and no lights, sound, costumes, or scenery. Now, it is up to this creative team to make it all come alive.

Next, the same four artists who presented the 2016 reading are returning July 31 to begin rehearsing for a full production of How to Fight Loneliness, previewing on August 25 and opening on August 26 in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre.

“We will be getting the play on its feet,” said Vaughn, “learning the lines, aligning the motivations and emotions to finally present a moving, important play that has meaning and impact for our audiences.”

The Festival is known more for doing classical theatre, Shakespeare and other plays much of the audience is familiar with, than new plays. “This is probably the most modern play we have ever done at the Festival,” he continued. “It will give our audiences a chance to come to the play with an open mind and no pre-conceptions. There’s something wonderful about coming to see something that you’ve never seen before.”

That’s not to say that the play doesn’t fit in well with the rest of the Festival season. It has many connections thematically and artistically—to Romeo and Juliet, for instance. When Shakespeare wrote his plays, he was writing for what was a modern audience then, no different than a playwright working today. Shakespeare could be controversial in his day, he wrote about difficult subjects, and he made his audiences laugh and cry and experience the spectrum of human emotions.

The story of How to Fight Loneliness tells of a young woman, Jodie, who is struggling with a terminal illness and is faced with decisions regarding life and death. During the show, Ivers wants the audience to experience every moment of tension, comedy, and realistic language LaBute is known for. He emphasized that the play is a character study that revolves around the people in the play and their relationship, not issues surrounding the plot. “Like Shakespeare,” he said, “LaBute’s characters experience a situation where everything is on the line.

“How to Fight Loneliness is a very relevant play for our day,” concluded Vaughn. “LaBute’s plays can be controversial because he really grapples with the underbelly of human existence, and he has an acute sense of dialogue and modern-day speech and sensibilities.”

Ultimately, all the readings, the designing, the rehearsals will come together on August 25. Then, audiences at LaBute’s play will be much like the first audiences at Shakespeare’s plays or Frank Loesser’s plays or George M. Cohan’s plays. It should be a thrilling experience; we hope to see you there.

How to Fight Loneliness deals with powerful adult themes and contains numerous incidences of explicit language. It is not appropriate for most teenagers or for others who find such content unpleasant.

Tickets are now on sale for the Festival’s 56th season, which will run through October 21. Other plays in the season are William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged), As You Like It, Shakespeare in Love, Romeo and Juliet, Guys and Dolls, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Treasure Island, and The Tavern. For more information and tickets visit www.bard.org or call 1-800-PLAYTIX.

The Utah Shakespeare Festival is part of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts at Southern Utah University, which also includes the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA).

How to Bring a Monumental Story to the Stage

Michael Elich as Long John Silver

By Allison Borzoni

Ever since Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the book Treasure Island,it has been enjoyed by readers of all ages as a thrilling coming-of-age story. As Sean Graney, director for this summer’s production of Treasure Island, said, “I think it is important for people to gather together and watch a story about a young person discovering his own moral code, choosing whether to live a life of selfishness or acting for the greater good.”

With Long John Silver sneaking onboard the good ship Hispaniola with his pirate crew, many of the characters in this play need to make big decisions as the adventure unfolds. On another level, the artists who created this show at the Utah Shakespeare Festival had to make hundreds of big decisions on how best to bring this monumental story to the stage.

One of the decisions Graney and the designers faced was how to best represent the many locations in the production. “Trying to figure out how the play moves from scene to scene in an exciting, yet easy way was a big challenge,” he said. It will be a surprising adventure for playgoers to see how Jim Hawkins navigates across England, onto a ship, and most importantly on and around Treasure Island throughout the course of the play.

The most popular feature of the book and subsequent adaptations is, of course, the pirates. The dastardly mutineers and morally ambiguous Long John Silver are always teasing our imaginations. The pirates also attracted Graney to the production because, “Treasure Island firmly established how we think pirates dressed, talked, and acted. We worked throughout the time we prepared for the production, determining which of those expectations to embrace and which to examine with a fresh perspective.” The real question is if we’ll see the pirates dressed in stripes, polka-dots, and shark-bite trousers.

The most exciting part for Graney was the chance to work on Treasure Island while running around and acting like a pirate. The whole family can be a part of the fun too while seeing Long John Silver prowl the decks and Jim Hawkins decide his destiny. And have we mentioned adventure? Because, “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest / Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” sounds like a lot of adventure to us.

The Musical that Rocked the World Now at the Festival

By Allison Borzoni

The musical Guys and Dolls, running at the Utah Shakespeare Festival through September 1, rocked the world on its debut and nearly every reboot since. Because of that illustrious history, it’s not always easy to take on this celebrated oldie, but director Peter Rothstein, new at the Festival this year, has met the challenge.

Guys and Dolls is a classical musical theatre tale, and it can be difficult to approach something that’s been performed successfully so many times before. “Like all great shows, they have different things to say to each generation,” said Rothstein. “When I first revisited the script about a year ago, I was struck by how two people who appear to be polar opposites when it comes to ethics, politics, and their world views can fall in love.” With the political climate we live in today, Rothstein looks forward to showing what Guys and Dolls can tell all of us about people and differences.  

There’s a lot to live up to when a theatre decides to perform Guys and Dolls. Like every show, there are’s challenges, and this musical’s heritage is one of those difficulties: “I think people have expectations about what Guys and Dolls is supposed to look like,” he said. “So we have created a design that both meets those expectations and surprises us.” Edward Hopper is a part of the design inspiration for this production, according to Rothstein. He was a realistic American painter who was famous for his oil paintings, which displayed common features of American life and rural landscapes.

You may be more excited to hear “Luck Be a Lady” than postulate about design choices, but audiences aren’t the only ones looking forward to seeing the production. The musical’s impact has gone much farther, as Rothstein described: “It may be the guide book to the musical comedy. It has had a profound impact on the art form. Scholars, producers, and theater educators still look to Guys and Dolls for plot structure, song placement, and character development.” It’ll be a treat to see the archetype of musical comedy in all its glory this summer.

Rothstein has done the show before on  at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, so he’s bringing that exciting experience to the stage for the Festival as he directs the musical. Guys and Dolls is returning the favor by bringing something new to the table for Rothstein—it’s taking him to Cedar City for the first time. “I’m excited to make my debut with the Festival, but I’m equally excited to discover and explore beautiful southern Utah,” Rothstein said. 

So give Rothstein a warm welcome, and maybe practice “More I Cannot Wish You.” It’s his favorite song from the musical. Try not to sing it during the performance, but maybe you can whistle it as you walk by the theatres on your way to the show.

Do You Know This Song Is from Guys and Dolls?

By Allison Borzoni

Alexandra Zorn (left) as Sarah Brown and Brian Vaughn as Sky Masterson

It has happened to all of us. You are listening to a fun song on the radio as you are driving, singing along as you take a left turn. A friend in the passenger seat says, “Did you know this is from Guys and Dolls?” And you say, “No it’s not.” Your friend counters, “Yes it is.” “No, it’s not.” “Yes, it is.” “No, it’s not.” The argument continues until you suddenly realize—your friend is right. The song is from Guys and Dolls.

To save you from losing the argument, we’ve gathered some popular songs you maybe didn’t realize were from Guys and Dolls—five songs from the musical that have flourished outside of the theatre.

“A Bushel and a Peck” is first song we hear from Miss Adelaide. She sings it in the nightclub alongside her fellow showgirls in Act 1. The first few lines are very familiar: “I love you a bushel and a peck/ A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck/ A hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap/ A barrel and a heap and I’m talkin’ in my sleep.” Recognize it now?

The song “Guys and Dolls” feels like a no-brainer. It shows up in the musical when the characters Nicely and Benny see how Nathan Detroit chases after Adelaide. This song about the lengths men go for their dolls ends with the lines “When the lazy slob gets a good steady job/ And he smells from Vitalis and Barbasol/ Call it dumb, call it clever, ah but you can get odds forever,/ That the guy’s only doing it for some doll, some doll, some doll,/ That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.” With the rhyming and clever jokes, it’s an excellent song to memorize and sing with friends on a fun night out.

Sarah sings “If I were a Bell” in pure classic musical fashion: When she can’t contain the emotion anymore. The title line comes from the first stanza “Ask me how do I feel,/ Now that we’re cosy and clinging,/ Well sir, all I can say is/ If I were a bell I’d be ringing!” Feel free to give the song another listen, it’s a lot of fun to sing outloud when you’re stuck in traffic.

“Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” is not only a song title, but also a good-luck charm over your dice in Monopoly. This song graces the stage in Act 2, and it’s sung by Sky Masterson as he makes a gamble on the souls of his gambling buddies. “You might give me the brush/ You might forget your manners/ You might refuse to stay/ And so the best that I can do is pray/ Luck be a lady tonight.” May luck be a lady with you too during your next game night.

The character Nicely takes the lead on the fifth song on our list: “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.” Nicely’s quick-thinking brought the world this catchy rendition of a religious dream. “People all said sit down/ Sit down you’re rockin’ the boat./ And the devil will drag you under/ By the sharp lapel of your checkered coat,/ Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down,/ Sit down you’re rocking the boat.”

So without rocking the boat, you can now point out the songs your friends didn’t realize came from Guys and Dolls. The play is filled to the brim with musical gems, and these are only a few of the songs you may already know. So give the soundtrack another listen.

The Playwrights Behind the Comedy

Austin Tichenor (left) and Reed Martin

By Allison Borzoni

After you have seen William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) this summer, you may find yourself asking: “Who are these guys that could take Shakespeare’s canon and turn it into such hilarity?” Well, these guys are the enigmatic Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. You can thank them for this vaudevillian play coming to the Utah Shakespeare Festival this season. Martin, Tichenor, and the play itself are all from the Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC) which has left audiences in tears of laughter ever since the RSC began in 1981.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company got its start by reducing Hamlet into a twenty-minute, pass-the-hat act at Renaissance fairs in California. The original company members, Jess Borgerson, Adam Long, and Daniel Singer, kept the audience watching with their fast and physical comedy style that would earn them the name “Bad Boys of Abridgment.” The boys at the RSC then wrote The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) and performed it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Since that popular performance, the RSC has broken records for longest show-runs at multiple theatres and has even succeeded in having more shows running at once in all of London than Andrew Lloyd Webber. The company has sold out shows for weeks on end and has performed on an EasyJet plane at 37,000 feet, bringing Shakespeare to the cramped passengers onboard and setting the Guinness World Record for Highest Theatre Performance.

The RSC has condensed many a production, book, and world history into lengths suitable for the unfocused crowds of today, with Martin and Tichenor co-writing a majority of them: namely, The Complete History of America (abridged), The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), Western Civilization: The Complete Musical (abridged), All the Great Books (abridged), Completely Hollywood (abridged), The Complete World of Sports (abridged), The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged), and The Complete History of Comedy (abridged).

Noticing a pattern here?

But who are Martin and Tichenor, the men who (purportedly) found both the bones (not important) and Shakespeare’s long lost first play (more important) buried in a parking lot in England?

Well, Reed Martin is a man with many schools beside his name: UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, The Bill Kinnamon School of Professional Umpire Training, and Clown College. He has performed for the Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey Circus, as well as at the White House and Madison Square Garden. Once he joined RSC in 1989, he co-created and performed in many of its original productions around the world. He’s also written for BBC, NPR, Britain’s Channel Four, RTE Ireland, Public Radio International, The Washington Post, and Vogue.

Martin and Tichenor have also written and published together The Greatest Story Ever Sold and Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide For the Attention-Impaired (abridged).

Meanwhile, Austin Tichenor has written twenty plays and musicals for youngsters and has adapted Kafka’s Metamorphosis into a stage production, Dancing on the Ceiling. Tichenor also attained degrees from UC Berkeley and Boston University and joined the RSC in 1992. He has kept busy both co-writing and performing for the RSC as well as appearing in recurring roles on 24, Alias, Felicity, Ally McBeal, and The Practice. Tichenor produces and hosts an award-winning podcast: Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast, one of the Top Ten Podcasts for Theatre Fans according to Broadway World.

However, the most convincing reason to trust Martin and Tichenor with the totally authentic, sixteenth century script of Shakespeare’s long lost first play is that in the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” they have a Bacon Factor of One. This is due to their roles in the show Balto, in which Kevin Bacon played the lead role. Alongside Balto, these experts of reduced theatre have repeatedly performed at places across the world like Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

According to the pair, their work will delight and astound Festival audiences and probably just astound Shakespeare scholars. Don’t miss William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged).