Long-Time Festival Leader Announces Retirement

CEDAR CITY, UT — R. Scott Phillips, executive director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, has announced his plan to retire at the end of the Festival’s 2016 season.  He will continue with the Festival through March 1, 2017 to ensure a smooth and successful transition for his successor.   

Phillips’ decision to retire will bring to a close a career spanning forty years of continuous service to the company and its patrons. He has served as executive director since 2007 and was previously the Festival’s managing director for 15 years, and prior to that, the marketing director for 13 years.

Phillips is a 1975 graduate of Southern Utah University and was the Festival’s first full-time employee.

“I feel blessed for the opportunity to spend my professional life with an organization I care deeply about,” he said.

“For over 40 years, Scott Phillips has been a guiding light and engine of the Utah Shakespeare Festival,” said Fred C. Adams, Festival founder. “He has literally dedicated his life to the Festival and held the year-round staff together against all kinds of adversities. No goal was too high, no job too menial—as was evidenced with the opening of the new Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts. He purchased trees, placed them in strategic spots, planted dozens of flower pots, ordered equipment, and trained additional staff to create an environment for our guests, all while he continued to seek additional funding to cover a hundred needed changes and niceties.”

Festival Artistic Directors David Ivers and Brian Vaughn also lauded Phillips’ dedication and leadership. Ivers said, “I join the Festival staff in celebrating the long legacy of R. Scott Phillips at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Scott has been instrumental in every growth period in the last four decades of the Festival. He has served admirably as the face and heart of this theatre for our audiences and in the theatre community.”

“Scott has been crucial to the Festival’s forward trajectory in the last decades,” added Vaughn. “He has made an immeasurable impact on the Festival that will be felt for generations to come.

I am personally indebted to him for bestowing his trust in me to join the leadership team. He will be greatly missed.”

Jeffery R. Nelson, chair of the Festival board of governors, said, “I will always be grateful to Scott Phillips for his many sacrifices on behalf of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For 40 years, he has served with a sincere love for theater and dedication to this organization that is beyond compare.”

Nelson pointed out Phillips’ dedication to every facet of the organization: “He has continually obsessed over every detail to ensure that the shows, the grounds, and the overall Festival experience remain uniquely distinguished and consummately professional,” he said. “Scott will always be a legend at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and I am a better person for having had the chance to work and learn from him.”

“Scott Phillips has a dedication that is rare in the world today,” said Southern Utah University President Scott L Wyatt. “He has consistently worked well beyond the minimum—and did it year in and year out. The Utah Shakespeare Festival has reached the national and world prominence it enjoys in large measure because of his personal effort. I can’t thank him enough. And we all wish him the very best as he looks forward to the next chapter in his life.”

Under Phillips’ leadership, the Festival has grown from three shows per year and a budget of $329,000 to nine plays in repertory and a $7 million operating budget. The Festival attracts more than 100,000 visitors annually. The opening of the new $39 million Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts in July of this year was the capstone of his career. With this crowning achievement complete, Phillips said he felt it was the right time to step down and turn the reins over to someone else.

Phillips’ 40 years at the Utah Shakespeare Festival began in 1977, when he joined the Festival as its first full-time employee. During his tenure, Phillips held positions of director of marketing and public relations (1977-1990), managing director (1990-2006), interim Festival director (2006-2007), and executive director (2007-2017). In his early years at the Festival, Phillips’ primary responsibility was to increase the numbers of Festival attendees. Audience size grew from 19,000 to 113,000 per season during his time as director of marketing.

As executive director, Phillips has been responsible for articulating and implementing the Festival’s values, vision and mission, as well as protecting its artistic image. Phillips contributed to some of the most important milestones for the Utah Shakespeare Festival, including the 1989 construction of the Randall L. Jones Theatre, wherein he worked on all aspects from fundraising, to design, to construction; the naming of the Festival as the 2000 Tony Award-winner for Outstanding Regional Theatre; and the 2016 completion of the $39 million Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts, including the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre, Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, Greenshow stage, seminar grove, and production spaces.

In addition to the positions held at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Phillips has served many other organizations in Utah, the mountain west region, and nationally. He was the co-founder (1991) and past president, (1998-99) of the Shakespeare Theatre Association; past president, Rocky Mountain Theatre Association; current theatre panelist, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C.; regional adjudicator, Rocky Mountain Theatre Association, American College Theatre Festival, and University Resident Theatre Association; theatre consultant for the Institute of Outdoor Drama, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; member, board of advisors, New West Theatre, Las Vegas, Nevada; board of directors, Utah Arts Council, Salt Lake City, Utah; charter board member, South West Arts Network; past board member, Cedar City Area Chamber of Commerce and Cedar City Arts Council; past chair of Cedar City Chamber of Commerce Tourism Committee; and director of over 55 university and professional theatre productions, including the 1989 world premiere production of Nothing Like the Sun.

Phillips is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Utah Theatre Association in 2001 and the Southern Utah University Outstanding Staff Member in 1990. He received his bachelor’s degree from Southern Utah University in 1975 and pursued graduate studies in theatre administration at Idaho State University.

Although he is impossible to replace, a nationwide search for Phillips’ successor will be conducted. A job announcement will be released later this month.

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).

*Update March 1, 2017: Zachary Murray, the Festivals’s general manager since 2014, is serving as interim executive director until the position of executive director is filled. For more information on the open position, click here.

Final Week of The Greenshow To Feature Local Talent

The final week of The Greenshow at the Utah Shakespeare Festival will feature a new twist: local performing groups will take the stage September 5 through 10, replacing the regular Festival performers.

Pipers from the Southern Utah University Scarlet and Black Bagpipe Band will perform Monday and Thursday, September 5 and 8; local musical group Wilhelm will take the stage Tuesday and Friday, September 6 and 9; and area youth performers in the Festival Playmakers program will perform Wednesday and Saturday, September 7 and 10.

All performers begin at 7:10 p.m. at the Festival’s Ashton Family Greenshow Commons, and are free to the public.

“This is a great opportunity for our audiences to see the caliber of local entertainers we have,” said Joshua Stavros, Festival media and public relations manager and co-director of The Greenshow. “We hope that our guests, especially those in Iron County, will come out and enjoy the cool evenings and fantastic entertainment.”

Why We Value Arts Education

By Brooke Vlasich

Roderick Peeples (left), a Festival actor, teachers an acting class.

Advertising current plays, broadcasting daily events, and promoting fundraising opportunities may seem to be the main focus of any theatre company, but at the Utah Shakespeare Festival we also value education. For us, educating and inspiring future theatre artists and supporters is just as important as any marketing project and community event.           

We’ve fostered this enthusiasm for theatre with classes in acting and technical theatre, as well as showing teachers games and exercises they can use in the classroom to help students understand Shakespeare. 

This is part of what makes our classes stand out from other training programs. But what else contributes to this success? A few of our dedicated instructors told us what they think and shared their experience and passion for teaching theatre and Shakespeare:

Stewart Shelley, an instructor for the Festival’s Actor Training and Acting for Directors, has taught theatre in secondary schools for fourteen years and views our educational outreach programs as some of the best in the nation that expose students to great literature and performances.

He feels theatre education is an important part of a child’s life because it teaches skills like teamwork, tolerance, accountability, collaboration, and self-discovery. Shakespeare, Shelley said, is essential to an actor’s work since it involves key concepts including text analysis, voice and diction, and strong character development. 

Andrew Hunsaker, another instructor for Actor Training and Acting for Directors, has worked for numerous Utah schools, including Tuacahn High School, Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts, and Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts and is currently the drama teacher for Spanish Fork High School.                                                                               

He was previously an actor for the Festival for a few years and tells us his goal is to see the program inspire students to be confident in their skills and give them the tools to become the actors they aspire to be. When asked why he thinks Shakespeare is an important part of education, he responded, “Shakespeare gives so much confidence and knowledge and broadens the student’s spectrum of material. He is known for being the master of the human condition, and for us as teachers and students to understand how and why gives us a strong foundation for all of the theatre arts.”

Whether our instructors are in the classroom or a part of Festival activities ranging from current shows to the New American Playwrights Project, their commitment to theatre education is essential to the future of the arts.  If you’re interested in learning more from our instructors about any aspect of theatre, visit our Camps/Classes page at http://www.bard.org/camps-classes for future classes and opportunities.

Military Appreciation Days at the Festival

The Utah Shakespeare Festival will be celebrating our Armed Forces on September 6, 7, 22, and 23  by offering free tickets to any performances those four days. 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.

Military personal are invited to reserve tickets by contacting the Festival ticket office at 800-PLAYTIX or bard.org.  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.  

Plays include Henry V and The Three Musketeers in the new outdoor Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre, The Cocoanuts and The Odd Couple in the Randall L. Jones Theatre, and Julius Caesar and Murder for Two in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre.

“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.”

Tickets for the Festival’s 2016 season, which runs until October 22, are still on sale. The “practically perfect” family musical Mary Poppins runs through September 3. Much Ado about Nothing, The Three Musketeers, and Henry V continue in the outdoor Engelstad Theatre through September 10. The Cocoanuts, Julius Caesar, and Murder for Two continue through October 22; and The Odd Couple, featuring artistic directors David Ivers and Brian Vaughn, runs from September 14 to October 22.For specific days and times and to purchase 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).

Festival Announces New Play Program, Words³

The Utah Shakespeare Festival has announced a new name, an increased commitment, and an enhanced mission, for its new plays program. Formerly known as the New American Playwrights Project (NAPP), the Festival’s primary vehicle for exploring new works will now be a new program, Words Cubed at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

The new name comes from a line in Hamlet, “Words, words, words,” and focuses the new program firmly on the text and the work of playwrights.

“The program aims to not only replace, but improve upon the foundation of NAPP  by providing a platform to move plays from the developmental/reading stage to fully funded productions,” says David Ivers, Festival Artistic Director. “As part of our efforts to expand and diversify our audience, we must also expand and diversify the voices who make our work. Ushering in new plays, new playwrights and new context for engagement is paramount to the success of our new studio theatre. Expect to see commissioned playwrights, workshops, and reading series throughout the coming seasons.”

According to the Festival, the mission of Words Cubed is to nurture and develop “openly-submitted and commissioned-based new plays by providing a professionally supported platform for readings, workshops, and fully realized productions as part of an ongoing commitment to create a diverse body of work."

Charles Metten, director of NAPP, had this to say: “I am thrilled that the Festival is continuing to grow its commitment to new works. We have worked many years to nurture playwrights, and I am excited to continue to mentor, advocate for, and develop these new works.”

The new name also reflects a commitment to staging new works as part of the Festival’s mainstage repertory season. For instance, How to Fight Loneliness, by Neil LaBute, is receiving a staged reading in 2016 and will have a fully realized production as part of the Festival’s regular 2017 season.

“The Utah Shakespeare Festival has committed its resources and vision to support new work,” continues Ivers. “The ideas of these works should inspire audiences to engage about the importance of fostering the ‘Shakespeares of tomorrow.’

Artistic Director Brian Vaughn added: “Just as Shakespeare was writing for contemporary audiences, our vision is to unfold stories that relate to our current collective humanity. Words Cubed will help usher in new voices with a platform of development and performance that will fulfill our mission of presenting classical and contemporary theatre.”

The new name, as well as a new logo, was unveiled today to the audience attending the NAPP reading of Debora Threedy’s script One Big Union.

Submission dates and guidelines will be similar to NAPP. Scripts for consideration for 2018 can be submitted via email starting January 5. The deadline for unrepresented playwrights is February 15, and the deadline for playwrights with representation is April 5. Submissions can be sent to words3@bard.org. Submission criteria and details can be found at bard.org/words-cubed, and that page will eventually transition to bard.org/words3.

2017 Season Tickets On Sale

Tickets to the 2017 season of the Utah Shakespeare Festival are now on sale. Playgoers can purchase tickets at the Festival ticket office near the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, by calling 800-PLAYTIX, or online at www.bard.org.

The season, which will run from late June through late October, includes nine plays (one more than in 2016), with five premieres and four enduring classics.                    

The Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre

Two complementary plays, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the theatrical adaptation of the Academy Award-winning movie Shakespeare in Love, will anchor the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre. Shakespeare in Love is about young William Shakespeare, who, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays, Romeo and Juliet. These interdependent story lines provided the impetus behind the Festival producing these two plays in repertory—with a shared cast and set.

The Festival has been selected as one of three theatres to present the first United States productions in the United States. It is based on the original screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, with the stage adaptation by Lee Hall. It is presented by special arrangement with Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions.

Rounding out the Engelstad Theatre will be the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It. This rollicking frolic of confused courtship between Rosalind and Orlando features beautiful poetry and unsurpassed wit. It was last produced at the Festival in 2009.

Those who have been following the Festival’s History Cycle (all ten of Shakespeare’s history plays produced in chronological order) may notice that there is no history play in the 2017 season. The Festival will continue the cycle in 2018, using the coming year to develop a production approach for the Henry VI plays which will tell the story of the War of the Roses and the Tudor dynasty in all its artistry and majesty.

The Randall L. Jones Theatre

Four plays will fill the stage in the Randall L. Jones Theatre in 2017, offering a variety of genres and stories.

First will be the classical musical Guys and Dolls, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling. Considered by many to be the perfect musical comedy, Guys and Dolls ran for over 1,200 performances when it opened on Broadway in 1950. Winner of many Tony Awards and numerous other theatre prizes, it has been frequently revived and has proven to be perennially popular. Featuring such memorable sons as “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Luck Be a Lady,” this oddball romantic comedy will find a comfortable home at the Festival.

Next will be the Mountain West premiere of Mary Zimmerman’s glorious adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island. This critically-acclaimed adaptation premiered in a joint production by Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago and Berkeley Rep in Berkeley, California. The Festival is the first theatre beyond them to receive rights to this play. This epic tale based on classic literature will thrill the entire family with tales of buried treasure, cutthroat pirates, the larger-than-life Long John Silver, and the courageous young cabin boy Jim Hawkins. A play with music, Treasure Island is dramatic story-telling at its theatrical best.

Possibly Shakespeare’s most beloved comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream will also appear in the Randall Theatre. This story of fairies, dreams, and moonlight tells the tale of love which never does run smooth, of feuding fairy kings and queens, and of young lovers caught up in the world between waking and dreaming. Perhaps Shakespeare’s most accessible comedy, the entire family will enjoy the antics of Puck, Titania, and Nick Bottom and his hilarious band of rustics.

Playing later in the summer in the Randall L. Jones Theatre will be a world-premiere adaptation of the satirical comedy The Tavern by George M. Cohan. Joseph Hanreddy (who adapted Sense and Sensibility for the Festival in 2014) is adapting this hilarious play and shifting the action and plot to locations and characters in Utah that just might feel familiar. As such, it is a dark and stormy night when a mysterious vagabond, a damsel in distress, and a politician all end up at a remote Utah tavern where they try, amid rising suspense and misunderstandings, to solve a recent robbery.

The Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre

One of the motivations for building the new Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre was to provide a space to produce new plays. The 2017 season will see the realization of that with two Mountain West premieres.

First will be nationally-acclaimed playwright Neil LaBute’s How To Fight Loneliness, which is receiving a its first staged reading at the Festival this summer, in preparation for this full production in 2017. LaBute recently had two successful shows close off-Broadway and has another, All the Ways To Say I Love You, opening this fall at MCC Theater. He and his work have been recognized with Tony Award nominations and Arts and Letters Awards in Literature, among others. How To Fight Loneliness explores a modern-day husband and wife who are at a life-changing crossroads and struggling to make monumental decisions about life and love.

How To Fight Loneliness is for mature audiences and contains explicit language and mature themes.

And last, but certainly not least, is William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged), brought to you by the same guys responsible for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). The play tells the not-quite factual (well, not at all factual) story of an ancient manuscript purported to be the first play written by William Shakespeare. Using questionable scholarship and street-performer smarts, a trio of comic actors will throw themselves into a fast, funny, and frenzied festival of physical finesse, witty wordplay, and plentiful punning.

“This is a season with something for everybody, and one that propels us into the next stage of our development as a theatre company,” said Joshua Stavros, media and public relations director. “As Shakespeare said in Measure for Measure, ‘Look forward on the journey you shall go.’”

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).

Playwright To Host "Conversation" and Book Signing

Neil LaBute, one of the most frequently produced playwrights currently working in America, will host “A Conversation with Neil LaBute” August 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, followed a book signing in the theatre lobby. Presented by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the event will focus on playwriting in general and LaBute’s work in particular. It is free to the public.

“Anytime we can have a playwright here, it’s important,” said Festival Artistic Director David Ivers. “We get to ask questions that we can’t typically ask. We learn from someone who is currently working his or her craft.”

LaBute is very well known to those who follow the theatre world, and he is destined to become very well known to Festival patrons: His latest play How To Fight Loneliness will have its first public reading at the Festival as part of the New American Playwrights Project August 19, 20, 27. Then, the Festival recently announced, the play will receive a full production during the 2017 season.

LaBute recently had two successful shows close off-Broadway and has another, All the Ways To Say I Love You, opening this fall at MCC Theater. One of LaBute’s first well-known plays was In the Company of Men, which premiered at Brigham Young University, his alma mater, and 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 the Beginning; Fat Pig; Miss Julie; Reasons To Be Happy; Good Luck; Over the River and through the Woods; and many more*.* In 2013, LaBute was recognized with the Arts and Letters Awards in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

“Neil’s muscular and deft use of language, offset by his tightly conflicted characters will lend boldness, gravitas, and a fresh voice to our 2017 slate of programming,” said Ivers. “The play is provocative, funny, and heart-breaking all at once and should inspire audiences to engage about the importance of fostering the ‘Shakespeare’s of tomorrow.’”

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).

Bardway, Baby! Scheduled for August 13

Bardway, Baby!, the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s annual fund-raising show featuring Festival company members, is scheduled for August 13 in the Randall L. Jones Theatre. This year the show will feature songs from musicals the Festival has produced in the past, from Man of La Mancha to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, from Les Misérables to South Pacific.

The show will begin at approximately 11:15 p.m., after that evening’s performance closes and the theatre is made ready for Bardway, Baby! Tickets are now on sale for $25 each at the Festival ticket office (800-PLAYTIX) or online at www.bard.org.

The show is being directed and hosted by Brandon Burk, who is appearing this season in Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V, and The Three Musketeers. Music direction is by Paul Helm who is the associate music director of The Cocoanuts and is appearing as Marcus Moscowicz in Murder for Two.

Bardway, Baby! is a fundraising event for the Festival’s Artistic Initiative Fund which was established by Artistic Directors David Ivers and Brian Vaughn to provide funds outside of the regular operating budget to support the Festival’s growth in artistic excellence. Money raised is used to increase the size and artistry of the Festival’s shows, including helping pay for larger-scale productions and new technology.            

“It allows artists to dream a little bit more,” said Ivers.

Tales of the World’s Worst Roommates

By Brooke Vlasich

David Ivers (left) as Oscar Madison and Brian Vaughn as Felix Ungar in The Odd Couple

Any adult or hopefully-soon-to-be adult knows that balancing a full-time job, paying bills, and running errands are just the beginning of managing adulthood. Financial responsibilities soon pile up and can become quite vexing. So what’s the best solution to temporarily relieving these financial woes? Deciding to move in with a best friend and split the bills and household chores may seem like the answer; but, as Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple proves, this could be the worst idea ever.

Living with roommates can be incredibly complicated, as Oscar Madison and Felix Unger discover when they decide to move in together and quickly realize it’s not as easy as it seems. And, as it turns out, Oscar and Felix aren’t the only ones who have struggled with roommates. Utah Shakespeare Festival employees recently shared with me a few of their unique roommate stories that show just how difficult things can get when living with other people.

One employee recalls a roommate who used to hit the snooze button over and over on the alarm—from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. every morning.

Another shared stories of a roommate who used to cook items in the microwave and left the lingering smells of burned popcorn, cabbage, and ice cream.

Having had a number of roommates over several years, one employee had numerous stories to share. Memories include the roommate who baked cookies and pizzas and left them out uneaten for weeks, the roommate who insisted others use a flashlight when coming back to the dorm at night instead of using room lights, and the fanatic who lectured roommates about the brand of tuna in the fridge.

Then, there is this story from a Festival employee, that he insists is true. His roommate returned from a weekend trip home with a gift from her parents: a large chicken, ready to bake. He shoved it in the oven with the temperature as high as it would go. Took it out some time later and peeled the outer layer off to eat, then put the remainder in the fridge to do it again the next night. He cooked and ate one layer at a time for several days.

Now that Utah Shakespeare Festival employees have shared their roommate tales, we’re turning the question over to you: As you anticipate seeing The Odd Couple this fall, what are some of your stories of roommates? I hope you’ll share your comments below. 

The festival’s production of The Odd Couple runs from September 14 to October 22. For more information visit http://bard.org or call 1-800-PLAYTIX.

Cabaret Presents Festival Performers in a Different Light

The REACH Cabaret once again is offering its late-night variety show, with a chance to see Festival actors and artists perform in a different light. The REACH Cabaret is each Thursday through September 8 at 11 p.m. at Off the Cuff Comedy, 913 S Main Street.

A $10 donation at the door supports REACH (Really Eager Actors Crying Hire). The money is used to bring directors and other theatre professionals from across the country to the Festival to see the work of (and perhaps hire) Festival actors and artists.

The variety show is new every week and features a variety of entertainment from song and dance to stand-up comedy, magic, and juggling.

“It’s a great way to relax and enjoy some different entertainment,” said Joshua Stavros, Festival media and public relations manager. “It’s fun and unique, and you never know what, or who, you might see.”